"Oh, Major!" I cried, excitedly, nodding my head at him, "I'm going to
find your little girls and boys for you!"
"My little girls and boys?" he asked, perplexed.
"Yes. The ones that you lost so long ago."
He turned quite suddenly on his way, so quickly that I thought that he
was angry, but when he came back he stopped at the gate again. He took
my face softly between his hands, and looked down deep into my eyes,
into the little circles where there were pictures.
"When you grow up, always remember that the old major loved you," he
said, hurriedly, and then went back toward the house from which he had
come out so shortly before.
We were great friends after that. We held long conversations over the
gate, about my dolls, and the hobby-horse which had lately come to live
in the hall. We discussed the best way to raise children, and how
convenient it would be if aprons could only be made to button in front.
We both had original ideas on things, and often differed, but none of my
new clothes ever seemed quite real to me until the major had admired
them, and pinched my cheeks with that air of gallantry which showed
that I was a woman. He brought me presents, very wonderful things;
bright pebbles which he picked up on the street, willow whistles, and a
tiny basket carved from a peach-stone, which I hung on a ribbon about my
neck. I gave him flowers, and once, when no one was looking, I let him
kiss me in the shadow of the pink sunbonnet.
If the major and I met thus on the sunny days, when it rained there came
a blank in my life. Then he could not go out at all, but must stay shut
up in his house until the weather cleared again. There was something the
matter with the major which made this necessary. In some unaccountable
way he was different from other people, and to be different from other
people was sad, and was, moreover, a thing which never happened in our
family.
Now, grandmother had a little red brick house that stood on her
mantel-piece which aided me a great deal in the stormy times. A little
man and woman lived in this house who were never of the same mind, and
carried their lack of sympathy to such an alarming extent that they used
separate doors, and, as far as I could see, had never met in the course
of their lives. For as sure as the man with the umbrella came out of one
door, the little lady with the roses in her bonnet gathered up her
skirts, and scurried in as if she were afraid to meet him. With her went
the sunshine and the blue look to the sky, and the rain came down heavy
and fast. But if the old man went into his house, the old lady sprang
out, with a smile on her face, the rain stopped falling, and the sun
came out. Then, by and by, the major would walk down the street, and
stop to chat awhile.
I used to run into grandmother's room every morning to look at that
house.
"Grandma," I cried, eagerly, "has the little lady come out to-day?"
Then I took my stand soberly in front of the mantelpiece and regarded
the two figures with much attention.
"Grandma," I said once, "do you think that they can be relations?"
Grandmother took up a stitch in her knitting without replying.
"Because, if they are," I went on, indignantly, "I think that they ought
to be ashamed!"
"Ashamed of what, Rhoda?"
"Why, of the way that they act. They don't even look at each other! And,
grandma, I think that he's the worst. He goes in with such a click when
she comes out. He's so afraid that she'll say something to him."
Grandmother looked up over her spectacles.
"Now that I come to think of it," she said, "they've acted that way for
forty years."
"I wonder why he don't like her?" I went on, musingly. "Is it because
she's got flowers in her bonnet, and he hasn't? Look, grandma, she's
coming out very quietly. She's going to catch him this time. Oh, he's
gone in with a click! And he never said a word!"
"We'll have fair weather now, Rhoda."
"And my major will come out, grandma."
"He's my major!" little Dick cried.
"He's my major!" Beatrice asserted.
"No such thing!" I said, turning on them angrily. "He belongs all to me.
Don't he, grandma?"
Grandmother did not answer, but I knew that he did. When the twins came,
hand-in-hand, down the path to see him, he would pat their fat arms
through the spokes of the gate, but it was always I to whom he wished
to talk, for I was more of his own age and not a baby like them.
"Baby yourself!" Dick said, when I mentioned this, and slapped me, but
it made no difference.
Sometimes the lady from across the way would come over to walk with the
major. They were old friends, and had a great deal to talk about. I
remember seeing her shake her finger at him when she found him leaning
on my gate.
"So you're trying to turn another woman's head!" she cried, gayly.
He wheeled upon her with that sudden straightening of his shoulders that
would come so unexpectedly.
"Did I ever turn yours, Kitty?" he asked, with a mischievous smile.
"Dozens of times," she cried. "Dozens of times!"
Then she took his arm, and they went up and down in the bright
sunshine, up and down, while the major would thump his cane upon the
ground with that gruff laugh that always seemed merrier than other
people's. His white hair was smoothly brushed, and his black hat was set
on jauntily, and his kind eyes shone as if he were young again. I
noticed that the lady from over the way always wore a black silk dress
and her best, curly, brown hair whenever she came to walk with the
major, and, also, a battered silver bracelet which looked as if it had
been chewed. The major would glance at it and laugh.
"I took castor-oil to buy that bracelet," he said once, with his
twinkle.
It sounded funny, but I knew just what he meant. I had made dollars and
dollars myself taking castor-oil, except that time when Auntie May mixed
it so cunningly with lemonade that it went down and down to the very
dregs, and I never discovered until then how I had been cheated out of
my just dues.
