She came down the stairs with slow feet, pausing a little on each stair,
as if to taste the pleasure that was coming to her. _She was going
out-of-doors--under the sky!_
She pushed open the door at the foot and looked into the small hall--she
had been here before. They had hurried her through--into the kitchen,
and down to the cellar. They had stayed there a long time--hours and
hours--and Mrs. Seabury had held her on her lap and told her stories.
She stepped down the last step into the hall. The outside door at
the end was open and through it she could see the men at work in the
garden--and the warm, shimmering air. She looked, with eager lip, and
took a step forward--and remembered--and turned toward the kitchen.
Mrs. Seabury had said she must have breakfast first--a good, big
breakfast--and then.... She opened the door and looked in. The woman was
standing by the stove. She looked up with a swift glance and nodded to
her. “That’s right, dearie. Your breakfast is all ready--you come in and
eat it.” She drew up a chair to the table and brought a glass of milk
and tucked the napkin under her brown chin, watching her with keen,
motherly eyes, while she ate.
“That’s a good girl!” she said. She took the empty plate and carried
it to the sink. “Now you wait till I’ve washed these--and then--!” She
nodded toward the open window.
The child slipped down and came over to her and stood beside her while
she worked, her eyes full of little, wistful hope. “I’ve most forgot
about out-of-doors,” she said.
“Oh, you remember it all right. It’s just the same it always was,” said
the woman practically. “Now I’ll stir up some meal and we’ll go feed the
chicks. I’ve got ten of ’em--little ones.” She mixed the yellow meal
and stirred it briskly, and took down her sun-bonnet--and looked at the
child dubiously. “You haven’t any hat,” she said.
The child’s hand lifted to the rough cropped hair. “I did have a
hat--with red cherries on it,” she suggested.
The woman turned away brusquely. “That’s gone--with your other
things--I’ll have to tie a handkerchief on you.”
She brought a big, coloured kerchief--red with blue spots on it--and
bound it over the rough hair--and stood back and looked at it, and
reached out her hand. “It won’t do,” she said thoughtfully. The small
face, outlined in the smooth folds, had looked suddenly and strangely
refined. The woman took off the handkerchief and roughened the hair with
careful hand.
The child waited patiently. “I don’t need a hat, do I?” she said
politely.
The woman looked at her again and took up the dish of meal. “You’re all
right,” she said, “we shan’t stay long.”
“I should _like_ to stay a long, _long_ time!” said Betty.
The woman smiled. “You’re going out every day, you know.”
“Yes.” The child skipped a little in the clumsy shoes, and they passed
into the sunshine.
The woman looked about her with practical eyes. In the long rows of the
garden the men were at work. But up and down the dusty road--across the
plain--no one was in sight, and she stepped briskly toward an open shed,
rapping the spoon a little against the side of the basin she carried,
and clucking gently.
The child beside her moved slowly--looking up at the sky, as if half
afraid. She seemed to move with alien feet under the sky. Then a handful
of yellow, downy balls darted from the shed, skittering toward them,
and she fell to her knees, reaching out her hands to them and crooning
softly. “The dear things!” she said swiftly.
The woman smiled, and moved toward the shed, tapping on the side of her
pan--and the yellow brood wheeled with the sound, on twinkling legs and
swift, stubby wings.
The child’s eyes devoured them. “They belong to you, don’t they?” she
cried softly. “They’re your _own_--your very own chickens!” Her laugh
crept over them and her eyes glowed. “See the little one, Mrs.
Seabury! Just _see_ him run!” She had dropped to her knees
again--breathless--beside the board where they pushed and pecked and
gobbled the little, wet lumps of the meal, and darted their shiny black
bills at the board.
The woman handed her the pan. “You can feed them if you want to,” she
said.
The child took the basin, with shining eyes, and the woman moved away.
She examined the slatted box--where the mother hen ran to and fro, with
clucking wings--and gave her some fresh water and looked in the row
of nests along the side of the shed, and took out a handful of eggs,
carrying them in wide-spread, careful fingers.
The child, squatting by the board, was looking about her with happy
eyes. She’d almost forgotten the prisoned room up stairs and the long
lonesome days. The woman came over to her, smiling. “I’ve found seven,”
she said. The child’s eyes rested on them. Then they flitted to
the sunshine outside.... A yellow butterfly was fluttering in the
light--across the opening of the shed. It lighted on a beam and opened
slow wings, and the child’s eyes laughed softly... she moved tiptoe...
“I saw a _beautiful_ butterfly once!” she said. But the woman did not
hear. She had passed out of the shed--around the corner--and was looking
after the chickens outside--her voice clucking to them lightly. The
child moved toward the butterfly, absorbed in shining thought. “It was
a _beautiful_ butterfly--” she said softly, “in a Greek shop.” The wings
of the butterfly rose and circled vaguely and passed behind her, and
she wheeled about, peering up into the dark shed. She saw the yellow
wings--up there--poise themselves, and wait a minute--and sail toward
the light outside.... But she did not turn to follow its flight--Across
the brown boards of the shed--behind a pile of lumber, against the wall
up there--a head had lifted itself and was looking at her. She caught
her breath--“I saw a butterfly once!” she repeated dully. It was half
a sob--The head laid a long, dark finger on its lip and sank from
sight.... The child wheeled toward the open light--the woman was coming
in, her hands filled with eggs. “I must carry these in,” she said
briskly. She looked at the child. “You can stay and play a little
while--if you want to. But you must not go away, you know.”
“I will not go away,” said the child, breathless.
So the woman turned and left her--and the child’s eyes followed her.