HOW THE PAIR MET
But when things cleared a little, it was only Bonny-Gay! and the Gray
Gentleman was supporting Mary Jane without her crutches--though she
didn’t realize that, at first. Afterward she was able to look up into
his face and smile a welcome, because he and she were already quite
close friends.
What had happened was this: the Gray Gentleman had sent his elderly
black “boy” with a note to the vine-covered house in Mt. Vernon Place
and had requested “the favor of Miss Beulah’s company upon a drive,
that morning. He intended to visit one of the ‘Playgrounds’ in the
south-western part of the city, and he felt that the little girl whose
society he so greatly enjoyed would find much to interest her, if she
might be with him.”
To this he had signed a name which was quite powerful enough to secure
Mrs. McClure’s instant and delighted assent; and she had at once
returned a very graceful note of acceptance by the “boy.”
Then at ten o’clock precisely, the Gray Gentleman’s carriage had
gone around for “Miss McClure,” and she had been lifted into it and
to a seat beside her friend. A half-hour’s drive followed; through
streets and avenues which Bonny-Gay had never seen before, and which
continually grew narrower and more crowded. Even the houses seemed to
shrink in size, and the little girl had finally exclaimed:
“Why, it’s like the buildings were so little that they just squeeze the
folks out of them, upon the steps and through the windows. I never,
never saw! Will they get to be just playhouses, by-and-by?”
“No, Bonny-Gay, I’m sure you never did. Yet it’s the same city in which
is your own big home, and they are just the same sort of human beings
as you and I.”
“Are they? It doesn’t--doesn’t just seem so, does it? And why do they
all stare at us like that?”
“Because we do at them, maybe; and it’s not a common thing to see
carriages with liveried attendants pass this way. I suppose you, in
your dainty clothes, are as much a ‘show’ to them as they to you in
their coarse attire, or rags.”
Bonny-Gay looked thoughtfully at her frock. She would have preferred to
wear a simpler one; and a comfortable “Tam” instead of the feathered
hat which adorned her sunny head. But her mother had decided otherwise;
since the Gray Gentleman had done her the honor of that morning it was
but courtesy to show appreciation of it by a good appearance.
After a moment she looked up and observed:
“It’s the queerest thing! I feel as if I ought to get out and walk; and
as if I should give this hat to that little girl who hasn’t any.”
The Gray Gentleman smiled.
“That would be going to the other extreme, my dear, and would help
neither you nor them. Besides, this is not all we came to see, and here
we are!”
Then the street had suddenly ended and the carriage had turned in at
a big gate, to roll almost silently onward till it stopped before a
“Mansion,” with ancient wooden shutters and a clematis-draped porch.
This was natural and quite suggestive to Bonny-Gay of her own beloved
Druid Hill, wherein she was accustomed to take her stately drives in
her father’s own carriage; and when she heard the shouts and laughter
of children from the tree-hidden “Playgrounds,” her spirits rose to the
normal again and she laughed in return.
Dancing along beside him, with her hand in his, she had demanded
eagerly:
“Is it here I am to see my ‘twin sister?’ Oh! I want to find
her--quick, quick!”
“Yes, it is here, and this is--she;” answered her guide, as they paused
behind Jimmy and Mary Jane, toward whom he silently nodded.
This was how the pair met; and while Mary Jane saw what she fancied was
an “angel” that which Bonny-Gay saw was a girl of her own age, with
short, limp legs, very long arms, and a crooked back. But the dark head
above the poor humped shoulders was as shapely as the “angel’s” own;
the dark eyes as beautiful as the blue ones; and from the wide, merry
mouth flashed a smile quite as radiant and winning.
As soon as she saw the smile Bonny-Gay began to understand what the
Gray Gentleman had meant, and she telegraphed him a glance that said
she did. Then she laughed and held out her two hands to Mary Jane.
“I guess you’re the girl I’ve come to see: my ‘twin sister!’ How-de-do?”
“How-de-do?” echoed Mary Jane, too astonished to say more.
The Gray Gentleman quietly slipped her crutches under the cripple’s
arms, and seizing Jimmy’s hand walked swiftly away.
Both girls looked after him with regret but he neither glanced back nor
expected them to follow. Then they regarded each other with curiosity,
till Mary Jane remembered she was the hostess.
“Let’s sit down,” she said pointing to the grass.
Bonny-Gay hesitated, and, seeing this, the other whisked off her apron
and spread it for her guest. “You might spoil your dress, that’s so.
Salt and lemon juice’ll take out grass-stain. My mother uses that when
there’s spots on the ‘wash.’”
“Does she? I wasn’t thinking of my frock, though, but of _that_;”
answered the visitor, pointing to a “Keep Off” sign behind them.
“Oh! that? Nobody minds that. You see, this is _our_ park now. We play
where we choose, only on the terraces and slopey places. You’d better
use my apron though, it’s such a splendid dress. Your mother would feel
bad if you smirched it.”
