"I've got to take him home an' bed him down!" Horsey little Evangeline!
"Then I'll come back an' show it to you. Isn't it puffectly elegant that
he took a prize! We've had the best time!" And in the darkness Miss
Theodosia heard soft, retreating steps and the faintest creak of wheels.
Left alone, she leaned for support on the porch pillar, overcome by the
Evangelineness of Evangeline. And they had all had so far from the "best
time"--they had suffered so!
"Mercy gracious!" sighed Miss Theodosia weakly, but aloud.
"What did I tell you?" The Man Person's voice! What kind of a ghostly
night was this? "Didn't I say it was Evangeline that had happened, 'mark
my words'? Well, wasn't it?"
"Tell me instantly how she 'happened'! I'm all in the dark."
"Same here. Can't see an inch before my nose. If we had a lamp--"
"Didn't she tell you? Didn't she come home with you?"
"No--no, I came home with her. Behind her--she didn't know. Wanted to
let her do the whole thing alone. I confess I was curious."
"Curious! After hunting hours and hours--"
"'Curious--after--hunting--hours--and hours,'" he intoned. She could
hear him getting ready to laugh. "The moment I caught sight of the
little imp, I forgot I was tired. Whatever she's been up to, it's
something interesting. May I wait and hear her tell about it?"
"Of course you may! I should think you'd earned admittance." Miss
Theodosia was sizzling gently with perfectly natural irritation. Now
that her baby was safe, she had leisure to be irritated.
"Come and rest in the easiest chair you can find. When I think--"
"Don't think! Let's just have cups of tea and wait for the show to
begin."
"But why aren't you cross? I am."
The man-voice in the dark was soothing.
"Oh, no, you only think you are, dear lady. You are deceiving yourself.
Crossness and--er--nerve-itis are two very different diseases (you note
I term them both diseases). I speak as One Who Did Once Know."
Miss Theodosia, on her way for cups of tea, paused in her dim doorway.
"Diseases change so. In ten years--"
"In ten years 'nerve-itis' has lost none of its pep--rather annexed
more. It may have another name."
"Nerve-itus Dance," murmured the voice in the doorway. "That's
it--that's what I was having when you came. I don't think I am quite
over the attack yet."
"Three lumps of sugar dissolved in a cup of tea," prescribed the
man-voice promptly. "Repeat the dose in five minutes. Never known to
fail. As a preventive of--er--contagion, it is well for any also who
have been exposed--"
"I'll have it there in a minute. The kettle's boiling," called Miss
Theodosia from interior regions. She came back presently with a tray lit
by a tiny flare of candle-light.
"'How far that little candle throws his beams--
So shines a good deed in a naughty world'"
quoted he. "The good deed is the good tea."
"And the naughty world is Evangeline. Won't you have three lumps just
this time, to make perfectly sure you don't contract my Nerve-itus
Dance?"
"Safety first," he laughed. "Four lumps. This is our first tea-party at
'Candle-lighting Time,' isn't it?"
Now Miss Theodosia laughed. It was easy to laugh with Elly Precious
being bedded down instead of lost.
"How you do quote to-night!" she said. "That's the third time, counting
'Safety First,' in the last five minutes."
"Pardon," he craved. "It's because I feel happy. I'm likely to quote again
at any minute."
"Well, quote the Scriptures then to Evangeline when she comes."
"Hark!"
She was coming now. They could hear the light, hurrying steps. Was
Evangeline never tired? Did neither parades nor circuses--mysterious
wanderings nor mysterious triumphs--affect her?
"The show is about to begin," murmured Miss Theodosia.
It began immediately. Evangeline came bursting in upon them, waving a
blue ribbon. She was a fresh and radiant Evangeline.
"Stefana says I can't stay only a minute. Stefana's kind o' mad, but she
didn't dass to be, out loud, for fear we'd 'xcite Elly Precious. He's
asleep. I was so proud of his arms an' legs when I undressed 'em!
They're very high-percented arms 'n' legs. Mercy gracious, yes! Don't
you see this ribbon's blue--blue--blue! That's because he's a Best Baby,
an' the prize was five dollars, an' they gave him a dollar 'special,'
too, that we're goin' to put in the bank--"
Miss Theodosia held up her hand.
