THE RED PAPER
Spring was come. Once more had been wrought the old, old miracle which
is ever new, and every tree-crowned hill and nestling valley around
Washington was singing the resurrection song. Even the green grass at
Margaret's feet and the hyacinths and daffodils as she moved among them
seemed to say: "Lo, the winter is past; the flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is
heard in the land."
There was a note of jubilance in it all. Perhaps she was feeling still
the influence of the Easter "Allelujahs" of yesterday; perhaps it was
that the mellowness of the warm spring air had somehow got into her very
soul this morning and swept away the clouds of doubt; or possibly it was
only that Margaret was young, and "hope springs eternal." Whatever the
cause, the girl looked out upon the world of budding nature around her
with an ecstacy which had its overtone of sadness, as all such ecstacies
have for natures like hers.... It was a beautiful world! a beautiful
world! And it would not be long now.
She knelt upon the grass by her flower beds and buried her face in the
sweet fragrance of the hyacinths. Her heart was strangely open this
Easter Monday to the influences around her.... Yes, spring had come. The
long lonely winter was gone. It had been long--long and lonely! But
Judge Kirtley had said the case must come up soon. And when it did, she
surely would get him. It seemed almost certain now that the bill would
pass, and it _must_ help her in some way. Even Judge Kirtley had said it
might have its influence with the court.
Then her thoughts passed to pleasanter things, for Philip was to spend a
whole day with her, and she was to take the children to the Easter
Monday egg-rolling. Mammy Cely had laid it before Mr. De Jarnette that
any child living within going distance and then not allowed to embrace
the opportunity was "jes' bodaciously robbed." And indeed it was almost
true, for it is a time-honored festival for the children of Washington
in which white, black, and brown participate. Mammy Cely had been
coloring eggs for days.
That egg-rolling stood out afterwards in Margaret De Jarnette's mind as
a day of perfect happiness, save for the knowledge that it must soon
end. The delight of the children at the animated scene on the White Lot
was unbounded,--that of Mrs. Pennybacker and Bess not far behind it.
Even Mr. Harcourt found them before the morning was over, and found them
in a characteristic way.
The word was passed quietly around that the President would appear at a
certain time on the south portico, and the crowd gathered there. The De
Jarnette party happened to be standing near a policeman when a
distracted mother rushed up to him.
"Oh, have you seen my little girl? I've lost her! She is only four! Oh,
what shall I do!"
"Don't get excited," the policeman said, with a soothing gesture,--"she
has been taken over to the east gate."
"Oh, have you found her?"
"No, but I have found you. Somebody else will find her and take her
there. So we will get you together."
Hardly had she gone on her way rejoicing before another appeared in like
distress.
"Officer! I've lost my little boy! Oh, what shall I do? He had on a blue
suit, and he is so timid!"
"Don't get excited," the man said,--"you will find him over at the east
entrance," etc., etc.
"You seem to have plenty to do," said Mrs. Pennybacker.
"Oh, yes. They lose their children this way all day long. You let go a
child's hand in a crowd like this and he is lost in a minute."
Bess and Margaret each tightened her clutch of a little hand. The crowd
was very dense here, for even democratic America loves to see its chief
executive. Mrs. Pennybacker had pushed a little ahead of the policeman
and was looking at the rounding colonnade when she heard an anxious
falsetto voice behind her.
"Oh, _have_ you seen an old lady about eighty-five--with dress and
spectacles on? She's got away from me. What _shall_ I do!"
"Don't get excited! You'll find her over at the east entrance," said the
policeman in his mechanical formula. He was struggling with the crowd
and had not quite caught the description.
Mrs. Pennybacker turned around to find John Harcourt doubled up with
laughter.
"You rascal! You'll die of some sort of degeneracy of the heart long
before I'm eighty-five!"
For hours the tide set in through the east entrance and swirled and
ebbed and flowed. When at last the gates closed upon the throng the De
Jarnette party sought the Ellipse, where the children had been promised
a lunch.
Harcourt and Bess had fallen behind the others. As they reached the
seats beneath the trees he said wheedlingly to Mrs. Pennybacker, "I
don't think your little girl has had a very good time to-day. She hasn't
had any eggs, or balloon, or anything. Suppose you let me give her a row
up the river just to keep her from feeling neglected." Then looking at
the basket, "We'll take the portion that falls to us and eat it on the
way."
When the two were gone and the children had had their lunch and gone off
to play, the two ladies sat and watched them.
"How nicely they play together," remarked Margaret.
