"MR. CRAZYMAN, DO YOU WANT SOME CHERRIES?"
More than two years had passed away since the terrible March night when
the strange woman was frozen to death in the Tramp House, and her
history was still shrouded in mystery. Not a word had been heard
concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the
people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and
every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it
by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful
child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and
sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was
buried.
As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called
the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years
later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was
said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she
seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in
children who have always associated with people much older than
themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In
stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge.
'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and
took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing
except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for
the child's maintenance.
There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support
the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from
appearances, unless, indeed--and then she told what old Peterkin had
said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was
called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur.
'And if so,' she added, 'you'd better let Arthur take care of her, and
save your money for your own children,'
To this Frank never replied. He knew better than old Peterkin that Jerry
was like the Tracys, or, rather, like his brother, and that it was not
so much in the features as in the expression and certain movements of
the head and hands, and tones of the voice when she was very much in
earnest, and raised it to a higher pitch than usual. She could speak
English very well now, and sometimes, when Frank, who was a frequent
visitor at the cottage, sat watching her at her play, and listening to
her as she talked to herself, as was her constant habit, he could have
shut his eyes and sworn it was his brother's voice calling to him from
the hay-loft or apple tree where they had played together when boys.
Jerry's favorite amusement when alone was to make believe that either
herself, or a figure she had made out of a shawl, was a sick woman,
lying on a settee which she converted into a bed. Sometimes she was the
nurse and took care of the sick woman to whom she always spoke in
German, bending fondly over her, and occasionally holding up before her
a doll which Mrs. St. Claire had given her, and which she played was the
woman's baby. Then she would be the sick woman herself, and trying on
the broad frilled cap which had been found in the trunk, would slip
under the covering, and laying her head upon the pillow, go through with
all the actions of some one very sick, occasionally hugging to her bosom
and kissing the doll.
Once she enacted the pantomime of dying. Folding her hands together and
closing her eyes, her lips moved as if in prayer, for a moment, then
stretching out her feet she lay perfectly motionless, with a set
expression in the little face which looked so comical under the broad
frilled cap. Then, as if it had occurred to her that action was
necessary from some one, she exchanged places with the lay figure, and
tying the cap upon its head, tucked it carefully in the bed, by which
she knelt, and covering her face with her hands imitated perfectly the
sobs and moans of a middle-aged person, mingled occasionally with the
clearer, softer notes of a child's crying.
The first time Frank witnessed this piece of acting was on a Saturday
afternoon, when he had come to the cottage as usual to pay his weekly
due. Both Mrs. Crawford and Harold were gone, but knowing they would
soon return, as it was not their habit to leave Jerry long alone he sat
down to wait, while she went back to the corner in the kitchen, which
she used as her play-house.
'Somebody is sick and I am taking care of her,' she said to Mr. Tracy,
who watched her through the pantomime of the death scene with a feeling,
when it was over, that he had seen Gretchen die.
There was not a shadow of doubt in his mind that the sick woman was
Gretchen, the nurse the stranger found in the Tramp House, and the doll
baby the little girl upon whose memory that scene had been indelibly
stamped, and who, with her wonderful powers of imitation, could rehearse
it in every particular. To herself she always spoke in German, which no
one could understand sufficiently to make out what she meant. Once Mr.
St. Claire suggested to Frank that he take her to his brother, to whom
German was as natural as English, and who might be able to learn
something of her antecedents. And Frank had answered that he would do
so, knowing the while that nothing could tempt him to bring her and his
brother together until all the recollections of her babyhood, if she had
any, were obliterated, and she had in part forgotten her own language.
His first step in evil doing had to be followed by others until he was
so far committed that he could not retrace his steps, and two shadows
were with him constantly now, one always reproaching him for what he had
done, and the other telling him it was now too late to turn back.
He was very fond of Jerry, and on the Saturday afternoon when he sat
watching her strange play, noticing how graceful was every movement, and
how lovely the constantly varying expression of her face--from concern
and anxiety when she was the nurse to distress and pain and then
resignation and quietude in death when she took the role of the sick
woman--he felt himself moved by some mighty influence to right her at
once and put her in her proper place.
