It looked so like father when he was a little boy that I thought she
must be mistaken. Yet somehow it was different. This little boy was
fairer. There was a curl of hair on the page, a light-brown curl with
red glints in it, and a tiny wreath made of pressed lilacs which once
upon a time he had joined together, flower by flower, out in our front
garden. I could almost see him doing it, while the wind blew through
those brown curls.
"Oh, I do hope that he isn't grown up!" I cried, quickly.
People had such an astonishing way of growing up fast. Why, even Joseph
in his pretty new coat in the Bible was not a little boy any longer! And
I had always so longed to play with Joseph.
Grandmother did not tell me anything more about the picture. She took it
out of my hand, and put it back on the page beside the curl and the
faded lilac ring. Then she closed the book tightly; but when I ran into
the parlor five minutes later to announce a visitor the picture was out
again on her lap.
"Evelyn is coming, grandma!" I cried.
The tall young lady who followed me into the room was grandmother's
great friend, and, also, in a way she was mine. I loved her because she
was so beautiful; but grandmother loved her because they both liked a
man named Frank. He was engaged to Evelyn. I had heard my mother say
so.
"Is there any news?" grandmother asked, eagerly.
She had risen out of her chair and looked startled.
Evelyn went up to her with a letter in her hand.
"Frank is quite well," she said, "and very busy. Would you like to see
his letter?"
Grandmother hesitated. She almost turned her back upon Evelyn.
"No," she answered, slowly. "No. When he writes a letter to _me_, I will
read it. Not before."
"Oh, you are hard on Frank," Evelyn protested. "How can he write to you?
Didn't you say you would have nothing more to do with him, unless he
gave up his profession?"
"Profession! Has an actor a profession?" grandmother cried. "This is
the first time I ever heard it called by that name. I said he was to
choose between his mother and a child's mad whim, and he made his
choice."
She picked up the picture and looked at it with tears in her eyes.
"I could forgive him anything but acting," she said. "Sometimes I think
I could even forgive him that. I do so long to see him again."
Evelyn slipped her arm about grandmother.
"He will come back," she cried, consolingly.
"Never," grandmother replied, with a despairing glance at the empty
street. "Don't I know him, Evelyn? Man and boy? He is as stubborn as I
am."
"Would the little boy play with me, grandma, if he came back?" I asked,
excitedly.
They both looked at me, but Evelyn was the only one who smiled.
"Perhaps," she said. "He used to be very fond of you."
After that I was always watching for the little boy. Every morning when
I got up I looked out of the window to see if he were not coming in our
gate. And the last thing before I went to bed, I looked out carefully
again. I thought that I should know him by his hair, and I felt how
lovely it would be if he would only come at Christmas time. Christmas
was not going to be so nice that year as usual. I did not think that I
should get anything. There were lots of presents in the house for other
children, even my little brother and sister, but somehow there did not
seem to be any for Rhoda!
"Father," I said, one morning, "there's a very pretty book in your top
drawer. A child's book. I wonder whose it is?"
He was quite busy reading his paper, but he answered me at once.
"That's for a little friend of mine," he declared. "It's a secret."
"Oh! Is she a good girl, father?"
He glanced at me and laughed.
"Sometimes she's awfully good," he answered.
Then it was not for me. Nobody ever seemed to think that I was good, not
even when I was trying my best. It must be grand to be good! Just think
of being born that way, so that you could not help it, but went on
growing better and better until you died! There was a little girl down
the street like that. We played together on sunny days. I found it very
hard to play with any one who was so good.
"And sometimes," my father went on, still with that smile in his eyes,
"sometimes she's so dreadfully bad that I'm really shocked!"
"Oh!" I said again.
I had seen my father shocked. When he was shocked, he always laughed
very hard.
"Has it pictures, father?" I asked, meekly, trying to turn the subject.
"No. My little friend doesn't care about pictures," he answered,
indifferently.
Then it was not for me. I was very fond of pictures. Everybody knew
that. It did seem queer that in all the many packages which he brought
home, night after night,--round ones, and square ones, and even some
with mysterious humpy corners,--there should not be a single thing for
Rhoda! And Christmas was coming faster and faster.
Evelyn, too, had all manner of pretty presents laid by for other little
girls, quite strange little girls, who did not love her at all so far as
I could see, but she never said a word about my present; not even one
day when she called me into her house and opened her parlor door. She
opened it very softly, as if there were company, and she put her finger
on her lip that I should not speak.
There was company. Inside the room was filled with dolls! They sat in
rows on the sofa and on the piano, they lay in careless heaps on the
chairs and tables; blue-eyed dolls and black-eyed dolls, some that went
promptly to sleep when you laid them down, some in Japanese dresses, and
some that wore long clothes and caps like sure enough babies. We went
about solemnly, hand in hand, and looked at them all. They stared back
as if they wanted a mother, and one on the center-table, a queen of a
doll with earrings in her ears, held out her arms to come to me!
"Whom do you think they're all for?" Evelyn asked, gayly. "Guess."
I held her closer by the hand and gazed about me. _I_ was very fond of
dolls. I had never had enough. I believed that once or twice I had
mentioned the fact. I drew a long breath. Just suppose--
"They're for orphans," Evelyn cried, quickly. "You know what orphans
are, don't you, Rhoda? They are poor children who haven't any mothers or
fathers to buy them dolls! It's a very sad thing to be an orphan."