The Adopted
The Enemy's chin just reached comfortably to the
top fence-rail, and there it rested, while above it peered a pair of
round blue eyes. It is not usual for an enemy's eyes to be so round
and blue, nor an enemy's chin to reach so short a distance from the
ground.
"She's watching me," Margaret thought; "she wants to see if I've got
far as she has. 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch
'em!"
"She knows I'm here," reflected the Enemy, "just as well as anything.
'Fore I'd peek at people out o' the ends o' my eyes!"
[Illustration: 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!]
Between the two, a little higher than their heads, tilted a motherly
bird on a syringa twig.
"Ter-wit, ter-wee,--pit-ee, pit-ee!" she twittered under her breath.
And it did seem a pity to be quarrellers on a day in May, with the
apple buds turning as pink as pink!
"I sha'n't ever tell her any more secrets," Margaret mused, rather
sadly, for there was that beautiful new one aching to be told.
"I sha'n't ever skip with her again," the Enemy's musings ran
drearily, and the arm she had always put round Margaret when they
skipped felt lonesome and--and empty. And there was that lovely new
level place to skip in!
"Pit-ee! Pit-ee!" sang softly the motherly bird.
It had only been going on a week of seven days. It was exactly a week
ago to-day it began, while they were making the birthday presents
together, Margaret sitting in this very chair and Nell--the Enemy
sitting on the toppest door-step. Who would have thought it was
coming? There was nothing to warn--no thunder in the sky, no little
mother-bird on the syringa bush. It just _came_--oh, hum!
"I'm ahead!" the Enemy had suddenly announced, waving her book-mark.
She had got to the "h" in her Mother, and Margaret was only finishing
_her_ capital "M." They were both working "Honor thy Mother that thy
days may be long," on strips of cardboard for their mothers'
birthdays, which, oddly enough, came very close together. Of course
that wasn't exactly the way it was in the Bible, but they had agreed
it was better to leave "thy Father" out because it wasn't his
birthday, and they had left out "the land which the Lord thy God
giveth" because there wasn't room for it on the cardboard.
"I'm ahead!"
"That's because I'm doing mine the carefulest," Margaret had
retorted, promptly. "There aren't near so many hunchy places in
mine."
"Well, I don't care; my _mother's_ the best-looking, if her book-mark
isn't!" in triumph. "Her hair curls, and she doesn't have to wear
glasses."
Margaret's wrath had flamed up hotly. Mother's eyes were so shiny and
tender behind the glasses, and her smooth brown hair was so soft! The
love in Margaret's soul arose and took up arms for Mother.
"I love mine the best, so there!--so there!--_so there!_" she cried.
But side by side with the love in her soul was the secret
consciousness of how very much the Enemy loved _her_ mother, too.
Now, sitting sewing all alone, with the Enemy on the other side of
the fence, Margaret knew she had not spoken truly then, but the
rankling taunt of the curls that Mother hadn't, and the glasses that
she had, justified her to herself. She would never, never take it
back, so there!--so there!--_so there!_
"She's only got to the end o' her 'days,'--I can see clear from
here," soliloquized the Enemy, with awakening exultation. For the
Enemy's "days" were "long,"--she had finished her book-mark. The
longing to shout it out--"I've got mine done!"--was so intense within
her that her chin lost its balance on the fence-rail and she jarred
down heavily on her heels. So close related are mind and matter.
Margaret resorted to philosophic contemplation to shut out the memory
of the silent on-looker at the fence. She had swung about
discourteously "back to" her. "I guess," contemplated Margaret, "my
days 'll be long enough in the land! I guess so, for I honor my
mother enough to live forever! That makes me think--I guess I better
go in and kiss her good-night for to-night when she won't be at
home."
