"But that is wrong, you know. You should always tell the truth."
"Yes, ma'am. But I thought it would be good to have you come in, and
sit."
Miss Clement almost frowned and smiled in one expression. "But you did
wrong. Doesn't your mother punish you for telling such fibs?"
"No, ma'am."
"Is she not at home?"
"Oh, no!"
"When do you expect her?"
"Oh, never!"
"Never?"
The drowsy eyes, in astonishment, opened a little wider. "Of course
not. She is dead."
"Oh, that is too bad! I am very sorry. Was it long ago that she died?"
"Oh, yes! Long, long ago. More than twenty years."
"More than twenty years! I think you must be mistaken. How old are you?"
"Nine next July."
"Then your mother could not have died twenty years ago."
"Yes. She died long before I was born."
Miss Clement slowly shook her head. "But not twenty years. That is
impossible."
"But she did."
"Then she was your step-mother perhaps?"
"No. My own mother."
This conversation was becoming so very absurd that Miss Clement made
no answer. She merely looked away--and studied the room.
The boy smiled as if amused at her ignorance. "Don't you understand how
it was?"
The lady's only reply was to close her eyes wearily. But he stepped
nearer and laid a hand on each of her knees, to wake her up.
"Don't you see," he said, "the difference between eight and twenty is
twelve, isn't it?"
"It is."
"Well, then she must have been dead twelve years when I was born."
Now Miss Clement could never do arithmetic. She abominated figures,
and these words were uttered with so much conviction--reënforced by
the wisdom of his eyes--that her brain became tangled for a moment.
It seemed to shrink, in a sort of nervous bewilderment, from this
fantastic puzzle. He smiled at her obvious confusion, moved backward
a step or two, folded his hands behind him and squirmed with delight.
"It's funny you don't understand. I guess I am smarter than you are."
Miss Clement shut tight her lips and looked away--anywhere. Her own
brain seemed laughing at her.
"I s'pose," said the Vandal, "I don't need a mother much."
"Every boy needs a mother. Is Joanna your sister?"
He laughed at such an absurd mistake. "No! She's lots older than you
are. She's housekeeper--and lots of things."
Miss Clement looked about the room, at the pictures on the walls. They
were mostly engravings and photographs.
"Is there a portrait of your mother here?"
"No, ma'am."
"Not anywhere in the house?"
"No."
"There must be a photograph."
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes'm."
"That is very strange."
"Why?"
"Because--because--it is most unusual. Did she die here in this house?"
"Oh, no! Of course not!"
"Why of course not?"
"Because she died in Italy."
"Was she Italian?"
"I guess so."
"Have you never seen a portrait of her?"
"No, ma'am."
Miss Clement frowned. There seemed to be a mystery here. Possibly a
scandal of some sort. And her interest quickened. "I suppose your
father talks to you about her sometimes."
"No, ma'am."
"Never?"
"No, ma'am."
"Of course he has told you where you were born?"
"P'r'aps."
"Perhaps what?"
"P'r'aps he did."
"But you don't remember?"
"No, ma'am."
Nobody likes to be thwarted in the pursuit of knowledge. In this case
it seemed to Miss Clement that the deeper she delved the less she found.
"Don't you remember ever having seen a portrait of her?"
"Of course not."
"Why of course not?"
"Because there isn't any."
This seemed a good reason. But Miss Clement felt that either she--or
this boy--was being deceived.
The Vandal, whose drowsy eyes had scarcely moved from the study of her
face since she entered the room, saw the look of disappointment. It was
a somewhat petulant expression in which she would not have indulged had
her host been twenty years older. But he saw it so clearly that he was
moved to sympathy. With all the joy and enthusiasm of a great idea, he
exclaimed: "My father may know all about her. I will ask him to tell
you!"
A chill of horror swept up Miss Clement's spine. She suddenly realized
what awful mischief a youthful savage--either from ignorance or
perversity--might accomplish. She stood up. "No! Don't mention it to
him--nor to anybody."
"Why not?'
"Because you mustn't."
She could see, in the Vandal's face as he looked up at her, that he
enjoyed this--to him--unaccountable fright. He even laughed. "There's
nothing to be afraid of."
"No, of course not!" And she tried to smile. "But promise me you will
not ask your father, nor anybody else."
To this super-sensitive lady there appeared in his uplifted eyes a
cruel, triumphant delight, as he said--"Why did you ask if you don't
want to know about her?"
"Merely in the way of conversation." And she added, with her sweetest
smile--"merely from a friendly interest. You are a nice boy, and you
understand, I am sure."
He nodded; but his eyes, in their slumbrous wisdom, seemed almost
contemptuous.
"Promise me," she insisted. "Promise me you will say nothing about it
to anybody."
"Yes, I promise."
"You are a nice little boy--and I must go, now. I will call again in a
day or two. Good by."
He bowed as he said good-by. Then he followed her out into the hall,
ran before her and held the door wide open. As she passed out he bowed
again; the same deferential obeisance with which he had first greeted
her--as from Louis XIV to the Queen of Spain.
* * * * *
As Miss Clement crossed the common on her way home she saw a group of
children looking skywards, and she heard the word "Eagle." She stopped,
and also looked up. And as she looked, and watched the bird, floating
tranquilly in the upper air, in a wide, slow circle, majestically, with
no apparent effort, so high above the earth that he might be a visitor
from another planet--she recalled the words of her recent host: "What's
the use of crawling about on the earth like a bug? I'd rather be a
bird."
* * * * *
An hour later Dr. Alton returned afoot. He had left his horse in the
village to be shod. As he walked up the driveway he noticed a figure
standing on the mounting block before the house. It was so enveloped in
the golden glories of a setting sun that Dr. Alton failed, at first,
to recognize his own son. The figure seemed a part of the sunset--more
an ethereal spirit than an earthly boy. Cyrus was standing erect and
motionless, his head thrown back as if inhaling inspiration from the
radiance about him. Such prolonged and voluntary immobility would
be unusual in any boy. Moreover, Cyrus maintained this attitude,
forgetting--or ignoring--the customary greeting to his father. After
waiting a moment before his strangely indifferent son, a feeling of
uneasiness began to mingle with Dr. Alton's surprise.
At the foot of the block sat Zac, looking up at the silent boy. And
Zac, also, might be a little off in his mind for he, too, failed to
welcome or even to notice the returning parent.
At last Dr. Alton spoke. "What's the matter, Cyrus? Dreaming you are a
bird?"
Slowly Cyrus lowered his face, his eyes still shut. And slowly the eyes
were opened as if waking from a sleep. They showed a mild surprise
at his father's presence. But he answered, in a low voice, as if his
spirit still lingered elsewhere:
"Somebody wants us."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"But you know who told you."
"No, sir. Nobody told me."
"What do you mean, Cyrus? Wake up. Is it an emergency call?"
Cyrus raised a hand and pointed before him, toward the south.
"It comes from off there."
Dr. Alton frowned, less from irritation than from fear that this
foolish utterance of his son might be the forerunner of some future
spiritualistic obsession--or other mental derangement.