'It is more than I can bear. I can't even look Dolly straight in the
eye,' he said to his evil shadow, which answered back.
'You know nothing sure. Will you give up your prospects for a photograph
and a likeness which may be accidental?'
So his conscience was smothered again; but he would question the child,
and after her play was over he called her to him and taking her in his
lap, kissed the little grave face upon which the shadow of the scene she
had been enacting had left its impress.
'Jerry,' he said, 'that lady who just died in the bed with the cap on
was your mamma, was it not?'
''Ess,' was Jerry's reply, for she still adhered to her first
pronunciation of the word.
'And the other was the nurse?'
''Ess,' Jerry said again; 'Mah-nee.'
This was puzzling, for he had always supposed that by 'mah-nee' the
child meant 'mam-ma;' but he went on:
'Try to understand me, Jerry; try to think away back before you came in
the ship.'
''Ess, I vill,' she said, with a very wise look on her face, while Mr.
Tracy continued:
'Had you a papa? Was he there with you?'
'_Nein_,' was the prompt reply, and Mr. Tracy continued:
'Where did your mamma live? Was it in Wiesbaden?'
He knew he did not pronounce the word right, and was surprised at the
sudden lighting up of the child's eyes as she tried to repeat the name.
'Oo-oo-ee,' she began, with a tremendous effort, but the W mastered her,
and she gave it up with a shake of her head.
'I not say dat oo-oo-ee,' she said, and he put the question in another
form:
'Where did your mamma die?'
'Tamp House; f'oze to deff,' was now the ready answer, a natural one,
too, for she had been taught by Harold that such was the case, and had
often gone with him to the house where he found her, and where the old
table still stood against the wall.
No one picnicked there now, for the place was said to be haunted, and
the superstitious ones told each other that on stormy nights, when the
wild winds were abroad, lights had been seen in the Tramp House, where a
pale-faced woman, with her long, black hair streaming down her back,
stood in the door-way, shrieking for help, while the cry of a child
mingled with her call. But Harold shared none of these fancies. He was
not afraid of the building, and often went there with Jerry, and sitting
with her on the table, told her again and again how he had found her
mother that wintry morning, and how funny she herself had looked in the
old carpet-bag, and so it is not strange that when Mr. Tracy asked her
where her mother died, she should answer, 'In the Tramp House,' although
she had acted a pantomime whose reality must have taken place under very
different circumstances.
'Of course your mother died in the Tramp House, and I have nothing with
which to reproach myself. I am altogether too morbid on the subject,'
Frank said, and he had decided that he was a pretty good sort of fellow,
after all, when at last Mrs. Crawford came in and he paid her for
Jerry's board.
It was a part of Frank's plan to save the money out of his own personal
expenses, so he smoked two cigars less each day and went without claret
for dinner, except on Sunday, and never touched champagne, and wore his
hats and coats until his wife said they were shabby and insisted upon
new ones. In this way he saved more than three dollars a week, but the
overplus was laid aside for the time when Jerry must necessarily cost
him more because she would be older. In some respects he was doing his
duty by the child, who, next to Harold and Mrs. Crawford, whom she
called grandma, loved him better than any one else. She always ran to
meet him when he came, and sometimes, when he went away, accompanied him
down the lane, holding his hand and asking him numberless questions
about Tracy Park and about his little girl, and why she never came to
see her.
Frank could not tell Jerry of his wife's bitter prejudice against her,
and that this was the reason why Maude had never been to the cottage or
Jerry to the park. But if Jerry had not visited it in person, she was
greatly interested in the handsome house and grounds, and the lovely
rooms where the crazy man lived. This was Harold's designation of Mr.
Arthur--the crazy man--and perhaps of all the things at Tracy Park,
Jerry was most desirous to see him and his rooms. Harold, who, on one of
the rare occasions when Arthur was out to dine, had been sent to the
house on an errand, had gone with Jack into these rooms, which he
described minutely to his grandmother and Jerry, dwelling longest upon
the beautiful picture in the window. 'Gretchen, he calls it,' he said;
and then Jerry, who was listening intently, gave a sudden upward and
sidewise turn to her Lead, just as she had done when Mr. Tracy spoke to
her of Wiesbaden.