"Yes," said Mrs. Pennybacker absently. "Margaret, I am quite disturbed
about Rosalie. I don't know what to make of her lately."
"What is the trouble? Has she had any more of those fainting spells?"
"Never since the first one. The nurse thought she was likely to have
them at any time, but she has never had another. Queer what caused
that."
"Weakness, I suppose. And yet she grows weaker every day."
"Yes, Margaret, somehow she has never seemed the same to me since that
day. You know how happy she was when she first came. We were speaking
that very morning, I remember, about the look of peace that had come
into her face."
"Yes. She had lost that distressed expression. Do you suppose she can
feel hurt at my being with her so little these days?"
"No, it isn't that. Sometimes I think she is more troubled after you
have been there than at any other time. The nurse even has noticed it.
Sometimes I think she has something on her mind still--something she
wants to tell."
"Why, she has told me everything. It can't be that."
"I told her about the bill one day, feeling that it would do her good to
have something new to think about. She seemed to feel quite a little
interested in it. Asks me from time to time how it is getting along, and
always if it will give you Philip. She seemed greatly troubled over what
Judge Kirtley said."
"A mother's sympathy. I suppose. Poor girl!"
"I guess it must have been that. But it's queer. It was that very day
that I heard her moaning to herself--she didn't know I was in the
room--and I went to her and said, 'Rosalie, what is it that troubles
you?' She looked up at me in such a distressed way and said, 'Oh, I have
been a wicked woman! If I could only confess--'"
"Confess!"
"That was what she said. I said, 'Rosalie, child, confess to God. He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins.' Margaret, I never shall
forget the answer she gave me. She said in a sort of despair, 'I have! I
have! but He hides His face.'"
"Poor child!" said Margaret. "I will go in to-morrow and see her."
Somehow, Margaret had never found the parting from Philip so hard as it
was to-day. "I have such an unaccountable dread of something happening
to him," she said. "I have never felt it before."
"I ain't gwineter let nothin' happen to him, Miss Margaret. He jes' as
safe with me as he is with you. Ain't I tuk good keer of him all
winter?"
The child did look the picture of health and wholesomeness. His cheeks
were glowing now from his chase of Louis and his eyes were bright. But
at the mention of his going they overflowed.
"Mama, I don't want to go! Why can't I stay wiv you and Louis?"
"Oh, darling!" It broke her heart to send him away.
Mammy Cely was to take Philip to his uncle's office on F Street. When
she got there Mr. De Jarnette was just starting to leave the place with
some papers.
"Take him on to the B. and O.," he directed. "I have to see a man on
North Capitol, but I will be at the station before train time."
"Unker Wichard, let me go wiv you," begged Philip. "I won't bovver you."
Mr. De Jarnette considered. It was but a step from North Capitol to the
station, and he wanted to see the man but for a moment.
"All right, Philip." Adding to the old woman, "We will meet you at the
B. and O."
"Marse Richard," said Mammy Cely, with unaccountable shrinking from
letting the child go out of her keeping, "please, sir, don't take him.
I--I done promise Miss Margaret I ain't gwineter let nothin' happen to
him. Look lak I can't bear to have him outer my sight. No, sir."
He stopped her with a peremptory gesture. "Go along to the station. I
certainly can take care of this child for fifteen minutes. Come,
Philip."
While they were waiting in the house on North Capitol Mr. De Jarnette
took out the deed he had to deliver and was looking it over. The girl
who opened the door had said Mr. Holton would be in in a moment. But the
moment lengthened, and Philip catching sight of a child peering in
bashfully from the hall, and feeling the attraction of youth for youth,
edged out toward him. Then the man of the house came into the parlor
from a room back of it, and the sound of voices came to Philip. He was
very sure that he was not bothering his Uncle Richard now and he was by
nature a friendly child.
"What's the matter wiv your hands?" he asked.
The other child, a little younger, stood bashfully picking at his palm.
"Peelin'," he said laconically. Then, brightening up, "Say! I got a
dog."
When Richard De Jarnette and the man stepped into the hall a few moments
later Philip was alone. The boy had gone to get the dog. The man looked
startled to see a child there, and opened his mouth to speak, but
Richard took Philip's hand, said good-night hastily, and what the man
called after them was not heeded.
As they went out of the yard the child with the close observation of his
age, asked, "Unker Wichard, what do they have a wed paper for?"
Mr. De Jarnette was hurrying with such rapid strides to the station that
his nephew could hardly keep up with him. He was intent on making the
train, and did not hear, and in his hurrying Philip forgot all about the
red paper.