"I haven't a watch."
"But you don't need a watch," he answered. "See here."
He stooped down, painfully, grasping the fence for support, and picked
the snowy seed-ball of a dandelion plant. Then he straightened up,
slowly, and blew at the feathery toy.
"One, two, three, four, five! Five o'clock. Time for the old major to go
in out of the damp."
Then he turned away from me, and went on up the street, his cane digging
little holes in the path, and he himself forgetting all about the child
whom he had left still perched on her gate. I had not entirely passed
from his memory, however, for when he came to his own gate far in the
distance, he took off his hat, and gallantly waved it to me before he
went in out of the damp.
"Mother, I love the old major!" I said one day.
"What major?" my mother asked, looking up from her work with a smile.
She was making small ruffled skirts and aprons with pockets. She could
make the most beautiful things, all out of her own head.
"What major? Why, my major. Mother, has the old major any little girls
or boys that I could play with? Oh, I should so like to play with his
little girls and boys!"
"Major Daniel Clark hasn't any little girls or boys. He lost them all,
dear. He is a very lonely man."
"Didn't he ever find them again, mother?"
"No, dear. Never again."
Now, I was very good at finding things. I found grandmother's spectacles
ten times a day, even when they were only lost in her soft, white hair.
And once I found mother's thimble when little brother Dick had it in his
mouth, and it was just going down red lane. Norah said that I had a pair
of bright eyes, and my very father, when he wanted his slippers, could
think of no one so trustworthy to send as I. To find little girls and
boys would be quite easy, for they were much larger things. I had only
to ask all the girls and boys who came past my gate if they belonged to
the major, and, when the right ones came, we would run hand-in-hand up
to that distant door and go in. He would be so pleased, and never lonely
again. And, perhaps--Just suppose that he would be my friend forever and
ever!