One morning, Laura Lathrop came bustling importantly into the shop.
“Good morning, Maida,” she said; “you may come over to my house this
afternoon and play with me if you’d like.”
“Thank you, Laura,” Maida answered. To anybody else, she would have
added, “I shall be delighted to come.” But to Laura, she only said,
“It is kind of you to ask me.”
“From about two until four,” Laura went on in her most superior
tone. “I suppose you can’t get off for much longer than that.”
“Granny is always willing to wait on customers if I want to play,”
Maida explained, “but I think she would not want me to stay longer
than that, anyway.”
“Very well, then. Shall we say at two?” Laura said this with a very
grown-up air. Maida knew that she was imitating her mother.
Laura had scarcely left when Dicky appeared, swinging between his
crutches. “Maida,” he said, “I want you to come over to-morrow
afternoon and see my place. You’ve not seen Delia yet and there’s a
whole lot of things I want to show you. I’m going to clean house
to-day so’s I’ll be all ready for you to-morrow.”
“Oh, thank you,” Maida said. The sparkle that always meant delight
came into her face. “I shall be delighted. I’ve always wanted to go
over and see you ever since I first knew you. But Granny said to
wait until you invited me. And I really have never seen Delia except
when Rosie’s had her in the carriage. And then she’s always been
asleep.”
“You have to see Delia in the house to know what a naughty baby she
is,” Dicky said. He spoke as if that were the finest tribute that he
could pay his little sister.
“Granny,” Maida said that noon at lunch, “Laura Lathrop came here
and invited me to come to see her this afternoon and I just hate the
thought of going—I don’t know why. Then Dicky came and invited me to
come and see him to-morrow afternoon and I just love the thought of
going. Isn’t it strange?”
“Very,” Granny said, smiling. “But you be sure to be a noice choild
this afternoon, no matter what that wan says to you.”
Granny always referred to Laura as “that wan.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll be good, Granny. Isn’t it funny,” Maida went on. The
tone of her voice showed that she was thinking hard. “Laura makes me
mad—oh, just hopping mad,”—“hopping mad” was one of Rosie’s
expressions—“and yet it seems to me I’d die before I’d let her know
it.”
Laura was waiting for her on the piazza when Maida presented herself
at the Lathrop door. “Won’t you come in and take your things off,
first?” she said. “I thought we’d play in the house for awhile.”
She took Maida immediately upstairs to her bedroom—a large room all
furnished in blue—blue paper, blue bureau scarf covered with lace,
blue bed-spread covered with lace, a big, round, blue roller where
the pillows should be.
“How do you like my room, Maida?”
“It’s very pretty.”
“This is my toilet-set.” Laura pointed to the glittering articles on
the bureau. “Papa’s given them to me, one piece at a time. It’s all
of silver and every thing has my initials on it. What is your set
of?”
Laura paused before she asked this last question and darted one of
her sideways looks at Maida. “She thinks I haven’t any toilet-set
and she wants to make me say so,” Maida thought. “Ivory,” she said
aloud.
“Ivory! I shouldn’t think that would be very pretty.”
Laura opened her bureau drawers, one at a time, and showed Maida the
pretty clothes packed in neat piles there. She opened the large
closet and displayed elaborately-made frocks, suspended on hangers.
And all the time, with little sharp, sideways glances, she was
studying the effect on Maida. But Maida’s face betrayed none of the
wonder and envy that Laura evidently expected. Maida was very polite
but it was evident that she was not much interested.
Next they went upstairs to a big playroom which covered the whole
top of the house. Shelves covered with books and toys lined the
walls. A fire, burning in the big fireplace, made it very cheerful.
“Oh, what a darling doll-house,” Maida exclaimed, pausing before the
miniature mansion, very elegantly furnished.
“Oh, do you like it?” Laura beamed with pride.
“I just love it! Particularly because it’s so little.”
“Little!” Laura bristled. “I don’t think it’s so very little. It’s
the biggest doll-house I ever saw. Did you ever see a bigger one?”
Maida looked embarrassed. “Only one.”
“Whose was it?”
