THE BOY FROM NEXT DOOR.
The unwelcome visitor was a Mr. Wakeman, confidential clerk and
business manager, under Mr. Smith, of that gentleman’s many vast
enterprises. He was an alert young man, rather jaunty of dress and
manner, and almost too eager to please his employer.
“Good morning, Mr. Smith.”
“Morning. Terrible prompt, aren’t you!”
“I’m always prompt, sir, if you remember.”
The stranger had brought an air of haste and unrest into the quiet
library, and its owner’s comfort was at an end. He moved suddenly and
his foot began to ache afresh. Even Josephine sat up erect and smoothed
the folds of her red frock, while she gazed upon Mr. Wakeman’s face
with the critical keenness of childhood. On his part, he bestowed upon
her a smile intended to be sweet, yet that succeeded in being merely
patronizing.
“Good morning, sissy. Didn’t know you had any grandchildren, Mr.
Smith,” he remarked.
“Haven’t. Of course,” was the retort.
“Beg pardon. I’d forgotten, for the moment, that you were a bachelor. I
got your telephone message,” said the clerk.
“Naturally.”
“Thought I’d best see you personally before conducting the inquiries,”
went on the young man.
“Unnecessary. Repeat the message you received.”
Mr. Wakeman fidgetted. He realized that he had been over-zealous, but
proved his reliability by saying: “‘Find out if there’s another Joseph
Smith in town whose residence number resembles mine.’”
“Hmm. Exactly. Have you done so?” demanded the employer.
“Not yet. As I was explaining”--
“Explanations are rarely useful. Implicit obedience is what I require.
When you have followed my instructions bring me the results. I--I am
in no especial haste. You needn’t come again to-day. To-morrow morning
will answer. Peter, show the gentleman out.”
But for once Peter was not on hand when wanted. Commonly, during
an attack of gout, he kept as close to his master as that exacting
person’s “own shadow.” The old man now looked around in surprise, for
not only had Peter, but Josephine, disappeared. There were also voices
in the hall, and one of these was unfamiliar.
“Peter! Peter!” he called, and loudly.
“Yes, Massa Joe. Here am I,” answered the butler, reappearing.
“Who’s out yonder?”
“A--er--ahem!--the little boy from next door, suh.”
“That rough fellow? What’s he want?”
“He, I reckon, he’s just come to call on our Miss Josephine, suh.”
Mr. Smith leaned back in his chair, overcome by astonishment, and Mr.
Wakeman quietly slipped away.
“Send her back in here,” ordered the master of the house.
The little girl came, attended by a red-headed lad, somewhat taller
than herself, with whom she had already established a delightful
intimacy; for she held fast to his hand and beamed upon him with the
tenderest of smiles as she cried:
“Oh, Uncle Joe! Here’s Michael!”
“Huh! Well, Michael, what’s wanted?”
“Josephine, Mr. Smith,” returned the lad.
“Michael, Josephine! How long have you two been acquainted?”
“About five minutes, I guess,” answered the manly little chap, pulling
a battered silver watch from his jacket pocket. The watch was minus a
crystal and he calmly adjusted the hands with one red little finger
as he announced the hour. “It was just eleven o’clock when I rang the
bell, and it’s six minutes past now, Mr. Smith.” Then he shook up his
timepiece, generously held it toward Josephine and informed her: “It
goes best when it’s hung up sidewise. I’ve had it ever so long. ’Most
six months, I reckon.”
“And I’ve had my watch sixteen years,” remarked Mr. Smith, displaying
his own costly chronometer, with its double dials and elegant case.
“But I should never think of using it as you do yours. Well, what’s
wanted with Josephine?” he asked, with an abrupt change.
“I’d like to take her sledding,” explained the visitor.
“Well, you can’t. She doesn’t belong to me, and I never lend borrowed
articles.”
The countenances of both children fell.
“What put it into your head to come here, anyway?” demanded Mr. Smith.
“She did,” answered Michael.
“Josephine? How could she?”
“She saw me when I started out, before the sidewalks were shovelled,
and hollered after me. I couldn’t stop then, ’cause I was going to meet
another fellow. When I went in to get a cracker I told my grandmother
that there was a little girl in here and she wouldn’t believe it. She
said”--
Michael paused with so much confusion that his questioner was
determined to hear just what the lady had remarked, and ordered:
“Well, go on. Never stop in the middle of a sentence, boy.”
“Not even if the sentence isn’t--isn’t a very polite one?”
“What did she say?” repeated Mr. Smith.