'Detchen,' she repeated, with a little hesitancy. 'Vat the name vas? Say
again.'
He said it again, and over the child's face there came a puzzled
expression, as if she were trying to recall something which baffled all
her efforts. But she did not forget the name, and that evening Mrs.
Crawford heard her singing to herself,
'Detchen, Detchen, who are you? Detchen, Detchen, where are you?' and
she noticed that the doll baby with which Jerry played the most was ever
after called 'Detchen,' instead of Maude, as it had been christened when
first given to her.
Jerry had seen Maude Tracy many times and had admired her greatly, with
her pretty white dresses and costly embroideries; and once, at church,
when Maude passed near where she was standing, she stood back as far as
possible out of the way and held her plain gingham dress aside, as if
neither it nor herself had any right to come in close contact with so
superior a being. Of the house in the park she knew nothing, except what
Harold had told her, and that it was a place to be admired and gazed at
breathlessly at a respectful distance. She had never been there since
the day of the funeral But she was going at last with Harold, who had
permission to gather cherries for his grandmother from some of the many
trees which grew upon the place.
It was a hot morning in July, and the air seemed thunderous and heavy
when she set off on what to her was as important an expedition as is a
trip to Europe to an older person. She had wanted to wear her pink
gingham dress, the one kept sacred for Sunday, and had even hoped that
she might be allowed to display her best straw hat with the blue ribbons
and cluster of apple blossoms. She had no doubt that she should go into
the house and see the crazy man, and Mrs. Tracy, who she had heard wore
silk stockings every day, and she wished to be suitably attired for such
honor.
But Mrs. Crawford dispelled her air castles by telling her that she was
only to go into the side yard where the cherry trees were, and that she
must be very quiet, so as not to disturb Mr. Arthur, whose windows
looked that way. To wear her pink dress was impossible, as she would get
it stained with the juice of the cherries, while the best hat was not
for a moment to be thought of.
So Jerry submitted to the dark calico frock and high-necked,
long-sleeved apron which Mrs. Crawford thought safe and proper for her
to wear on a cherry expedition. A clean, white sun-bonnet with a wide
cape covered her head and concealed her face when she started from the
cottage, with her quart tin pail on her arm; but no sooner was she on
the path which led to the park that the obnoxious bonnet was removed and
was swinging on her arm, while she was admiring the shadow which, her
long, bright curls made in the sunshine as she shook her head from side
to side.
To tell the truth, our little Jerry was rather vain. Passionately fond
of pictures and flowers, and quick to detect everything beautiful both
in art and nature, she knew that the little face she sometimes saw in
Mrs. Crawford's old-fashioned mirror was pretty, and after the day when
Dick St. Claire told her that her hair was 'awful handsome,' she had
felt a pride in it and in herself, which all Mrs. Crawford's
asseverations that 'Handsome is that handsome does' could not destroy.
Maude Tracy's hair was black and straight, and here she felt she had the
advantage over her.
'I do hope we shall see her,' she said to Harold, as she danced along,
swaying her bonnet and shaking her hair. 'Do you think we shall?'
Harold thought it doubtful, and, even if they did, it was not likely she
would speak to them, he said.
'Why not?' Jerry asked, and he replied:
'Oh, I suppose they feel big because they are rich and we are poor.'
'But why ain't I rich, too? Why don't I live at the park like Maude, and
wear low-necked aprons instead of this old high one?' Jerry asked; but
Harold could not tell, and only said:
'Would you rather live at the park than with me?'
'No,' Jerry answered, promptly, stopping short and digging her heel into
the soft loam of the path. 'I would not stay anywhere without you; and
when I live at the park you will live there, too, and have codfish and
tatoe every day.'
Strangely enough this was Harold's favorite dish, and, as it was not his
grandmother's, his taste was not gratified in that respect as often as
he would have liked, hence Jerry's promise of the luxury.