“It was the one my father had built for me at Pride’s. It was too
big to be a doll’s house. It was really a small cottage. There were
four rooms—two upstairs and two downstairs and a staircase that you
could really walk up. But I don’t like it half so well as this one,”
Maida went on truthfully. “I think it’s very queer but, somehow, the
smaller things are the better I like them. I guess it’s because I’ve
seen so many big things.”
Laura looked impressed and puzzled at the same time. “And you really
could walk up the stairs? Let’s go up in the cupola,” she suggested,
after an uncertain interval in which she seemed to think of nothing
else to show.
The stairs at the end of the playroom led into the cupola. Maida
exclaimed with delight over the view which she saw from the windows.
On one side was the river with the draw-bridge, the Navy Yard and
the monument on Bunker Hill. On the other stretched the smoky
expanse of Boston with the golden dome of the state house gleaming
in the midst of a huge, red-brick huddle.
“Did you have a cupola at Pride’s Crossing?” Laura asked
triumphantly.
“Oh, no—how I wish I had!”
Laura beamed again.
“Laura likes to have things other people haven’t,” Maida thought.
Her hostess now conducted her back over the two flights of stairs to
the lower floor. They went into the dining-room, which was all
shining oak and glittering cut-glass; into the parlor, which was
filled with gold furniture, puffily upholstered in blue brocade;
into the libraries, which Maida liked best of all, because there
were so many books and—
“Oh, oh, oh!” she exclaimed, stopping before one of the pictures;
“that’s Santa Maria in Cosmedin. I haven’t seen that since I left
Rome.”
“How long did you stay in Rome, little girl?” a voice asked back of
her. Maida turned. Mrs. Lathrop had come into the room.
Maida arose immediately from her chair. “We stayed in Rome two
months,” she said.
“Indeed. And where else did you go?”
“London, Paris, Florence and Venice.”
“Do you know these other pictures?” Mrs. Lathrop asked. “I’ve been
collecting photographs of Italian churches.”
Maida went about identifying the places with little cries of joy.
“Ara Coeli—I saw in there the little wooden bambino who cures sick
people. It’s so covered with bracelets and rings and lockets and
pins and chains that grateful people have given it that it looks as
if it were dressed in jewels. The bambino’s such a darling little
thing with such a sweet look in its face. That’s St. Agnes outside
the wall—I saw two dear little baby lambs blessed on the altar there
on St. Agnes’s day. One was all covered with red garlands and the
other with green. Oh, they were such sweethearts! They were going to
use the fleece to make some garment for the pope. That’s Santa Maria
della Salute—they call it Santa Maria della _Volute_ instead of
_Salute_ because it’s all covered with volutes.” Maida smiled
sunnily into Mrs. Lathrop’s face as if expecting sympathy with this
architectural joke.
But Mrs. Lathrop did not smile. She looked a little staggered. She
studied Maida for a long time out of her shrewd, light eyes.
“Whose family did you travel with?” she asked at last.
Maida felt a little embarrassed. If Mrs. Lathrop asked her certain
questions, it would place her in a very uncomfortable position. On
the one hand, Maida could not tell a lie. On the other, her father
had told her to tell nobody that she was his daughter.
“The family of Mr. Jerome Westabrook,” she said at last.
“Oh!” It was the “oh” of a person who is much impressed. “‘Buffalo’
Westabrook?” Mrs. Lathrop asked.
“Yes.”
“Did your grandmother, Mrs. Flynn, go with you?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Lathrop continued to look very hard at Maida. Her eyes wandered
over the little blue frock—simple but of the best materials—over the
white “tire” of a delicate plaided nainsook, trimmed with
Valenciennes lace, the string of blue Venetian beads, the soft,
carefully-fitted shoes.
“Mr. Westabrook has a little girl, hasn’t he?” Mrs. Lathrop said.
Maida felt extremely uncomfortable now. But she looked Mrs. Lathrop
straight in the eye. “Yes,” she answered.
“About your age?”
“Yes.”
“She is an invalid, isn’t she?”
“She _was_,” Maida said with emphasis.
