"Rhoda, when you knew that you had only to ask for mother to give them
to you, why did you take away my little dolls?"
"But I did not take them," I cried, in surprise. "I only looked at
them. Was I very bad, mother?"
"You didn't take them? Think what you are saying, Rhoda."
"I did not take them," I protested, breaking into tears, for though I
was bad, I knew that I was not that bad.
I could see that she did not believe me. She sighed in a way that I had
never heard my mother sigh before, and set me down on the floor beside
her. Then she took me by the hand, and we made a very solemn pilgrimage
up the stairs, and through her room into the one which was my own,
straight up into the corner where my doll-house stood. She opened the
little door, and motioned me to look in. The bride and groom were
leaning stiffly side by side against the sofa in the parlor! They stared
back at me with scorn on their sugar faces, and there was, also,
something accusing in their expression, as if they were saying, "Little
girl, how do we come here?" Still I would not confess. I had not taken
them. I had wanted them very much, but now I did not want them at all. I
should have liked to smash their sugar heads, for it was their fault.
They had done it themselves, stepping down from their high shelf in the
middle of the night. They were tired of living tied up in a box, and
wanted my doll-house to set up housekeeping in. They had done it
themselves just to plague me. There was no other way to explain it.
"What does she say?" grandmother asked, creeping in behind us.
"Not the truth!" my mother cried. "I should never have suspected my
child of lying and stealing! But Lily-Ann says it is not the first
time!"
I stood and looked at them. It almost seemed as if I did not love them
any more. They knew me so little that they thought I could steal those
sugar dolls.
"Grandma, put her to bed for me," my mother said, still with that
frightened look on her face. "I don't know what to say to her. I must
ask her father."
Grandmother put me to bed, with slow, patient fingers. She tucked me in,
and kissed me in quite a tender way.
"Tell grandma," she urged, in a whisper, bending down until her
spectacles touched my hot cheek.
But still I would not confess.
It was very quiet in my little room after she had gone. I could hear the
dishes rattling down-stairs, as Norah set the table with a bang of the
plates and a thump of the knives. We were going to have honey for supper
and little cakes with frosted tops baked in scolloped patty-pans. I
wondered whether I should have any supper, or must lie there in the
dark, while they talked about me at the supper-table. I did not think
that _I_ could enjoy frosted cake baked in scolloped patty-pans if _my_
little girl were alone up-stairs in the dark. When I grew up and
married, for I might as well marry now, I would never treat any one so.
Never! Never!! Never!!!
"Oh, please, God, let me hurry and grow up," I whispered to the
darkness. "And, oh, please, God, let me have frosted cake for my
supper!"
I waited for the prayer to bear fruit. Sometimes prayers were rather
slow. I heard my father come home with a cheerful rustle of parcels. He
hung up his coat and hat in the hall, and tiptoed upstairs to wash his
hands. He knew that the twins were asleep in their cribs; but he did not
know that I was beyond in the darkness, afraid to speak to him. He did
not miss me, although I was always the first to welcome him at the door.
Nobody seemed to miss me. I heard them draw up their chairs to the
table. Now they were eating honey. Now they were eating frosted cake.
Lily-Ann would have some of the cake. They believed in her. It was only
their own little girl whom they sent to bed without her supper. It was
only Rhoda whom nobody loved. If God would let me grow up quick, I would
go away and not be a trouble to them any more. Perhaps off in the
country I might find somebody who would love me, and believe in me, for
I did not want to be loved unless I was believed in. I should be very
lonely at first, nearly as lonely as I was now. A sore place came in my
throat that made me cry because it hurt so.
The kitchen door opened in the distance, and a whirlwind swept into the
dining-room. There was a pause, punctuated by loud remarks delivered in
a high Irish voice, and then the whirlwind came up the stairs, and
swept me out of my bed. It was Norah. I clung to her, for she was the
only thing which I had left to love in the whole world. My father and
mother had deserted me, but Norah was staunch. She kissed me as she
carried me, big girl as I was, straight down the steps into the dazzling
light of the supper-table. Norah was excited. She had a red spot on each
cheek, and her eyes shone like stars. She held me tightly with one arm
and gesticulated with the other. Against the white panel of the kitchen
door Lily-Ann was crouched in a timid, frightened fashion, with all the
spirit gone out of her wide face, and almost the very curl gone out of
her hair.
"She had them dolls yisterday," Norah cried, accusingly, her finger
pointed straight at the kitchen door. "I saw them in her box. Sure, I
thought that the mistress gave them to her, and it's not for the likes
of me to say what the mistress shall give or not give. Then this morning
when there was questions asked, she crept upstairs and put them in the
doll-house. The sarpent! Is my child to lie in the dark crying her heart
out, and that sarpent set at my kitchen-table drinking her tay, and
telling me wicked tales of my child?"
Nobody answered her. They stared at her in bewilderment. Norah had never
acted like that before.
"If there was questions to be asked, why wasn't I asked?" she went on,
angrily. "If the mistress or the master had said to me, 'Norah, where's
them little dolls?' I would have told them the truth. I would have said,
'Lily-Ann stole them yisterday, ma'am, and to-day she put them in the
doll-house, sur.' But, no, they don't ask honest old Norah. They listen
to that sarpent backbiting my child. The little innocent creatur! The
dear little old-fashioned thing that niver took nought from nobody!"
I put my arms around Norah's neck, and hugged her until I nearly
strangled her.
"Give Rhoda to me, Norah," my mother said, jealously.
"There's only one thing more to be said, ma'am," Norah continued,
obstinately standing her ground, still with my arms about her neck.
"Either old Norah goes or that sarpent goes. I'll have no sarpents in my
kitchen."
They were all looking at Lily-Ann now. There was a ring of truth about
Norah's story which had convinced them at last.
"Have you anything to say, Lily-Ann?" my father asked, sternly.
She had nothing to say. As she drooped a little closer to the door and
wiped her eyes in a miserable fashion, I felt that I could forgive her
all the harm which she had done me. Poor Lily-Ann, who my mother said
had never been a child!
"Oh, please, Norah, let Lily-Ann stay!" I cried, piteously. "I'll be so
good if you'll let Lily-Ann stay!"
Norah might, perhaps, have been softened by my appeal, but my father
would not listen. The words which he used were very stern ones, and his
was the hand that held open the door for Lily-Ann to pass out of the
house. She went slowly, almost regretfully, as though at the last she
felt repentance. I never saw her again.
It was many a long year, however, before I cast off her evil spell. Even
in the illnesses of my maturer years those crawling Things have come
back, passing across the mirror of a pain-racked mind with all the
horror of childish ignorance and fear. Yet I still feel that I have
forgiven Lily-Ann. Coming from the home that she did, and unwatched and
unsuspected as she was, she might easily have destroyed the holy
innocence of a child's life. But she left me as she found me.
I went upstairs very quietly that night. There was a candle burning on
the bedroom table, and something which my prayer had brought, something
frosted, with scolloped edges, was tucked under my pillow. The whole
family came to put me to bed, and made so much of me that I glowed under
their affection.
"She will forget it all in time," my father said, tenderly, unwitting of
my long memory. "Evil dies away quickly from a child's mind."
My mother was more impulsive. She went down on her knees and put her
arms about me.
"Forgive mother," she whispered, with her mouth against my ear. "Mother
knows how true you are, Rhoda!"
After all there was really something for which to thank Lily-Ann.