"Begin at the beginning," she commanded. "Where have you been all this
time? What on earth have you been doing?"
"Showin' Elly Precious," flashed back Evangeline brightly. "You've heard
o' Poultry Shows? Well, this wasn't. This was a Baby Show. We never
noticed it was advertised in the p'rade at all--a man with a sandwich
on. A lady told me. She said the circus folks were pretty bright,
because all o' the world loved babies an' they knew 'twould make a
beautiful side show. She said they knew it would draw, an' it did. It
drew me an' Elly Precious! The circus folks offered prizes. They weighed
an' measured 'em to see which was a Best Baby, an' Elly Precious was!
You better be proud that you--that you measled a Best Baby!"
Miss Theodosia's glance met the Man Person's. The show was turning out
well.
"I've got to go back, or Stefana--oh, mercy gracious me, it was worth
folks bein' mad! There was a nurse there an' a lovely lady an' a doctor.
They let me stay Elly Precious's nap out, because it isn't a sleep
go-cart. He has to sit up straight in it. The lady said to lie him down
there an' let him sleep. But we didn't expect he'd sleep so long--the
lady went away, but I stayed. I wasn't goin' to wake a Best Baby up out
o' a sound sleep! It made us a little late gettin' home."
"Yes, go on," murmured the Man Person feelingly.
"Why, that's as far as there is to go. Then we came home."
"Why didn't you go back and tell Stefana or Miss Theodosia? Where was
your Baby Show, anyway?"
"In a tent. I happened to get a peek in an' saw folks with babies, an' I
was a folks with one, so I just went in. That's all. I was goin' to tell
Stefana, but he cried an' I couldn't leave him. He wouldn't have took a
prize, cryin'. I had to keep dancin' to him--mercy gracious! But it was
worth it. Then when he'd got all measured an' weighed,--it's pretty
wearin' work,--he went to sleep. I told you that. I had to wait for him
to wake up." For the first time Evangeline was on the defensive; she
read the faint disapproval in Miss Theodosia's face.
"Mercy gracious, I never s'posed you'd go an' worry! I thought--I
thought you'd jus' be pur-roud." Actually, Evangeline was crying now.
Miss Theodosia's disapproval vanished instantly. With a sweep of her
arms, she gathered a forgiven Evangeline in. The Man Person stood
outside the little zone of feminine emotion, but he had his own brand.
"We _are_ pur-roud," Miss Theodosia crooned over the subdued little
figure. "It's perfectly splendid about the blue ribbon and the prize!"
"An' the special."
"An' the special. Think of what his mother will say! But I knew he was
the Best Baby all the time; it was written in between every little
measle!" And saving laughter righted the situation; Evangeline bounded
back to her usual spirits. "Now," Miss Theodosia said, "I'll get you
some preserved ginger and shoo you home! You mustn't stay another
minute, or Stefana will surely be over here with a policeman."
"Stefana's proud, too--she needn't pretend! I saw her kissin' Elly
Precious's knee. But she'll scold; she thinks it's her duty. Mercy
gracious, when Aunt Sarah knits an' Mother's back, I hope Stefana'll
grow down again."
The Man Person poised his teacup above the saucer, arrested by this new
puzzle.
"Er--grow how?"
"Down. She's so terrible grown-up now. It's been pretty wearin' on my
nerves. We use' to play dolls together. We don't ever now. She's too
starched up."
"Poor Stefana with her starch!" murmured Miss Theodosia. The poor little
martyr to starch! It was to be hoped, indeed, that when Aunt Sarah knit,
Stefana could grow down again and play dolls.
"Do you know her mother--Evangeline's?" Miss Theodosia asked, after the
child had gone. "Is Evangeline like her;--is that where she gets her
Evangelineness?"
"No, she must get it from the father. The mother is exactly like
Stefana, or may be I've got it the wrong end to. I never saw the father;
he died a few weeks before the baby was born."
"Well, the father must have been remarkable; somebody is responsible for
Evangeline. I love that child next to--my baby. Supposing--I think of it
sometimes--supposing I had staid in Rome or Paris or Farthest
Anyplace--not come home at all, you know,--then I should have missed it
all. I should never have known those children."