Mrs. Lathrop did not ask any more questions. She went presently into
the back library. An old gentleman sat there, reading.
“That little girl who keeps the store at the corner is in there,
playing with Laura, father,” she said. “I guess her grandmother was
a servant in ‘Buffalo’ Westabrook’s family, for they traveled abroad
a year with the Westabrook family. Evidently, they give her all the
little Westabrook girl’s clothes—she’s dressed quite out of keeping
with her station in life. Curious how refinement rubs off—the child
has really a good deal of manner. I don’t know that I quite like to
have Laura playing with her, though.”
The two little girls returned after awhile to the playroom.
“How would you like to have me dance for you?” Laura asked abruptly.
“You know I take fancy dancing.”
“Oh, Laura,” Maida said delightedly “will you?”
“Of course I will,” Laura said with her most beaming expression.
“You wait here while I go downstairs and get into my costume. Watch
that door, for I shall make my entrance there.”
Maida waited what seemed a long time to her. Then suddenly Laura
came whirling into the room. She had put on a little frock of
pale-blue liberty silk that lay, skirt, bodice and tiny sleeves, in
many little pleats—“accordion-pleated,” Laura afterwards described it.
Laura’s neck and arms were bare. She wore blue silk stockings and
little blue-kid slippers, heelless and tied across the ankles with
ribbons. Her hair hung in a crimpy torrent to below her waist.
“Oh, Laura, how lovely you do look!” Maida said, “I think you’re
perfectly beautiful!”
Laura smiled. Lifting both arms above her head, she floated about
the room, dancing on the very tips of her toes. Turning and smiling
over her shoulder, she bent and swayed and attitudinized. Maida
could have watched her forever.
In a few moments she disappeared again. This time she came back in a
red-silk frock with a little bolero jacket of black velvet, hung
with many tinkling coins. Whenever her fingers moved, a little
pretty clapping sound came from them—Maida discovered that she
carried tiny wooden clappers. Whenever her heels came together, a
pretty musical clink came from them—Maida discovered that on her
shoes were tiny metal plates.
Once again Laura went out. This time, she returned dressed like a
little sailor boy. She danced a gay little hornpipe.
“I never saw anything so marvelous in my life,” Maida said, her eyes
shining with enjoyment. “Oh, Laura how I wish I could dance like
that. How did you ever learn? Do you practice all the time?”
“Oh, it’s not so very hard—for me,” Laura returned. “Of course,
everybody couldn’t learn. And I suppose you, being lame, could never
do anything at all.”
This was the first allusion that had been made in Primrose Court to
Maida’s lameness. Her face shadowed a little. “No, I’m afraid I
couldn’t,” she said regretfully. “But—oh—think what a lovely dancer
Rosie would make.”
“I’m afraid Rosie’s too rough,” Laura said. She unfolded a little
fan and began fanning herself languidly. “It’s a great bother
sometimes,” she went on in a bored tone of voice. “Everybody is
always asking me to dance at their parties. I danced at a beautiful
May party last year. Did you ever see a May-pole?”
“Oh, yes,” Maida said. “My birthday comes on May Day and last year
father gave me a party. He had a May-pole set up on the lawn and all
the children danced about it.”
“My birthday comes in the summer, too. I always have a party on our
place in Marblehead,” Laura said. “I had fifty children at my party
last year. How many did you have?”
“We sent out over five hundred invitations, I believe. But not quite
four hundred accepted.”
“Four hundred,” Laura repeated. “Goodness, what could so many
children do?”
“Oh, there were all sorts of things for them to do,” Maida answered.
“There was archery and diabolo and croquet and fishing-ponds and a
merry-go-round and Punch and Judy on the lawn and a play in my
little theater—I can’t remember everything.”
Laura’s eyes had grown very big. “Didn’t you have a perfectly
splendiferous time?” she asked.
“No, not particularly,” Maida said. “Not half such a good time as
I’ve had playing in Primrose Court. I wasn’t very well and then,
somehow, I didn’t care for those children the way I care for Dicky
and Rosie and the court children.”
