A PAIR OF RED SHOES
I awoke the next morning a changed creature from the one who had fallen
asleep in my trundle-bed. In a single hour I had awakened to the sharp
sense of contrast, to the knowledge that all ways of life were not
confined to the sordid circle in which I lived. Outside the poverty, the
ugliness, the narrow streets, rose the spiked wall of the enchanted
garden; and when I shut my eyes tight, I could see still the half-bared
elms arching against the sunset, and the old house beyond, with its
stuccoed wings and its grave white columns, which looked down on the
magnolias and laburnums just emerging from the twilight on the lower
terrace. In the midst of this garden I saw always the little girl
patiently building her houses of moss and stones, and it seemed to me
that I could hardly live through the days until I grew strong enough to
leap the barriers and play beside her in the bower of box.
"Ma," I asked, measuring myself against the red and white cloth on the
table, "does it look to you as if I were growin' up?"
The air was strong with the odour of frying bacon, and when my mother
turned to answer me, she held a smoking skillet extended like a votive
offering in her right hand. She was busy preparing breakfast for Mrs.
Cudlip, whose husband's funeral we had attended the day before, and as
usual when any charitable mission was under way, her manner to my father
and myself had taken a biting edge.
"Don't talk foolishness, Benjy," she replied, stopping to push back a
loosened wiry lock of hair; "it's time to think about growin' up when
you ain't been but two years in breeches. Here, if you're through
breakfast, I want you to step with this plate of muffins to Mrs. Cudlip.
Tell her I sent 'em an' that I hope she is bearin' up."
"That you sent 'em an' that you hope she is bearin' up," I repeated.
"That's it now. Don't forget what I told you befo' you're there. Thomas,
have you buttered that batch of muffins?"
My father handed me the plate, which was neatly covered with a
red-bordered napkin.
"Did you tell me to lay a slice of middlin' along side of 'em, Susan?"
he humbly enquired.
Without replying to him in words, my mother seized the plate from me,
and lifting the napkin, removed the offending piece of bacon, which she
replaced in the dish.
"I thought even you, Thomas, would have had mo' feelin' than to send
middlin' to a widow the day arter she has buried her husband--even a
one-legged one! Middlin' indeed! One egg an' that soft boiled, will be
as near a solid as she'll touch for a week. Keep along, Benjy, an' be
sure to say just what I told you."
I did my errand quickly, and returning, asked eagerly if I might go out
all by myself an' play for an hour. "I'll stay close in the churchyard
if you'll lemme go," I entreated.
"Run along then for a little while, but if you go out of the churchyard,
you'll get a whippin'," replied my mother.
With this threat ringing like a bell in my ears, I left the house and
walked quickly along the narrow pavement to where, across the wide
street, I discerned the white tower and belfry which had been added by a
later century to the parish church of Saint John. Overhead there was a
bright blue sky, and the October sunshine, filtering through the bronzed
network of sycamore and poplar, steeped the flat tombstones and the
crumbling brick vaults in a clear golden light. The church stood upon a
moderate elevation above the street, and I entered it now by a short
flight of steps, which led to a grassy walk that did not end at the
closed door, but continued to the brow of the hill, where a few
scattered slabs stood erect as sentinels over the river banks. For a
moment I stood among them, watching the blue haze of the opposite shore;
then turning away I rolled over on my back and lay at full length in the
periwinkle that covered the ground. From beyond the church I could hear
Uncle Methusalah, the negro caretaker, raking the dead leaves from the
graves, and here and there among the dark boles of the trees there
appeared presently thin bluish spirals of smoke. The old negro's figure
was still hidden, but as his rake stirred the smouldering piles, I could
smell the sharp sweet odour of the burning leaves. Sometimes a wren or a
sparrow fluttered in and out of the periwinkle, and once a small green
lizard glided like the shadow of a moving leaf over a tombstone. One
sleeper among them I came to regard, as I grew somewhat older, almost
with affection--not only because he was young and a soldier, but because
the tall marble slab implored me to "tread lightly upon his ashes." Not
once during the many hours when I played in the churchyard, did I forget
myself and run over the sunken grave where he lay.
The sound of the moving rake passed the church door and drew nearer, and
the grey head of Uncle Methusalah appeared suddenly from behind an ivied
tree trunk. Sitting up in the periwinkle, I watched him heap the
coloured leaves around me into a brilliant pile, and then bending over
hold a small flame close to the curling ends. The leaves, still moist
from the rain, caught slowly, and smouldered in a scented cloud under
the trees.
"Dis yer trash ain' gwine ter bu'n twel hit's smoked out," he remarked
in a querulous voice.
"Uncle Methusalah," I asked, springing up, "how old are you?"
