A SUNDAY MORNING
The Barons were the kind of family that have just one morning newspaper
left at their door on Sunday, and who believe that it contains
everything that ought to concern them in any way--that whatever is
published in any other newspaper is to be regarded with scepticism, or
lightly discredited.
Yet on this particular Sunday morning Victor Baron arose early and
intercepted the paper-carrier, and amazed that industrious youth by
buying a copy of every journal he carried.
With this not inconsiderable burden under his arm he betook himself to
the library and began an eager search for certain information.
He scanned all the advertising columns systematically, and then turned
to the news departments.
A great heap of discarded “sections” grew about him as he progressed,
and little by little a look of troubled anticipation vanished from his
eyes. The last section of the last paper was cast away with an air of
triumph.
He hadn’t been able to find a single word about any child who was lost,
or who had strayed, or who had been stolen!
“Good!” he exclaimed, and he looked with great relief at the heap of
papers about him, their splotches of color and assertive head-lines
having no further interest for him. He smiled complacently.
In the meantime, in the sunny sitting-room up-stairs, Flora had broken
the news to Mrs. Baron--the news touching Bonnie May and the new dress.
It had been a very difficult thing to do, because Mrs. Baron was always
at her worst on Sunday mornings.
It was on Sunday mornings that she felt most keenly the lapse of the
neighborhood from former glories to a condition of sordid griminess.
It was on these mornings that she fared forth to the old church, only
three blocks away, in which the best people in town had formerly
worshipped, but which had been deserted by nearly all the old
parishioners.
It was Mrs. Baron’s contention that it was indelicate, to say the
least, for people to desert a church. There were things in the
church life, she maintained, which could not be transplanted, and
which constituted the very warp and woof of the domestic as well as
the social foundations. She had come to regard herself as a kind
of standard-bearer in this relationship, and she attended services
somewhat ostentatiously, with the belief that she was not only lending
her influence, but administering a rebuke as well. Ignoring the
protests of her family, she had even consented to play the organ for
the Sunday-school services. As a young lady she had learned to read
music, as a matter of course, and though she possessed no musical
intelligence, and had found it impossible to regain the old manual
skill she had once possessed, she played the simple hymns with a kind
of proud rigor, because she believed her participation in the services
in this direction must impart an authority to the proceedings which the
abler playing of some obscure individual could not have imparted.
Indeed, Mrs. Baron was a personage on Sunday mornings; a gallant
general leading a forlorn hope proudly and firmly.
When Flora confessed to her that the dress had been rejected, she was
too greatly amazed to say a great deal. She had also entered upon her
stoic mood--her Sunday-morning mood.
“You see, she is simply determined not to get along,” she declared
with finality. She took the dress into her own hands and regarded it
critically. “Do you see how carefully the feather-stitching is done?”
she demanded.
“Yes,” agreed Flora, “the--the feather-stitching _is_ beautiful. But
really, I don’t believe she is simply perverse. If you could have seen
the dismay in her eyes--” Flora smiled at the recollection.
“I’ve seen women like that,” Mrs. Baron continued, “women who like
to make difficulties; who go into hysterics over little things. It’s
always just a lack of sense--that’s all it is.”
“Yes--or temperament. I expect there’s a good deal in what people call
temperament. I didn’t know children had it so much, but Bonnie May
isn’t like other children. Maybe she has a good deal of temperament.”
They examined the dress together without any very definite purpose.
“She ought to know she can’t go on wearing that silly thing she came
here in,” was Mrs. Baron’s next comment.
“She must realize that,” agreed Flora. She added casually: “I think
something soft, with a little color in it, might please her. You might
let me try next time.”
This was the wrong note again. “As if I weren’t capable of making a
child’s dress!” protested Mrs. Baron.
“I only meant it would be fair to divide the work,” Flora explained
gently. “I didn’t mean I could do it better.”
As if her anger had been effectually checked in that direction,
Mrs. Baron hit upon another possible grievance. “And she’s going to
Sunday-school to-day,” she affirmed in a tone which seemed to take
account of difficulties. “We’ve done our best to dress her decently.