It was mid-May and school was nearly over. The long summer vacation
stretched endlessly, lonesomely, ahead of Margaret. Last summer it
had been so different. A summer vacation with a friend right close to
you all the time, skipping with you and keeping house with you and
telling all her secrets to you, is about as far away as--as China is
from an _Enemy_ 'cross the fence! Oh, hum! some vacations are so
splendid and some are so un-splendid!
It did not seem possible that anything drearier than this could
happen. Margaret would not have dreamed it possible. But a little way
farther down Lonesome Road waited something a great deal worse. It
was waiting for Margaret behind the schoolhouse stone-wall. The very
next day it jumped out upon her.
Usually at recess Nell--the Enemy--and Margaret had gone wandering
away together with their arms around each other's waist, as happy as
anything. But for a week of recesses now they had gone wandering in
opposite directions--the Enemy marching due east, Margaret due west.
The stone-wall stretched away to the west. She had found a nice
lonesome little place to huddle in, behind the wall, out of sight. It
was just the place to be miserable in.
"I know something!" from one of a little group of gossipers on the
outside of the wall. "She needn't stick her chin out an' not come an'
play with us. She's _nothing but an adopted!_"
"Oh!--a what?" in awestruck chorus from the listeners. "Say it again,
Rhody Sharp."
"An adopted--that's all she is. I guess nobody but an adopted need to
go trampin' past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we're
good as she is an' better, too, so there!"
Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over
her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she
breathed with difficulty. If--supposing they meant--
"Rhody Sharp, you're fibbing! I don't believe a single word you say!"
sprang forth a champion valiantly. "She's dreadfully fond of her
mother--just _dreadfully!_"
"She doesn't know it," promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice
stabbing poor Margaret's ear like a sharp little sword. "They're
keeping it from her. My gran'mother doesn't believe they'd ought to.
She says--"
But nobody cared what Rhody Sharp's gran'mother said. A clatter of
shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of
the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own
number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the
capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with
them--an' she'd stuck her chin out!
"Why! Why, then she's a--orphan!" one voice exclaimed. "Really an'
honest she is--an' she doesn't know it!"
"Oh my, isn't it awful!" another voice. "Shouldn't you think she'd
hide her head--I mean, if she knew?"
It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist grass--a little
heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on.
"It's just like a disgrace, isn't it? Shouldn't you s'pose it would
feel that way if 'twas you?"
"Think o' kissin' your mother good-night an' it's not bein' your
mother?"
"Say, Rhody Sharp--all o' you--look here! Do you suppose that's why
her mother--I mean she that _isn't_--dresses her in checked aperns?
That's what orphans--"
The shorn head dug deeper. A soft groan escaped Margaret's lips. This
very minute, now while she crouched in the grass,--oh, if she put out
her hands and felt she would feel the checks! She had been to an
orph--to a place once with Moth--with _Her_ and seen the aprons
herself. They were all--all checked.
At home, folded in a beautiful pile, there were all the others. There
was the pink-checked one and the brown-checked one and the prettiest
one of all, the one with teenty little white checks marked off with
buff. The one she should feel if she put out her hand was a
blue-checked.
Margaret drove her hands deep into the matted grass; she would not
put them out. It was--it was terrible! Now she understood it all. She
remembered--things. They crowded--with capital T's, Things,--up to
her and pointed their fingers at her, and smiled dreadful smiles at
her, and whispered to one another about her. They sat down on her and
jounced up and down, till she gasped for breath.
The teacher's bell rang crisply and the voices changed to scampering
feet. But Margaret crouched on in the sweet, moist grass behind the
wall. She stayed there a week--a month--a year,--or was it only till
the night chill stole into her bones and she crept away home?
[Illustration: She stayed there a week--a month--a year]
She and Nell--she and the Enemy--had been so proud to have aprons
just alike and cut by the same dainty pattern. But now if she
knew--if the Enemy knew! How ashamed it would make her to have on one
like--like an adopted's! How she'd wish hers was stripes!
Perhaps--oh, perhaps she would think it was fortunate that she _was_
an enemy now.