“I suppose she would. She’s very particular.”
“So’s mine. They say she’s the very neatest woman in Dingy street. The
neighbors say it.”
“And our cook says mine is the ‘fussiest’ one in the Place. That might
be some of the ‘sister’ part, mightn’t it?”
“It might. Only, course, he’s just fooling.”
“I don’t believe the Gray Gentleman ever fools. He means things. He’s
made us children think a lot. More’n we ever did before. And he says
things mean things, too, every single one. Even ‘Father George,’ and
the lion, and Max, and--and everything.”
After this exhausting speech Bonny-Gay removed her hat and laid it upon
the grass, where Mary Jane regarded it admiringly. It was so pretty
she would have liked to touch it, just once. The hat’s owner saw the
admiration, and remarked:
“Put it on, Mary Jane. See if it will fit you.”
“Oh! I daren’t!” gasped the other. “I might hurt it.”
Bonny-Gay lifted the hat and placed it upon the cripple’s dark head,
which was held perfectly motionless, while the face beneath the brim
took on an expression of bewildered happiness.
“My! ain’t it lovely! I should think you’d want to wear it all the
time!”
“I don’t, then. I like my ‘Tam’ better, and nothing best of all. You
can wear it as long as I stay, if you wish.”
“That’s good of you. Some of the other girls wouldn’t even let me touch
their best hats, they wouldn’t.”
“Must be selfish things, then. How old are you, Mary Jane?”
“How’d you know my name? and what’s yours?”
Bonny-Gay stated it and explained:
“I heard that Jimmy boy call you. How old did you say?”
“I didn’t say, but I’m eight, going on nine.”
“Why, so am I. I’m a ‘Sunday’s bairn’.”
“And I!” cried Mary Jane, breathlessly.
After that confidences were swift; and, presently, each little girl
knew all about the other; till, in one pause for breath, the cripple
suddenly remembered the baby. Then she caught up her crutches, swung
herself upon them, and started off in pursuit of him.
Bonny-Gay watched her disappear in the midst of the crowd of children,
who had all shyly held aloof from herself, saw how they clung about her
and how some of the tiniest ones held up their faces to be kissed. She
saw her stoop to tie the ragged shoe of one and button the frock of
another; saw her pause to listen to the complaint of a sobbing lad and
smartly box the ears of his tormentor. Then another glimmering of the
Gray Gentleman’s meaning, when he called these two “sisters,” came into
Bonny-Gay’s mind.
“She has to take care of the children down here just as I do in our
park. I suppose we two are the only ones have time to bother, but how
can she do it! Her face is so pretty--prettier, even, than Nettie’s,
but I dare not look at the rest of her. I just dare not. Poor little
girl, how she must ache! Supposing I was that way. My arms stretched
way down there, and my feet shortened way up here, and my back all
scrouged up so! Oh! poor, poor Mary Jane! It hurts me just to make
believe and she has it all the time. But here she comes back and I
mustn’t let her see I notice her looks. I mustn’t, for anything. It’s
bad enough to have her body hurt, I mustn’t hurt her feelings, too.”
However, there was no sign of suffering about the little cripple as
she returned to the side of her guest, dragging the soap-box wagon
behind her and recklessly rolling the baby about in it, so eager was
her advance. There were tears in Bonny-Gay’s eyes for a moment, though,
till she caught sight of the baby and heard Mary Jane exclaim:
“Did you ever see such a sight? What do you s’pose mother will say?
The teacher set him in the sand-box and somebody gave him a stick of
’lasses candy, and he’s messed from head to foot. But isn’t he a dear?”
and dropping to the ground she caught the little one to her breast and
covered his sandy, bedaubed countenance with adoring kisses.
“He’s the funniest thing I ever saw!” laughed Bonny-Gay, so merrily
that the Gray Gentleman drew near to join in the fun. After him trailed
an army of young “farmers” and in another moment the visitor had ceased
to be a stranger to anybody there.
“Let’s see-saw!” cried Joe Stebbins, seizing her hand and drawing her
to the playground. Then somebody swung Mary Jane and the baby upon the
beam beside her, some other girls took the opposite end, and they all
went tilting up and down, up and down, in the most exciting manner
possible. Then there was the Maypole, furnished with ropes instead of
ribbons, from the ends of which they hung and swung, around and around,
till they dropped off for sheer weariness. And here Bonny-Gay was proud
to see that Mary Jane could beat the whole company. Her arms were so
long and so strong, they could cling and outswing all the others; and
when she had held to her rope until she was the very last one left her
laughter rang out in a way that was good to hear.
“Seems to me I never heard so much laughing in all my life!” exclaimed
Bonny-Gay to the Gray Gentleman when, tired out with fun, she nestled
beside him as he rested on a bench.