“She said you were too selfish and fussy to allow a child within your
doors,” said the boy, reluctantly.
“You see she was mistaken, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mr. Smith. I explained it to her. I said she must be a visitor,
and grandma thought in that case she’d be very lonely. She sent me in
to ask permission to take her a ride around the park on my sled. We
don’t often have such nice sledding in Baltimore, you know, Mr. Smith.”
“And, Uncle Joe, I was never on a sled in all my whole life!” entreated
Josephine, folding her hands imploringly.
“No, sir, that’s what she says. She’s a Californian, from away the
other side the map. Where the oranges come from. Say, Josephine, did
you bring any oranges with you?” inquired Michael.
“Not one,” said the little girl, regretfully. “I guess there wasn’t
time. Mamma and big Bridget had so much packing to do, and Doctor Mack
prob’ly didn’t think. I wish I had. I do wish I had.”
“There are plenty of oranges in this city, child. I presume Peter has
some now in his pantry. You may ask him, if you like,” said Mr. Smith.
Peter didn’t wait for the asking, but disappeared for a few moments,
then to return with a dish of them and place them on the table. The
eyes of both children sparkled, for it was the finest of fruit, yet
they waited until the butler had brought them plates and napkins before
beginning their feast. This little action pleased the fastidious old
gentleman, and made him realize that small people are less often
ill-bred than he had hitherto imagined them to be. He had based his
opinion upon the behavior of some other little folks whom it had been
his misfortune to meet upon cars or steamboats, who seemed to be always
munching, and utterly careless where their crumbs or nutshells fell.
This pair was different.
Indeed, had the host known it, Michael had been reared as daintily
as Josephine had been. “Company manners” were every-day manners with
him, and it was one of Mr. Smith’s beliefs that “breeding shows more
plainly at table than anywhere else.” He watched the boy with keenness,
and it was due to his present conduct, of which the lad himself was
unconscious, that final consent was given to Josephine’s outing.
Selecting an orange the boy asked:
“Shall I fix it for you?”
“If you please,” answered the little girl.
Michael cut the fruit in halves, placed it on a plate, laid a spoon
beside it, and offered it to Josephine, who received it with a quiet
“Thank you,” and began at once to take the juice in her spoon. When
each had finished an orange they were pressed to have a second, and
the boy frankly accepted, though the girl found more interest in this
young companion than in eating.
“It makes a fellow terribly hungry to be out in the snow all morning,
Mr. Smith. Seems as if I was always hungry, anyway. Grandma says I am,
but I reckon she doesn’t mind. Oh! I forgot. Why, she sent you a note.
I never do remember things, somehow.”
“Neither do I,” said Josephine, with ready sympathy.
“You ought to, then. Girls ought to be a great deal better than boys,”
answered Michael.
“Why?”
“Oh, because. ’Cause they’re girls, you know.”
Uncle Joe looked up from reading the brief, courteous note and felt
that that, added to the boy’s own manner, made it safe for him to
entrust his guest to Michael’s care for a short time.
“Very well, Josephine. Mrs. Merriman, my neighbor, whom I know but
slightly, yet is kind to you, requests that I allow you to play with
her grandson for an hour. You may do so. But put on your cloak and hat
and overshoes, if you have them.”
“I haven’t, Uncle Joe. But I don’t need them. My shoes are as thick
as thick. See? Oh, I’m so glad. I never rode on a red sled in all
my life, and now I’m going to. Once my papa rode on sleds. He and
you--I mean that other uncle, away up in New York somewhere. He’s seen
snow as high as my head, my papa has. I never. I never saw only the
teeniest-teeniest bit before. It’s lovely, just lovely. If it wasn’t
quite so cold. To ride on a sled, a sled, like papa!”
Josephine was anything but quiet now. She danced around and around the
room, pausing once and again to hug her uncle, who submitted to the
outbursts of affection with wonderful patience, “considerin’,” as Peter
reflected.
“What did you ride on, the other side the map?” asked Michael, laying
his hand on her arm to stop her movements.
“Why--nothing, ’xcept burros.”
“Huh! Them! Huh! I ride a regular horse in the summer-time, I do. Go
get ready, if you’re going. I can’t stand here all day. The fellows are
outside now, whistling. Don’t you hear them?”
“But I said she might go with you, because you are--well, your
grandmother’s grandson. I didn’t say she might hob-nob with Tom, Dick
and Harry.”