But the worst Things that crowded up and scoffed and gibed were not
Things that had to do with enemies. The worst-of-all Things had to do
with a little, tender woman with glasses on--whose hair didn't curl.
Those Things broke Margaret's heart.
"Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it's
wrinkly," gibed one Thing.
"And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings," another
Thing.
"She doesn't make me do the biggest ones!" flashed Margaret, hotly,
but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.
"Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes--"
"And won't let you eat two pieces of pie--"
"Or one piece o' fruit-cake--"
"Maybe you remember now the times she's said, 'This is no little
daughter of mine'?"
Margaret turned sharply. "That was only because I was naughty," she
pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn't "only
because." She knew it was _because_. The terror within her was
growing more terrible every moment.
Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been
lurking in the background waiting its turn,--it was its turn now.
Margaret stood quite still, _ashamed_. She could not name the
strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat
there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be
only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs.
Streeter's and the minister's and the Enemy's!--oh, most of all past
the Enemy's!--for fear they'd look out of the window and say, "There
goes an adopted!" Perhaps they'd point their fingers.--Margaret
closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter's plump one and the
minister's lean one and the Enemy's short brown one, all pointing.
She could feel something burning her on her forehead,--it was
"Adopted," branded there.
The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she
got to the Enemy's house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She
could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.
Moth--She That had Been--would be wondering why Margaret was late. If
she looked sober out of her eyes and said, "This can't be my little
girl, can it?" then Margaret would _know for certain_. That would be
the final proof.
The chimney was in sight now,--now the roof,--now the kitchen door,
and She That Had Been was in it! She was shading her eyes and looking
for the little girl that wasn't hers. A sob rose in the little girl's
throat, but she tramped steadily on. It did not occur to her to
snatch off her hat and wave it, as little girls that belonged did.
She had done it herself.
The kitchen door was very near indeed now. It did not seem to be
Margaret that was moving, but the kitchen door. It seemed to be
coming to meet her and bringing with it a dear slender figure. She
looked up and saw the soberness in its dear eyes.
"This can't be my little girl, can--" but Margaret heard no more.
With a muffled wail she fled past the slender figure, up-stairs, that
she did not see at all, to her own little room. On the bed she lay
and felt her heart break under her awful little checked apron. For
now she knew for certain.
Two darknesses shut down about her, and in the heart-break of one she
forgot to be afraid of the other. She had always before been afraid
of the night-dark and imagined creepy steps coming along the hall and
into the door. The things she imagined now were dreadfuler than that.
This new dark was so much darker!
They thought she was asleep and let her lie there on her little bed
alone. By-and-by would be time enough to probe gently for the
childish trouble. Perhaps she would leave it behind her in her sleep.
Out-of-doors suddenly a new sound rose shrill above the crickets and
the frogs. It was the Enemy singing "Glory, glory, hallelujah." That
was the last straw. Margaret writhed deeper into the pillows. She
knew what the rest of it was--"Glory, glory, hallelujah, 'tisn't me!
_My_ soul goes marching on!" She was out there singing that
a-purpose!
In her desperate need for some one to lay her trouble to, Margaret
"laid it to" the Enemy. A sudden, bitter, unreasoning resentment took
possession of her. If there hadn't been an Enemy, there wouldn't have
been a trouble. Everything would have been beautiful and--and
respectable, just as it was before. _She_ would have been out there
singing "Glory, glory hallelujah," too.
"She's to blame--I hate her!" came muffledly from the pillows. "Oh, I
do!--I can't help it, I do! I'm always going to hate her forevermore!
She needn't have--"
Needn't have what? What had the little scape-goat out there in the
twilight done? But Margaret was beyond reasoning now. "Mine enemy
hath done it," was enough for her. If she lived a thousand years--if
she lived _two_ thousand--she would never speak to the Enemy
again,--never forgive her,--never put her into her prayer again among
the God blesses.