With a leisurely movement, he dragged his rake over the walk, and then
bringing it to rest at his feet, leaned his clasped hands on the end of
it, and looked at me over the burning leaves. He wore an old, tightly
fitting army coat of Union blue, bearing tarnished gold epaulets upon
the shoulders, and around his throat a red bandanna handkerchief was
wrapped closely to keep out the "chills."
"Gaud-a-moughty, honey!" he replied, "I'se so ole dat I'se done clean
furgit ter count."
"I reckon you knew almost everybody that's buried here, didn't you?"
"Mos' un um, chile, but I ain't knowed near ez many ez my ole Marster.
He done shuck hans w'en he wuz live wid um great en small. I'se done
hyern 'im tell in my time how he shuck de han' er ole Marse Henry right
over dar in dat ar church."
"Who was ole Marse Henry?" I enquired.
"I dunno, honey, caze he died afo' my day, but he mus' hev done a
powerful heap er talkin' while he wuz 'live."
"Whom did he talk to, Uncle Methusalah?"
"Ter hisself mostly, I reckon, caze you know folks ain' got time al'ays
ter be lisen'in'. But hit wuz en dish yer church dat he stood up en ax
'em please ter gin 'im liberty er ter gin 'im deaf."
"An' which did they give him, Uncle?"
"Wall, honey, ez fur ez I recollect de story dey gun 'im bofe."
Bending over in his old blue army coat with the tarnished epaulets, he
prodded the pile of leaves, where the scented smoke hung low in a cloud.
The wind stirred softly in the grass, and a small flame ran along a bent
twig of maple to a single scarlet leaf at the end.
"Did they give 'em to him because he talked too much?" I asked.
"I ain' never hyern ner better reason, chile. Folks cyarn' stan' too
much er de gab nohow, en' dey sez dat he 'ouldn't let up, but kep' up
sech a racket dat dey couldn't git ner sleep. Den at las' ole King
George over dar in England sent de hull army clear across de water jes'
ter shet his mouf."
"An' did he shut it?"
"Dat's all er hit dat I ever hyern tell, boy, but ef'n you don' quit
axin' folks questions day in en day out, he'll send all de way over yer
agin' jes' ter shet yourn."
He went off, gathering the leaves into another pile at a little
distance, and after a moment I followed him and stood with my back
against a high brick vault.
"Is there any way, Uncle Methusalah, that you can grow up befo' yo'
time?" I asked.
"Dar 'tis agin!" exclaimed the old negro, but he added kindly enough,
"Dey tell me you kin do hit by stretchin', chile, but I ain' never seed
hit wid my eyes, en w'at I ain' seed wid my eyes I ain' set much sto'
by."
His scepticism, however, honest as it was, did not prevent my seizing
upon the faint hope he offered, and I had just begun to stretch myself
violently against the vault, when a voice speaking at my back brought my
heels suddenly to the safe earth again.
"Boy," said the voice, "do you want a dog?"
Turning quickly I found myself face to face with the princess of the
enchanted garden. She wore a fresh white coat and a furry white cap and
a pair of red shoes that danced up and down. In her hand she carried a
dirty twine string, the other end of which was tied about the neck of a
miserable grey and white mongrel puppy.
"Do you want a dog, boy?" she repeated, as proudly as if she offered a
canine prize.
The puppy was ugly, ill-bred, and dirty, but not an instant did I
hesitate in the response I made.
"Yes, I want a dog," I answered as gravely as she had spoken.
She held out the string and my fist closed tightly over it. "I found him
in the gutter," she explained, "and I gave him a plate of bread and milk
because he is so young. Grandmama wouldn't let me keep him, as I have
three others. I think it was very cruel of grandmama."
"I may keep him," I responded, "I ain't got any grandmama. I'll let him
sleep in my bed."
"You must give him a bath first," she said, "and put him by the fire to
dry. They wouldn't let me bring him into our house, but yours is such a
little one that it will hardly matter."
At this my pride dropped low. "You live in the great big house with the
high wall around the garden," I returned wistfully.
She nodded, drawing back a step or two with a quaint little air of
dignity, and twisting a tassel on her coat in and out of her fingers,
which were encased in white crocheted mittens. The only touch of colour
about her was made by her small red shoes.
"I haven't lived there long, and I remember where we came
from--way--away from here, over yonder across the river." She lifted her
hand and pointed across the brick vault to the distant blue on the
opposite shore of the James. "I liked it over there because it was the
country and we lived by ourselves, mamma and I. She taught me to knit
and I knitted a whole shawl--as big as that--for grandmama. Then papa
came and took us away, but now he has gone and left us again, and I am
glad. I hope he will never come back because he is so very bad and I
don't like him. Mamma likes him, but I don't."