Michael fidgetted. The whistling of his comrades had already put
another aspect on the matter. So long as there were no boys in sight to
play with, he felt that it would be some fun to play with even a girl;
especially one who was so frank and ready as she whom he had seen in
Mr. Smith’s doorway. But now the boys were back. They’d likely laugh
and call him “sissy” if he bothered with Josephine, and what fellow
likes to be “sissied,” I’d wish to know!
Josephine felt the change in his manner, and realized that there was
need for haste, yet, fortunately, nothing deeper than that. It never
occurred to her that she could be in anybody’s way, and she returned to
the library very promptly, her red hat thrust coquettishly on one side
of her head, and her coat flying apart as she ran. She was so pretty
and so eager that the red-headed boy began to feel ashamed of himself,
and remembered what his grandmother often told him: that it was the
mark of a gentleman to be courteous to women. He was a gentleman, of
course. All his forefathers had been, down in their ancient home in
Virginia, which seemed to be considered a little finer portion of the
United States than could be found elsewhere. Let the boys jeer, if they
wanted to. He was in for it and couldn’t back out. So he walked up to
Josephine who was giving Uncle Joe a parting kiss, and remarked:
“I’ll button your coat. But put your hat on straight. It won’t stay a
minute that way, and when I’m drawing you, I can’t stop all the time to
be picking it up. Where’s your gloves? Forgot ’em? Never mind. Here’s
my mittens. Ready? Come on, then. Good morning, Mr. Smith. I’ll take
good care of her and fetch her back all right.”
He seized Josephine’s hand, lifted his cap, dropped it over his red
hair, and darted from the house.
A group of lads, his mates, had congregated before the house,
recognizing his sled upon the steps, and wondering what could have sent
him into that forbidding mansion. They were ready with questions and
demands the instant he should appear, but paused, open-mouthed, when he
did actually step out on the marble, leading Josephine. He was not “a
Virginian and a gentleman” for nothing. Instinct guided his first words:
“Hello, boys! This is Josephine Smith, from San Diego, California.
She’s never seen snow before, worth mentioning, and I’m going to give
her a sleighride. Her first one. S’pose we make it a four-in-hand, and
something worth while? What say?”
“Will she be afraid?” asked one of them.
“Are you a ’fraid-cat, Josephine?” demanded Michael, sternly, in
a don’t-you-dare-to-say-you-are kind of voice, and the little
Californian rose to the occasion gallantly.
“No, I am not. I’m not afraid of anything or anybody--here.”
“Come on, then.”
Ropes were unhitched from another sled and tied to lengthen that on
Michael’s, while he and another carefully placed the little passenger
upon the “Firefly,” bade her “Hold on tight!” and shouted: “Off we are!
Let her go, boys, let her go!”
Then began not one hour, but two, of the wildest sport the old square
had ever witnessed. The walks traversing it had already been cleared of
the snow, but for once there was no restricting “Keep off the grass”
visible.
The park was like a great, snowy meadow, across which the four
lads darted and pranced, at the risk of many upsets, their own
and Josephine’s, who accepted the plunges into the banks of snow
heaped beside the paths with the same delight she brought to the
smoother passages, where the sled fairly flew behind its hilarious
“four-in-hands.”
Pedestrians crossing the square were gayly informed that this was “a
girl who’d never seen snow before, and we’re giving her enough of it
to remember!” Michael was leader, as always, and he led them a merry
round, shouting his orders till he was hoarse, losing his cap and
forgetting to pick it up, his red head always to the fore, and his own
enjoyment intense.
As for Josephine--words fail to express what those two hours were to
her. The excitement of her new friends was mild compared to her own.
The snow sparkling in the sunlight, the keen frosty air, the utter
enchanting newness of the scene, convinced her that she had entered
fairyland. Her hat slipped back and hung behind her head, her curls
streamed on the wind, her eyes gleamed, her cheeks grew rosy, and her
breath came faster and faster, till at last it seemed that she could
only gasp.
Just then appeared old Peter, holding up a warning hand, since a
warning voice would not be heard. The four human ponies came to a
reluctant pause, stamping their feet and jerking their heads after the
approved manner of high-bred horses, impatient of the bit.
“For the land sakes, honey! You done get your death! You’se been out
here a right smart longer’n Massa Joe told you might. You come right
home with me, little missy, now, if you please,” said the butler.
“We’ll draw her there, Peter. Why, I didn’t know we’d been so long,”
apologized Michael.
“Thought you was a young gentleman what carried a watch!”
“So I am, old Peter,” then producing that valuable timepiece he turned
it on its side, studied its face, and informed his mates: “Half-past
one, fellows, and my grandmother has lunch at one! Whew! Home’s the
word!”