A plan formulated itself after a while in the dark little room. It
was born of the travail of the child's soul. Something must be
done--there was something she would do. She began it at once, huddled
up against the window to catch the failing light. She would pin it to
her pin-cushion where they would find it after--after she was gone.
Did folks ever mourn for an Adopted? In her sore heart Margaret
yearned to have them mourn.
"I have found it out," she wrote with her trembling little
fingers. "I don't suppose its wicked becaus I couldent help being one
but it is orful. It breaks your hart to find youre one all of a
suddin. If I had known before, I would have darned the big holes too.
Ime going away becaus I canot bare living with folks I havent any
right to. The stik pin this is pined on with is for Her That Wasent
Ever my Mother for I love her still. When this you see remember me
the rose is red the violet blue sugger is sweet and so are you.
"Margaret."
She pinned it on tremblingly and then crept back to bed. Perhaps
she went to sleep,--at any rate, quite suddenly there were voices at
her door--_Her_ voice and--His. She did not stir, but lay and
listened to them.
"Dear child! Wouldn't you wake her up, Henry? What do you suppose
could have happened?" That was the voice that used to be Mother's.
It made Margaret feel thrilly and homesick.
"Something at school, probably, dear,--you mustn't worry. All sorts
of little troubles happen at school." The voice that used to be her
Father's.
"I know, but this must have been a big one. If you had seen her
little face, Henry! If she were Nelly, I should think somebody had
been telling her--about her origin, you know--"
Margaret held her breath. Nelly was the Enemy, but what was an
origin? This thing that they were saying--hark?
"I've always expected Nelly to find out that way--it would be so much
kinder to tell her at home. You know it would, Henry, instead of
letting her hear it from strangers and get her poor little heart
broken. Henry, if God hadn't given us a precious little child of our
own and we had ever adopted--"
Margaret dashed off the quilts and leaped to the floor with a cry of
ecstasy. The anguish--the shame--the cruel gibing Things--were left
behind her; they had slid from her burdened little heart at the first
glorious rush of understanding; they would never come back,--never
come back,--never come back to Margaret! Glory, glory, hallelujah,
'twasn't her! _Her_ soul went marching on!
The two at the door suffered an unexpected, an amazing onslaught from
a flying little figure. Its arms were out, were gathering them both
in,--were strangling them in wild, exultant hugs.
"Oh! Oh, you're mine! I'm yours! We're each other's! I'm not an
Adopted any more! I thought I was, and I wasn't! I was going away and
die--oh, oh, oh!"
Then Margaret remembered the Enemy, and in the throes of her pity the
enmity was swallowed up forever. The instant yearning that welled up
in her to put her arms around the poor real Adopted almost stifled
her. She slid out of the two pairs of big tender arms and scurried
away like a hare. She was going to find Nelly and love her--oh, love
her enough to make up! She would give her the coral beads she had
always admired; she would let her be mistress and _she'd_ be maid
when they kept house,--she'd let her have the frosting half of all
their cake and _all_ the raisins.
"I'll let her wear the spangly veil when we dress up--oh, poor, poor
Nelly!" Margaret cried softly as she ran. "And the longest trail.
She may be the richest and have the most children--I'd _rather_."
There did not seem anything possible and beloved that she would not
let Nelly do. She took agitated little leaps through the soft
darkness, sending on ahead her yearning love in a tender little call:
"Nelly! Nelly!"
She could never be too tender--too generous--to Nelly, to try to make
up. And all her life she would take care of her and keep her from
finding out. She shouldn't find out! When they were both, oh, very
old, she would still be taking care of Nelly like that.
"Nelly! Nelly!"
If she could only think of some Great Thing she could do, that
would--would _hurt_ to do! And then she thought. She stopped quite
suddenly in her impetuous rush, stilled by the Greatness of it.
"I'll let her love her mother the best," whispered Margaret to the
stars,--"so there!"