“Goodness!” was all Laura could say for a moment. But finally she
added, “I don’t believe that, Maida!”
Maida stared at her and started to speak. “Oh, there’s the clock
striking four?” was all she said though. “I must go. Thank you for
dancing for me.”
She flew into her coat and hat. She could not seem to get away quick
enough. Nobody had ever doubted her word before. She could not
exactly explain it to herself but she felt if she talked with Laura
another moment, she would fly out of her skin.
----------------------
“Mother,” Laura said, after Maida had gone, “Maida Flynn told me
that her father gave her a birthday party last year and invited five
hundred children to it and they had a theater and a Punch and Judy
show and all sorts of things. Do you think it’s true?”
Mrs. Lathrop set her lips firmly. “No, I think it is probably not
true. I think you’d better not play with the little Flynn girl any
more.”
----------------------
The next afternoon, Maida went, as she had promised, to see Dicky.
She could see at a glance that Mrs. Dore was having a hard struggle
to support her little family. In the size and comfort of its
furnishings, the place was the exact opposite of the Lathrop home.
But, somehow, there was a wonderful feeling of home there.
“Dicky, how do you manage to keep so clean here?” Maida asked in
genuine wonder.
And indeed, hard work showed everywhere. The oilcloth shone like
glass. The stove was as clean as a newly-polished shoe. The rows of
pans on the wall fairly twinkled. Delicious smells were filling the
air. Maida guessed that Dicky was making one of the Irish stews that
were his specialty.
“See that little truck over there?” Dicky said. “That helps a lot.
Arthur Duncan made that for me. You see we have to keep our coal in
that closet, way across the room. I used to get awful tired filling
the coal-hod and lugging it over to the stove. But now you see I
fill that truck at the closet, wheel it over to the stove and I
don’t have to think of coal for three days.”
“Arthur must be a very clever boy,” Maida said thoughtfully.
“You bet he is. See that tin can in the sink? Well, I wanted a
soap-shaker but couldn’t afford to get one. Arthur took that can and
punched the bottom full of holes. I keep it filled up with all the
odds and ends of soap. When I wash the dishes, I just let the
boiling water from the kettle flow through it. It makes water grand
and soapy. Arthur made me that iron dish-rag and that dish-mop.”
A sleepy cry came from the corner. Dicky swung across the room.
Balancing himself against the cradle there, he lifted the baby to
the floor. “She can’t walk yet but you watch her go,” he said
proudly.
Go! The baby crept across the room so fast that Maida had to run to
keep up with her. “Oh, the love!” she said, taking Delia into her
arms. “Think of having a whole baby to yourself.”
“Can’t leave a thing round where she is,” Dicky said proudly, as if
this were the best thing he could say about her. “Have to put _my_
work away the moment she wakes up. Isn’t she a buster, though?”
“I should say she was!” And indeed, the baby was as fat as a little
partridge. Maida wondered how Dicky could lift her. Also Delia was
as healthy-looking as Dicky was sickly. Her cheeks showed a pink
that was almost purple and her head looked like a mop, so thickly
was it overgrown with tangled, red-gold curls.
“Is she named after your mother?” Maida asked.
“No—after my grandmother in Ireland. But of course we don’t call her
anything but ‘baby’ yet. My, but she’s a case! If I didn’t watch her
all the time, every pan in this room would be on the floor in a
jiffy. And she tears everything she puts her hands on.”
“Granny must see her sometime—Granny’s name is Delia.”
“Hi, stop that!” Dicky called. For Delia had discovered the little
bundle that Maida had placed on a chair, and was busy trying to tear
it open.
“Let her open it,” Maida said, “I brought it for her.”
They watched.
It took a long time, but Delia sat down, giving her whole attention
to it. Finally her busy fingers pulled off so much paper that a pair
of tiny rubber dolls dropped into her lap.
“Say ‘Thank you, Maida,’” Dicky prompted.
Delia said something and Dicky assured her that the baby had obeyed
him. It sounded like, “Sank-oo-Maysa.”