And I don’t intend to humor a little pagan as long as she’s in a
Christian household.”
“But in that--that peculiar dress?” faltered Flora. She had a vision
of Bonnie May in her fantastic old frock associating with the prim
children of poverty who were now the mainstay of the Sunday-school.
“She may walk with Mrs. Shepard. People may believe she belongs to her,
if they want to.”
“Oh, mother!” There was something almost despairing in Flora’s tone.
“It’s the best we can do. I mean to do my duty--and I’m not willing to
look ridiculous.”
Again Miss Baron perceived breakers ahead. If the child conceived
the idea that she was being commanded to go anywhere she would very
probably develop new methods of resistance. If she were politely
invited to accompany other members of the household to church, she
might decide to be altogether gracious.
She entertained a lingering regret that the guest could not be
persuaded to wear the new dress--in which, certainly, she would be
conspicuous enough, but not quite in a flaunting fashion. She even
thought of Victor, and wondered if he might not be able to prevail
upon the child to accede to the wishes of her elders. But upon second
thought she decided not to involve her brother in a phase of the
problem which did not touch him. She suspected there would be other
phases, more in his line, in due time.
* * * * *
In the meanwhile, the object of all this solicitous thought was
leisurely preparing to make her appearance.
That she had no fresh raiment to put on was not particularly
disquieting. The fact that it was a Sunday morning made no difference
to her at all. Certainly she needed fresh linen, but this, she
philosophically concluded, would be provided within another day or two.
Her shoes were quite new and neat, and she was by no means ashamed of
the dress which now constituted her complete wardrobe.
On a chair by her bed she made discoveries. There was a fresh towel;
a little package which obviously contained a tooth-brush; a box of
tooth-powder, and--crowning gift--a new hair-ribbon of adorable width
and hue.
She tucked these things under one arm, and with her free hand she
carefully gathered Flora’s long nightgown away from her feet. Then she
started to the bathroom.
In the hall she paused to be sure that the way was clear.
Silence reigned, save for the murmur of voices down-stairs--far,
indistinct.
The hall was glorious with indirect rays of the sun. It had wonderful
spaciousness, too. Bonnie May gazed down the broad stairway, duskily
bright and warm and silent, and her expression was quite blissful. She
turned and looked up to the landing above--reached by a narrower flight
of stairs. It seemed splendidly remote, and here the sunlight fell in a
riotous flood.
Her sensations must have been something akin to those of a
mocking-bird that inspects the vernal world in May. She released the
folds of the nightgown and “paraded” to and fro in the hall, looking
back over her shoulder at the train. She had put the garment on again,
after Flora’s advent with the gingham dress, primarily for the purpose
of making the journey from her room to her bath. But there had been a
distinct pleasure in wearing it, too. She thought it made her look like
a fairy queen. She felt the need of a tinsel crown and a wand with a
gilded star at its end.
She was executing a regal turn in the hall when her glance was
attracted upward to some moving object on the landing above.
A most extraordinary ancient man stood there watching her.
Realizing that he had been discovered, he turned in a kind of panic
and disappeared into regions unknown. His mode of locomotion was quite
unusual. If Bonnie May had been familiar with nautical terms she would
have said that he was tacking, as he made his agitated exit.
As for Bonnie May, she scampered into the bathroom, the flowing train
suddenly gripped in her fingers.
Down-stairs they were listening for her, though they pretended not to
be doing so. They heard her in the bathroom; later they heard movements
in her bedroom. And at last she was descending the stairs leisurely, a
care-free song on her lips.
She invaded the dining-room. Mr. Baron had been lingering over his
coffee. The various parts of the morning paper were all about him.
“Good morning,” was Bonnie May’s greeting. She nodded brightly. “I hope
I’m not intruding?”
“Not at all!” Mr. Baron glanced at her with real friendliness. It had
not occurred to him that her dress was fantastic. What he had noticed
was that her face was positively radiant, and that she spoke as he
imagined a duchess might have done.
