"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"
More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when
the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her
history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard
concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the
people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and
every Saturday afternoon, in summer-time, a few flowers were put upon it
by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful
child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and
sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was
buried.
As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called
the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years
later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was
said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she
seemed older, for there was about her a precocity only found in children
who have always associated with people much older than themselves, or
into whose lives strange experiences had come. In stature she was very
short, though round and plump as a partridge. "Dutchy," Mrs. Tracy
called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and took no pains to
conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing except the money
which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for the child's
maintenance.
There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support
the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from
appearances, unless, indeed--and then she told what old Peterkin had
said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was
called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur.
"And if so," she added, "you'd better let Arthur take care of her, and
save your money for your own children."
To this Frank never replied. He knew better than old Peterkin that Jerry
was like his brother, and that it was not so much in the features as in
the expression and certain movements of the head and hands, and tones of
the voice when she was in earnest. She could speak English very well
now, and sometimes, when Frank, who was a frequent visitor at the
cottage, sat watching her at her play, and listening to her as she
talked to herself, as was her constant habit, he could have shut his
eyes and sworn it was his brother's voice calling to him from the
hay-loft or apple tree where they had played together when boys.
Jerry's favorite amusement was to make believe that either herself, or a
figure she had made out of a shawl, was a sick woman, lying on a settee
which she converted into a bed. Sometimes she was the nurse and took
care of the sick woman, to whom she always spoke in German, bending
fondly over her, and occasionally holding up before her a doll which
Mrs. St. Claire had given her, and which she played was the woman's
baby. Then she would be the sick woman herself, and tying on the broad
frilled cap which had been found in the trunk, would slip under the
covering, and, laying her head upon the pillow, go through with all the
actions of some one very sick, occasionally hugging and kissing the
doll.
Sometimes she enacted the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together
and closing her eyes, her lips moved, as if in prayer, for a moment,
then stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set
expression on the little face which looked so comical under the broad
frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was
necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and
tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which
she knelt, and covering her face with her hands, imitated perfectly the
sobs and moans of a middle-aged person, mingled occasionally with the
clearer, softer notes of a child's crying.
The first time Frank witnessed this piece of acting Jerry had been at
the cottage a year, and he had come to pay his weekly due. Both Mrs.
Crawford and Harold were gone, but knowing they would soon return, as it
was not their habit to leave Jerry long alone, he sat down to wait,
while she went back to the corner in the kitchen, which she used as her
play-house.
"Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her," she said to Mr. Tracy,
who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling,
when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die.
There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was
Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll
baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly
stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse
it in every particular. Calling her to him after her play was over he
took her in his lap, and kissed the little grave face where the shadow
of the scene she had been enacting had left its impress.
"Jerry," he said, "that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on
was your mamma, was it not?"
"'Ess," was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first
pronunciation of the word.
"And the other was the nurse?"
"'Ess," Jerry said again; "Mah-nee."
This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by "mah-nee" the
child meant "mam-ma;" but he went on:
"Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in
the ship."
"'Ess, I vill," she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr.
Tracy continued:
"Had you a papa? Was he there with you?"
"_Nein_," was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued:
"Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?"
He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the
sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name.
"Oo-oo-ee," she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her,
and she gave it up with a shake of her head.
"I not say dat oo-oo-ee," she said, and he put the question in another
form:
"Where did your mamma die?"
"Tamp House; foze to deff," was the ready answer, and a natural one,
too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had
often gone with him to the house, which was now shunned alike by tramps
and boys.
No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and
the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the
wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a
pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back,
stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child
mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was
not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting
with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her
mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the
old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her
where her mother died, she should answer, "In the Tramp House," although
she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very
different circumstances.
"Of course she died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with which to
reproach myself. I am altogether too morbid on the subject," Frank said,
and he had decided that he was a pretty good sort of fellow, after all,
when at last Mrs. Crawford came in, and he paid her for Jerry's board.
In some respects he was doing his duty by the child, who, as time went
on learned to love him better than any one else except Harold and Mrs.
Crawford, whom she called grandma. She always ran to meet him when he
came and sometimes when he went away accompanied him down the lane,
holding his hand and asking him about Tracy Park and Maude and the
_crazy man_.
This was Harold's designation of Mr. Arthur, and perhaps of all the
things at Tracy Park, Jerry was most desirous to see him and his rooms.
Harold, who, on one of the rare occasions when Arthur was out to dine,
had been sent to the house on an errand, had gone with Jack into these
rooms, which he described minutely to his grandmother and Jerry,
dwelling longest upon the beautiful picture in the window. "Gretchen, he
calls it," he said; and then Jerry, who was listening intently, gave a
sudden upward and side-wise turn to her head, just as she had done when
Mr. Tracy spoke to her of Wiesbaden.
"Detchen," she repeated, with a little hesitancy. "Vat the name was? Say
again."
He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled
expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all
her efforts, and that evening Mrs. Crawford heard her saying to herself,
"Detchen, Detchen, who am she?"
Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times, and had admired her greatly, with
her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church,
when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as
possible and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if neither it nor
herself had any right to come in contact with so superior a being. Of
Maude's home she knew nothing, except that it was a place to be admired
and gazed at breathlessly at a respectful distance. But she was going
there at last with Harold, who had permission to gather cherries for his
grandmother from some of the many trees which grew upon the place.