While Delia occupied herself with the dolls, Maida listened to
Dicky’s reading lesson. He was getting on beautifully now. At least
he could puzzle out by himself some of the stories that Maida lent
him. When they had finished that day’s fairy-tale, Dicky said:
“Did you ever see a peacock, Maida?”
“Oh, yes—a great many.”
“Where?”
“I saw ever so many in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and then my
father has some in his camp in the Adirondacks.”
“Has he many?”
“A dozen.”
“I’m just wild to see one. Are they as beautiful as that picture in
the fairy-tale?”
“They’re as beautiful as—as—” Maida groped about in her mind to find
something to compare them to “—as angels,” she said at last.
“And do they really open their tails like a fan?”
“That is the most wonderful sight, Dicky, that you ever saw.”
Maida’s manner was almost solemn. “When they unfurl the whole fan
and the sun shines on all the green and blue eyes and on all the
little gold feathers, it’s so beautiful. Well, it makes you ache. I
_cried_ the first time I saw one. And when their fans are down, they
carry them so daintily, straight out, not a single feather trailing
on the ground. There are two white peacocks on the Adirondacks
place.”
“_White_ peacocks! I never heard of white ones.”
“They’re not common.”
“Think of seeing a dozen peacocks every day!” Dicky exclaimed.
“Jiminy crickets! Why, Maida, your life must have been just like a
fairy-tale when you lived there.”
“It seems more like a fairy-tale here.”
They laughed at this difference of opinion.
“Dicky,” Maida asked suddenly, “do you know that Rosie steals out of
her window at night sometimes when her mother doesn’t know it?”
“Sure—I know that. You see,” he went on to explain, “it’s like this.
Rosie is an awful bad girl in some ways—there’s no doubt about that.
But my mother says Rosie isn’t as bad as she seems. My mother says
Rosie’s mother has never learned how to manage her. She whips Rosie
an awful lot. And the more she whips Rosie, the naughtier she gets.
Rosie says she’s going to run away some day, and by George, I bet
she’ll do it. She always does what she says she’ll do.”
“Isn’t it dreadful?” Maida said in a frightened tone. “Run away! I
never heard of such a thing. Think of having a mother and then not
getting along with her. Suppose she died sometime, as my mother
did.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without my mother,” Dicky said
thoughtfully. “But then I’ve got the best mother that ever was. I
wish she didn’t have to work so hard. But you wait until I get on my
feet. Then you’ll see how I’m going to earn money for her.”
When Maida got home that night, Billy Potter sat with Granny in the
living-room. Maida came in so quietly that they took no notice of
her. Granny was talking. Maida could see that the tears were
coursing down the wrinkles in her cheeks.
“And after that, the poor choild ran away to America and I niver
have seen her since. Her father died repenting av his anger aginst
her. But ut was too late. At last, in me old age, Oi came over to
America, hoping Oi cud foind her. But, glory be, Oi had no idea
’twas such a big place! And Oi’ve hunted and Oi’ve hunted and Oi’ve
hunted. But niver a track of her cud Oi foind—me little Annie!”
Billy’s face was all screwed up, but it was not with laughter. “Did
you ever speak to Mr. Westabrook about it?”
“Oh, Misther Westabruk done iv’ry t’ing he cud—the foine man that he
is. Adver_tise_ments and _de_tayktives, but wid all his money, he
cudn’t foind out a t’ing. If ut wasn’t for my blissed lamb, I’d pray
to the saints to let me die.”
Maida knew what they were talking about—Granny had often told her
the sad story of her lost daughter.
“What town in Ireland did you live in, Granny?” Billy asked.
“Aldigarey, County Sligo.” “Now don’t you get discouraged, Granny,”
Billy said, “I’m going to find your daughter for you.”
He jumped to his feet and walked about the room. “I’m something of a
detective myself, and you’ll see I’ll make good on this job if it
takes twenty years.”
“Oh, Billy, do—please do,” Maida burst in. “It will make Granny so
happy.”
Granny seemed happier already. She dried her tears.
“’Tis the good b’y ye are, Misther Billy,” she said gratefully.
“Yes, m’m,” said Billy.