"Nor me," he ventured. She did not appear to hear, but went on musingly:
"Something sent me home--I needed those children."
"And me!"
"I was going on a fast train--a through express--straight to Lonesome
Land!"
She laughed softly as if she were alone. "If Evangeline hadn't Flagged
my train--it was Evangeline! She switched me off on another track."
Miss Theodosia's tender eyes lifted and met the Man Person's with a
little start of recognition as if saying: "Why, are you here!" But she
met those other eyes staunchly. "I'm glad I stopped off at this Flagg
station. I like it here."
For a little the big room, bright with lamplight, was so still that the
clock ticked impertinently. Miss Theodosia's tea cooled in its cup, and
John Bradford had long ago forgotten his. The big hands on the
chair-arms gripped them unconsciously. Then, suddenly, the man got to
his feet and walked to the far end of the room. On his return he stopped
before Miss Theodosia, looking down.
"I love you," John Bradford said. The impertinent clock kept on, but
Miss Theodosia could not hear it now for the ticking of her heart. Was
she a frightened girl that she could not lift her eyes?
"I was on that express, too--bound for that same place. I thank the Lord
I got off here. I shall always thank Him, whether you can love me or
not. I shall always love you. If you thought, sometime--I can wait--"
Miss Theodosia's eyes lifted. But she shook her head.
"I'm afraid not--sometime."
He still stood, looking down. Very gently he touched her hair; she could
hear the long breath he drew.
"I was afraid so. It was too much to ask. But I had to take my chance.
Don't be distressed, dear. I am happy, loving you. You can't deny me
that! I've loved you ever since I found you mending my shirt. I have had
a beautiful time loving you, and it will keep right on. But I was crazy,
wasn't I, to think--of course you 'couldn't sometime.'"
"Because I love you now," she said steadily. "I have--I have just found
it out!"
The gently stroking hand ceased its work. John Bradford caught the sweet
face between his great palms and turned it upward to his.
"Dear!" he cried. He was a boy, she a girl. Love has no age. It swept
over them, a young sweet tide. This man--this woman. There was no one
else in the world then.
"Dear!" she whispered, matching her love-word to his, "and I never knew
till a minute ago!"
"I always knew. The shirt had no part in it! I have loved you since the
world began and the morning stars sang! You were made for me to love;
all these years I have been waiting for you, dear."
"All these years!" she repeated a little sadly--"that reminds us. But we
are not old! I won't be--I won't have you be! What is time, anyway?"
"Nothing!" He blew it away in a whiff of scorn. "What is anything but
that I love you and you love me? We are just born now--this is our
birthday! May I kiss you on your birthday, dear? Will you kiss me on
mine?"
The clock must have stopped in very astonishment at this scandal of
grown love playing young love. At any rate, there was only the sound of
the young love in the room. The room sang with the beautiful sound of
it.
It seemed a very long time afterward that John Bradford asked his
man-question: "When?"
"When your book is written--the love story. Not till then."
"It's getting on beautifully!" he pleaded. "It never will be done.
There's going to be no end to the chapters."
"Mercy gracious! Where are you now?"
"The heroine has just said yes. The hero has just kissed her--he is just
going to kiss her ag--"
"Mercy--mercy gracious!" Miss Theodosia's fair cheeks flooded pink. She
held up a staying hand.
"Wait--till I get--get used to being a heroine! Am I? Was _that_ the
love story?"
"That was the love story. I have been working on it every day. Some days
I had set-backs--when the heroine flung things in my face about reformed
doctors, and times like that."
"She took them back again, those things. She was a kind sort of a
heroine."
"She was a dear. He wanted to kiss her when she took them back, those
things. I had all _I_ could do to keep him from it. He was a tough sort
of a hero to work with. I had my hands full."
"Did you love--did the hero love the heroine when they sat drinking cups
of tea?"
"A little harder every cup."
"When they nursed the measles?"
"A little more every measle."
"When they went to the circus?" She drew a long, happy breath. "I like
to have been that heroine! Dear, is it right to be as happy as this? For
old folks, I mean--near-olds? Oughtn't we to knock on wood? Oh, I've
just thought of Evangeline. What will Evangeline say?"
"Something Evangelical," he laughed. "I hope I'll be there."