“You might like to look at the colored supplement,” he added, fishing
around through the various sections of the paper at his feet.
“I thank you, I’m sure; but isn’t it rather silly?” She added
deferentially: “Is there a theatrical page?”
Mr. Baron coughed slightly, as he always did when he was disconcerted.
“There is, I believe,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder toward a
closed door. “I’m not sure Mrs. Baron would approve of your looking at
the theatrical department on Sunday,” he added.
“Really! And you don’t think she’d see any harm in looking at the comic
pictures?”
Mr. Baron removed his glasses and wiped them carefully. “She would
probably regard the comic pictures as the lesser of two evils,” he said.
“Well, I never did like to be a piker. If I’m going into a thing, I
like to go in strong.” She made this statement pleasantly.
[Illustration: A most extraordinary ancient man stood there watching
her.]
Mr. Baron put his glasses on somewhat hurriedly and looked hard at the
child. He perceived that she was looking at him frankly and with a
slight constriction at her throat, as was always the case when she felt
she must hold her ground against attack.
“I rather think you’re right,” he said reassuringly. “I’m not sure I
know how to find the theatrical page. Would you mind looking?”
But Flora interrupted here. She entered the room with the air of one
who has blessings to bestow.
“You’re invited to go to Sunday-school with us after a while,” she
informed the guest.
“You’re very kind, I’m sure. What’s it like?”
“Oh, there are children, and music, and--” Flora paused. She wished to
make her statement attractive as well as truthful.
“A kind of spectacle?” suggested the guest.
“Hardly that. But there’s somebody to tell stories. It’s very nice, I
think.”
“It certainly sounds good to me. If they’ve got any good people I might
like to get into it, until I find an opening in my own line.”
Mr. Baron removed his glasses again. “Flora, would you undertake to
tell me what she means?” he inquired.
Miss Baron pinched her lips and looked at him with a kind of ripple of
joy in her eyes. “Isn’t it plain?” she asked. She went out of the room
then, and he heard her laughing somewhere in the distance.
He coughed again and turned to his paper, and so, for the first time in
her life, Bonnie May was in a fair way of going to Sunday-school.
Victor didn’t approve of the idea at all, when it was presently made
known to him. He waylaid his mother in the dining-room at a time when
there was no one else about.
“Why not wait until she can get some things?” he asked.
“Victor,” replied Mrs. Baron, holding her head very high, “you’re
assuming that that extraordinary little creature is going to stay here.
I assure you, she’s not. This may be the only chance she’ll ever have
to place herself in the way of a helpful influence on Sunday. She’s
going to Sunday-school to-day.”
“Governess,” responded Victor, smiling steadily, “if you don’t quit
getting angry with me I mean to sue for separate maintenance. Mark my
words.” After which nothing more was said on the subject.
Victor betook himself to the library, however, and indulged in a moment
of fidgeting. Breakers were ahead--that was certain.
It was forcing things, anyway. He took down his Emerson and turned to
a passage which his mother long ago had pronounced a thing holding low
heathen sentiments. He read:
“And why drag this dead weight of a Sunday-school over the whole of
Christendom? It is beautiful and natural that children should inquire
and maturity should teach, but it is time enough to answer questions
when they are asked. Do not shut up the young people against their will
in a pew and force the children to ask them questions against their
will.”
He could not dismiss from his mind the picture of Bonnie May asking
questions in her elfin yet penetrating way, and he realized that the
answers she would get in that place of ordered forms and conventions
might be very far from satisfactory to one of her somewhat fearful
frankness and honesty.
But suddenly he smiled at the pictures he was drawing in his mind. “She
seems pretty well able to take care of herself,” he concluded.
He came upon the heaped sections of the newspapers he had examined.
That reminded him. The newspapers were not the only source of
information--nor perhaps the most likely source--so far as his
immediate needs were concerned.
No, there was a certain visit he must make that morning.
A little later he emerged from the mansion and stood for an instant on
the steps in the brilliant sunlight. Then he descended the steps and
was gone.