"May I play with you in your garden?" I asked when she had finished;
"I'd like to play with you an' I know ever so many nice ways to play
that I made up out of my head."
She looked at me gravely and, I thought, regretfully.
"You can't because you're common," she answered. "It's a great pity. I
don't really mind it myself," she added gently, seeing my downcast face,
"I'd just every bit as lief play with you as not--a little bit--but
grandmama wouldn't--"
"But I don't want to play with your grandmama," I returned, on the point
of tears.
"Well, you might come sometimes--not very often," she said at last, with
a sympathetic touch on my sleeve, "an' you must come to the side gate
where grandmama won't see you. I'll let you in an' mamma will not mind.
But you mustn't come often," she concluded in a sterner tone, "only once
or twice, so that there won't be any danger of my growin' like you. It
would hurt grandmama dreadfully if I were ever to grow like you."
She paused a moment, and then began dancing up and down in her red shoes
over the coloured leaves. "I'd like to play--play--play all the time!"
she sang, whirling, a vivid little figure, around, the crumbling vault.
The next minute she caught up the puppy in her arms and hugged him
passionately before she turned away.
"His name is Samuel!" she called back over her shoulder as she ran out
of the churchyard.
When she had gone down the short flight of steps and into the wide
street, I tucked Samuel under my arm, and lugged him, not without inward
misgivings, into the kitchen, where my mother stood at the
ironing-board, with one foot on the rocker of Jessy's cradle.
"Ma," I began in a faltering and yet stubborn voice, "I've got a pup."
My mother's foot left the rocker, and she turned squarely on me, with a
smoking iron half poised above the garment she had just sprinkled on the
board.
"Whar did he come from?" she demanded, and moistened the iron with the
thumb of her free hand.
"I got him in the churchyard. His name is Samuel."
For a moment she stared at the two of us in a stony silence. Then her
face twitched as if with pain, the perplexed and anxious look appeared
in her eyes, and her mouth relaxed.
"Wall, he's ugly enough to be named Satan," she said, "but I reckon if
you want to you may put him in a box in the back yard. Give him that
cold sheep's liver in the safe and then you come straight in and comb
yo' head. It looks for all the world like a tousled straw stack."
All the afternoon I sat in our little sitting-room, and faithful to my
promise, shammed sickness, while Samuel lay in his box in the back yard
and howled.
"I'll have that dog taken up the first thing in the mornin'," declared
my mother furiously, as she cleared the supper table.
"I reckon he's lonely out thar, Susan," urged my father, observing my
trembling mouth, and eager, as usual, to put a pacific face on the
moment.
"Lonely, indeed! I'm lonely in here, but I don't set up a howlin'.
Thar're mighty few folks, be they dogs or humans, that get all the
company they want in life."
Once I crept out into the darkness, and hugging Samuel around his dirty
stomach besought him, with tears, to endure his lot in silence; but
though he licked my face rapturously at the time, I had no sooner
entered the house than his voice was lifted anew.
"To think of po' Mrs. Cudlip havin' to mourn in all that noise,"
commented my mother, as I undressed and got into my trundle-bed.
My pillow was quite moist before I went to sleep, while my mother's loud
threats against Samuel sounded from the other side of the room with each
separate garment that she laid on the chair at the foot of her bed. In
sheer desperation at last I pulled the cover over my ears in an effort
to shut out her thin, querulous tones. At the instant I felt that I was
wicked enough to wish that I had been born without any mother, and I
asked myself how _she_ would like it if I raised as great a fuss about
baby Jessy's crying as she did about Samuel's--who didn't make one-half
the noise.
Here the light went out, and I fell asleep, to awaken an hour or two
later because of the candle flash in my eyes. In the centre of the room
my mother was standing in her grey dressing-gown, with a shawl over her
head and the rapturously wriggling body of Samuel in her arms. Too
amazed to utter an exclamation, I watched her silently while she made a
bed with an old flannel petticoat before the waning fire. Then I saw her
bend over and pat the head of the puppy with her knotted hand before she
crept noiselessly back to bed.
At this day I see her figure as distinctly as I saw it that instant by
the candle flame--her soiled grey wrapper clutched over her flat bosom;
her sallow, sharp-featured face, with bluish hollows in the temples over
which her sparse hair strayed in locks; her thin, stooping shoulders
under the knitted shawl; her sad, flint-coloured eyes, holding always
that anxious look as if she were trying to remember some important thing
which she had half forgotten.
So she appeared to my startled gaze for a single minute. Then the light
went out, she faded into the darkness, and I fell asleep.