“Yes, it’s a fine thing, a fine thing. And you see that it doesn’t take
big houses or rich clothes to make happiness. All these new friends of
yours belong to those tiny homes we passed on our way down.”
“They do! Even Mary Jane, my sister?”
“Even in an humbler. Dingy street is just what its name implies. But
we’ll drive that way back and what do you say to giving Mary Jane a
ride thus far?”
“Oh! I’d love it! She’s so jolly and friendly and seems never to think
of her--her poor back and--things.”
“You’ll like her better and better--if you should ever meet again.
She won my heart the first time I saw her, over a month ago. I met
her dragging home a basket of her mother’s laundry work, in that same
soap-box wagon she utilizes for the baby. The family chariot it seems
to be. I was taking a stroll this way, quite by myself, and thinking of
other things than where I was walking when I stumbled and my hat flew
off. Then I heard a rattle and squeak of rusty small wheels, and there
was Mary Jane hopping up to me on her ‘wooden feet’ and holding out my
hat, with the most sympathetic smile in the world. ‘Here it is, Mister,
and I do hope it isn’t hurt; nor you either,’ said she; and in just
that one glimpse I had of her I saw how sweet and brave and helpful she
was. So I’ve been proud to call her my friend ever since.”
Just then arose a cry so sudden and boisterous it could have been
uttered by no lips except the baby’s. For a teacher had tapped a bell,
and somebody had cried ‘Luncheon!’ and he knew what that meant as well
as anyone.
So Mary Jane swung round to where he lay upon his back in the sunshine
and set him up against a rock, and thrust a piece of the loaf she had
brought into his chubby fists, and cocked her head admiringly while she
cried out:
“Did anybody ever see so cute a child as he!”
Then she remembered the visitors and with the truest hospitality
proffered them the broken loaf.
“I ought to have given it to you the first, I know that, but he’d have
yelled constant if I hadn’t tended him. It’s wonderful, I think, how
he knows that bell!”
“Wonderful!” echoed the Gray Gentleman, as he bowed and gravely broke a
tiny portion from the small stale loaf.
Bonny-Gay was going to decline, but when she saw the Gray Gentleman’s
action, she checked her “No, I thank you” unspoken and also accepted
a crumbly crust. After which Mary Jane distributed several other bits
among some clamorous charges and finally sat down with the last morsel
to enjoy that herself in their presence.
“I think dinner never tastes so good as it does out-doors here, in our
park,” she remarked with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Dinner!” cried Bonny-Gay and looked into the Gray Gentleman’s face.
But from something she saw there she was warned to say no more; and
she made a brave effort to swallow her own crust without letting her
entertainer see how distasteful a matter it was.
After this the Gray Gentleman saw a cloud arising and though he did not
fear a shower for himself he was anxious that Bonny-Gay should take no
harm from her unusual outing. So he called the coachman to bring up
the carriage and had Mary Jane and the baby lifted in. Then Bonny-Gay
sprang after them, and the master himself made his adieux to the
teachers and followed, watched by the admiring, maybe envious, glances
of many bright eyes.
However, one carriage, no matter how capacious, cannot hold a whole
kindergarten, and neither could it carry the pleasant “Playgrounds”
away; so if there was any envy it did not last long. Which was a good
thing, too, seeing what happened so soon afterward.
The landau had not progressed far toward Dingy street and Mary Jane
was still wearing the feather-trimmed hat, which her new friend had
persuaded her to put on just to surprise Mrs. Bump, when there came a
rush, a bark, a series of shrieks, and the high-spirited horses were
off at a mad gallop; which grew wilder and wilder, and soon passed
quite beyond control of coachman or even the Gray Gentleman, who had
promptly seized the reins as they fell from the driver’s hands, but
had been powerless to do more than retain them in his tightly clutched
fingers.
It seemed an age that the frantic beasts sped onward, following their
own will, before the crash came and they tore themselves free, leaving
the hindering vehicle to go to ruin against the great post, where
it struck. But it was, in reality, not more than half a moment, and
when the reins were wrenched from his grasp the Gray Gentleman looked
anxiously about him to learn if anyone was hurt.
Mary Jane and the baby were on the floor of the carriage, safe and
sound. The terrified footman was clinging to his seat behind; the
coachman had either leaped or been thrown out, but had landed upon his
feet; but where was Bonny-Gay?
A white, motionless little figure lay face downward in the dust, a rod
away, and over this bent a black, shaggy dog, whining and moaning in a
way that was almost human.
“Max! Max! Was it you, was it you! Oh! wretched animal, what have you
done!”
Max it was. But, at the sight of his silent playmate and the altered
sound of a familiar voice, a cowed, unhappy Max; who crouched and slunk
away as the Gray Gentleman lifted from the roadway the limp figure of
his own beloved Bonny-Gay.