"YOUR name is Rhoda," grandmother said, with the catechism open in her
hand. "Rhoda. Rhoda. It's quite easy to say."
"Ain't I the little pig that went to market?" I asked, anxiously, gazing
up from her lap into her eyes, over which she wore glass things like
covers. "And ain't I Baby Bunting?" I continued, with the memory of a
famous hunt stealing over me.
"Once you were," grandmother answered, soberly. "Now you are Rhoda."
I liked to sit in grandmother's lap. She had such a soft silk lap, and
in her pocket-hole there was a box which held peppermint drops. She
never gave them to anybody but just me, when I was good, and if her
arms were thin and fragile under the soft silk, she knew how to hold a
little girl in a most comfortable fashion. Her white hair rippled down
low at the sides, concealing her ears, but her ears were there for I had
run my fingers up to see. She wore a lovely lace collar, and a breastpin
with a picture on it, and when she walked the charms on her watch-chain
clinked in a musical way. Grandmother was beautiful, and every one said
that I looked just like grandmother. That was very nice, but puzzling,
for my hair was golden, and my eyes were uncovered, and where
grandmother had her wrinkles I had only a soft pink cheek.
I never sat very long on grandmother's lap. It was a function that meant
catechism or extreme repentance, and then, also, I was too popular for
one person to have me always. The family handed me around very much
like refreshments. Now I would be with mother, and now with father, and
now with Auntie May, who did not live at our house, but would run in on
her way to school to pat my head. They were all so fond of me that it
was quite gratifying.
"Where is Rhoda?" father would ask the very first thing when he came
into the house at night, and I would sit up for him, holding on tightly
to my chair for fear that they would put me to bed before he came.
Then we would have a little talk together, up in a corner by ourselves.
He was my confidant, and was more on a level with me than other people.
I had an idea that he would give me anything, quite irrespective of
goodness or badness, for when I was naughty he never appeared to think
any the worse of me, although the rest of the family might be bowed down
with the sense of my moral shortcomings. He was my champion, and in the
early twilight I had many stories to tell him, not always of the
strictest veracity.
"And so I runned away, far, far away, and I only came home just now," I
invented, in an airy manner.
"Did you see any one on the road?" he asked, with sudden interest.
He was aware of my love of a romance.
"There was a little old woman in a red cloak with a red pepper in her
mouth," I answered, peeping up in his face with wide, truthful eyes.
"Mother Hubbard!" my father cried, clapping his hands like a boy.
"Mother Hubbard! But where was her dog?"
"Her dog was behind, and he had a red pepper in his mouth," I added,
hastily.
"I wonder what they were going to do with them," my father said, luring
me on.
"Don't you know, father?" I cried, delighted.
"No, I can't think."
"Pies! She was going to make pies out of them! Pretty red pepper pies!"
"Sure enough!" my father said, much surprised. "I never thought of that.
How I wish that I'd been along!"
The little old lady in the silk dress used to quake when I said these
things. That was one of the reasons why she was teaching me my catechism
at such an early age, and I could repeat some pretty hymns, too, which
helped to comfort her. Always, no matter how extravagant the tale might
be, she made her protest. She meant that, at least, there should be one
strong hand to guide the child on the right road.
"That is not really so, Rhoda," she declared, in a severe voice. "You
did not see an old woman with a red pepper in her mouth."