It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy
when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a
trip to Europe to an older person. She wanted to wear her pink gingham
dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that she might
be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons and
cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into the
house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she heard wore silk
stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for the
occasion.
But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air-castles by telling her that she was
only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she
must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows
looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get
it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not
for a moment to be thought of.
So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked,
long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her
to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide
cape covered her head when she started from the cottage, with her tin
pail on her arm; but no sooner was she in the path which led to the park
than the obnoxious bonnet was removed and was swinging on her arm, while
she was admiring the shadow which her long bright curls made in the
sunshine as she shook her head from side to side.
To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond
of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both
in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in
Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when
Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was "awful handsome," she had
felt a pride in it, and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's
asseverations that "Handsome is that handsome does" could not destroy.
Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the
advantage over her.
"I do hope we shall see her," she said to Harold, as she danced along.
"Do you think we shall?"
Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she
would speak to them, he said.
"Why not?" Jerry asked, and he replied:
"Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor."
"But why ain't I rich, too? Why don't I live at the park like Maude, and
wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?" Jerry asked; but
Harold could not tell, and only said:
"Would you rather live at the park than with me?"
"No," Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into
the soft loam of the path. "I would not stay anywhere without you; and
when I live at the park you will live there too, and have codfish and
tatoe every day."
This was Harold's favorite dish, and, as it was not his grandmother's,
his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as he would have
liked; hence Jerry's promise of the luxury.
Just then, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude
Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance
either reading or asleep. Harold would have passed them at once, as he
knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no
such intention.
Stopping in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her white
dress and bright plaid sash, to the string of amber beads around her
neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her dark
calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin pail on
her arm. Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to swell in
her throat. Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with
something like exultation in her tone:
"My hair curls and yours don't."
"No," Maude answered, slowly--"no, it don't curl, but it's black, and
yours is yaller."
This was a set-back to Jerry, who hated everything yellow, and who had
never dreamed of applying that color to her hair. She only knew that
Dick St. Claire had called it pretty, but in this new light thrown upon
it all her pride vanished, for she recognized like a flash that it might
be "yaller," and stood there silent and vanquished, until Maude, who in
turn had been regarding her attentively, said to her:
"Ain't you Jerry Crawford?"
That broke the ice of reserve, and the two little girls were soon
talking together familiarly, and Jerry was asking Maude if she wore
beads and her best clothes every day.
"Pooh! These ain't my best clothes. I have one gown all brawdery and
lace," was Maude's reply, while Jack, who was standing near, chimed in:
"My father's got lots of money, and so has Uncle Arthur, and when he
dies we are going to have it; Tom says so."
Slowly the shadows gathered on Jerry's brow as she said, sadly:
"I wish I had an Uncle Arthur, and could wear beads and a sash every
day." Then, as she looked at Harold, her face brightened immediately and
she exclaimed, "But I have Harold and a grandma, and you hain't," and
running up to Harold, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him
lovingly, as if to make amends for the momentary repining.
"We must go now," Harold said, and taking her hand he led her away
toward the house, which impressed her with so much awe that as she drew
near to it, she held her breath and walked on tiptoe, as if afraid that
any sound from her would be sacrilege in that aristocratic atmosphere.
"Oh, isn't it grand, Harold? Isn't it grand?" she kept repeating, with
her mouth full of cherries, after they had reached the trees on which
the ripe, red fruit hung so thickly. "Do you s'pose we shall see the
crazyman?" she asked, and Harold replied:
"I guess not, unless he comes to the window. Those are his rooms, and
that window which looks so ugly outside, is the one with the picture in
it," and he pointed to the south wing, most of the windows of which were
open, while against one a long ladder was standing.
It had been left there by a workman who had been up to fix the hinge of
a blind, and who had gone to the village in quest of something he
needed. Jerry saw the ladder and its close proximity to the open window,
and she thought to herself,
"I mean to fill my pail with cherries, and go up that ladder and take
them to him. I wonder if he will bite me?"
Suiting the action to the word she stopped eating, and began to pick
from the lower limbs as rapidly as possible until her pail was full.
"Pour them into the basket," Harold called to her from the top of the
tree, but Jerry did not heed him. She had seen the tall figure of a man
pass before the window, and a pale, thin face had for a moment looked
out, apparently to discover whence the talking came.
"I'm going to take the crazyman some cherries," she cried, and before
Harold could protest, she was half way up the ladder, which she climbed
with the agility of a little cat.
"Jerry, Jerry! What are you doing?" Harold exclaimed, "Come back this
minute. He doesn't like children; he tried to throw me over the banister
once; he will knock you off the ladder; oh, Jerry!" and Harold's voice
was almost a sob as he watched the girl going up round after round until
the top was reached, and she stood with her flushed, eager face, just on
a level with the window, so that by standing on tiptoe, she could look
into the room.
It was Arthur's bedroom, and there was no one in it, but she heard the
sound of footsteps in the adjoining apartment, and raising herself as
far as possible, and holding up her pail, she called out in a clear,
shrill voice:
"Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?"