Just here, at a sudden turn in the path, they came upon Jack and Maude
Tracy playing on a bench under a tree, while the nurse was at a distance
either reading or asleep. Harold would have passed them at once, as he
knew his grandmother was in a hurry for the cherries, but Jerry had no
such intention.
Stopping short in front of Maude, she inspected her carefully, from her
white dress and bright plaid sash to the string of amber beads around
her neck; while, side by side with this picture, she saw herself in her
dark calico frock and high-necked apron, with her sun-bonnet and tin
pail on her arm. Jerry did not like the contrast, and a lump began to
swell in her throat. Then, as a happy thought struck her, she said, with
something like exultation in her tone:
'My hair curls and yours don't.'
'No,' Maude answered, slowly--'no it don't curl, but it's black, and
yours is yaller.'
This was a set back to Jerry, who hated everything yellow, and who had
never dreamed of applying that color to her hair. She only knew that
Dick St. Claire had called it pretty, but in this new light thrown upon
it all her pride vanished, for she recognized like a flash that it might
be 'yaller,' and stood there silent and vanquished, until Maude, who in
turn had been regarding her attentively, said to her:
'Ain't you Jerry Crawford?'
That broke the ice of reserve, and the two little girls were soon
talking together familiarly, and Jerry was asking Maude if she wore
beads and her best clothes every day.
'Phoo! These ain't my best clothes. I have one gown all brawdery and
lace,' was Maude's reply, while Jack, who was standing near, chimed in:
'My father's got lots of money, and so has Uncle Arthur, and when he
dies we are going to have it; Tom says so.'
Slowly the shadows gathered on Jerry's brow as she said, sadly;
'I wish I had an Uncle Arthur, and could wear beads and a sash every
day' Then, as she looked at Harold, her face brightened immediately and
she exclaimed.
'But I have Harold and a grandma, and you hain't,' and running up to
Harold, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him lovingly, as
if to make amends for the momentary repining.
'We must go now,' Harold said, and taking her hand in his, he led her
away toward the house, which impressed her with so much awe that as she
drew near to it, she held her breath and walked on tiptoe, as if afraid
that any sound from her would be sacrilege in that aristocratic
atmosphere.
'Oh, isn't it grand, Harold?' Isn't it grand!' she kept repeating, with
her mouth full of cherries, after they had reached the trees on which
the ripe, red fruit hung so thickly. 'Do you s'pose we shall see the
crazy man?' she asked, and Harold replied:
'I don't know. I guess not, unless he comes to the window. Those are his
rooms, and that window which looks so ugly outside, is the one with the
picture in it,' and he pointed to the south wing, most of the windows of
which were open, while against one a long ladder was standing.
It had been left there by a workman who had been up on it to fix the
hinge of a blind, and who had gone to the village in quest of something
he needed, Jerry saw the ladder and its close proximity to the open
window, and she thought to herself.
'I mean to fill my pail with cherries, and go up that ladder and take
them to him, I wonder if he would bite me?'
Suiting the action to the word she stopped eating; and began to pick
from the lower limbs as rapidly as possible until her pail was full.
'Pour them into the basket,' Harold called to her from the top of the
tree, but Jerry did not heed him. She had seen the tall figure of a man
pass before the window, and a pale, thin face had for a moment, looked
out, apparently to discover whence the talking came.
'I'm going to take the crazyman some cherries,' she tried, and almost
before Harold could protest, she was half way up the ladder, which she
climbed with the agility of a little cat.
'Jerry, Jerry! What are you doing!' Harold exclaimed, 'Come back this
minute. He doesn't like children; he tried to throw me over the banister
once; he will knock you off the ladder; oh, Jerry!' and Harold's voice
was almost a sob as he watched the girl going up round after round until
the top was reached, and she stood with her flushed, eager face, just on
a level with the window so that by standing on tiptoe, she could look
into the room.
It was Arthur's bedroom, and there was no one in it, but she heard the
sound of footsteps in the adjoining apartment, and raising herself as
far as possible, and holding up her pail, she called out in a clear,
shrill voice;
'Mr. Crazyman, Mr. Crazyman, don't you want some cherries?'