"So that was it!" the lady from over the way exclaimed, patting the
bracelet. "I always knew that there was something curious about it."
"It was harder than leading a regiment into action," the major answered,
soberly, and then broke into a gleeful laugh. "I wouldn't do it for you
now!" he cried.
First she threatened him with the bracelet. Then she took his arm again,
and they went on in the sunshine, talking of all the many people whom
they had known in their lives. Her touch on his arm was very light,
guiding, and sustaining, rather than dependent, but the old major
thought that she leant upon him.
I was not jealous of the lady from over the way. I felt that we shared
the major between us, and then it was always at my gate that he stopped
first. It was here that he told me about a trip that he was intending to
make.
"I'm going off to the city for a week," he said.
"Are you, Major?" I questioned, sorrowfully, for a week had seven days
in it, and even a day was a long, long time. No wonder that my eyes were
full of tears.
"There, there," he said. "Bear it like a woman."
I was not a woman, but sometimes the major used to forget. I thought
that it was because I looked so tall when I stood on my gate.
He put out his kind old hand and smoothed my hair.
"What shall I bring you from the city?" he asked. "A new doll? What
would you like best of all, Rhoda?"
I considered the question. There were so many things that the major
might bring from the city. There were little doll-babies, or
picture-books, or cups and saucers, or hooples with bells. Then I had an
inspiration. I leaned forward in a glow of excitement.
[Illustration]
"I should like--Oh, Major! Will you really give it to me? I should like
the littlest watch in the world. With a star! With a star, just like
yours!"
"You shall have it," he answered, promptly, as if there was nothing
unusual in such a grand request. "Now, remember, if all goes well, I'll
be at the gate a week from to-day. And I'll have that watch right here
in my pocket."
"And I'll bring flowers!" I cried, joyfully. "All the flowers that you
love best, Major."
"Good-by," he said, with a sudden touch of emotion.
"Good-by," I answered, rather tearfully, for even the watch could not
reconcile me to his absence.
He turned to go, and came back again.
"Pray for the old major," he said, in a husky whisper.
Through my tears I saw him go up the block, a little slower than usual,
as if he did not want to go. At the gate he stopped and waved his hat to
me, as he had done on that first day, and squared his gallant old
shoulders before he passed into the house. I always wished that I had
kissed him before he went.
It was not hard to pray for the major, for I believed in the efficacy of
prayer. When the elastic bands became loosened in the black doll, Topsy,
and she lost her wool and her legs at the same time, I went down,
solemnly, on my knees on the floor, and prayed for them to grow together
again. And they did, in the night. And when I lost my little front
tooth, I prayed to God and He sent me a new one! So it was not hard to
pray for the major. But somehow or other I did not like to do it before
my mother. It seemed such a secret sort of a prayer. I waited until I
was safe under the covers, and she had taken away the light. Then I
climbed out of the bed, in the big darkness, and went down on the floor.
I prayed to God to bless the old major, and bring him back safely to me.
I said it over twice, so that God would not forget.
"So the old major has gone to the city," my father said, at the
breakfast table. "I can remember him when he was in the pride of his
strength, a magnificent figure on horseback. He never rose as high in
the service as he should. He made powerful enemies and slipped into the
background."
"It's twenty years since his wife died," my mother's soft voice added.
"He has lived alone in that big house ever since. Think of it, Robert!"
"Such is the heart's fidelity," father answered, with his face turned
toward hers.
"When he comes back we must make more of him," mother said.
It was a very long week, but even long weeks have a way of slipping by
at last. I played about the house and the garden with the twins, but I
never went near the gate, not until the day dawned which was seven times
from last Friday, and was Friday again, bright and clear, the very day
for the major's home-coming. There were so many flowers in the garden
that morning, such especially large ones. They knew, too, that the major
was coming home, and had put on their prettiest dresses in his honor.
It was quite a puzzle to me what I should put on. I had a closet full
of dresses. There was a beautiful blue silk one, too good for anything
but church, which matched a little blue parasol. And there was a lovely
white one with a lace flounce, which went with my scolloped petticoat.
My third best dress had roses and buttons on it, and the fourth best was
covered with brown spots, like cough drops. I loved my little dresses,
and it was so hard to tell which dress should come out, and which must
stay shut up in the closet, with nobody to admire them.
"Shall it be the cough drop dress, mother?" I asked, uncertainly.
"It's such a wonderful day, and the sun shines so bright, that I think
you might put on the white dress with the lace flounce," my mother said,
with that smile which meant that she was laughing with me, and not at
me.
"And my little black slippers?"
"And your little black slippers."
"And, mother, you remember the time that I was your little flower girl?
And you put roses in my hair so it looked like a crown? I'd like to be
the major's little flower girl."
My mother lent herself to the pretty idea. She crowned my head with
roses. There were roses at my throat, and a big, floating, pink sash
swept down my back, and there were roses in my hand for the major, one
bunch to give him with a kiss when he came, and another to give him with
my love when he went.
Grandmother shook her wise head when she saw that toilet.
"If she were my child," she said, "I should dress her in brown gingham
down to her heels, and tie her hair with shoe-laces."