MASTER LAURENCE COY, aged nine, came down the shady sidewalk one summer
afternoon, in a magnificence that escaped observation. To the careless
eye he was only a little boy pretending to be a drummer; for although he
had no drum and his clenched fingers held nothing, it was plain that he
drummed. But to be merely a drummer was far below the scope of his
intentions; he chose to employ his imagination on the grand scale, and
to his own way of thinking, he was a full drum-corps, marching between
lines of tumultuous spectators. And as he came gloriously down the
shouting lane of citizenry he pranced now and then; whereupon, without
interrupting his drumming, he said sharply: “Whoa there, Jenny! Git up
there, Gray!” This drum-corps was mounted.
He vocalized the bass drums and the snare drums in a staccato chant,
using his deepest voice for the bass, and tones pitched higher, and in
truth somewhat painfully nasal, for the snare; meanwhile he swung his
right arm ponderously on the booms, then resumed the rapid employment of
both imaginary sticks for the rattle of the tenor drums. Thus he
projected and sketched, all at the same time, every detail of this great
affair.
“_Boom!_” he said. “_Boom! Boomety, boomety, boom!_” Then he added:
“Boom! Boom!
Boom bought a rat trap,
Bigger than a bat trap,
Bigger than a _cat_ trap!
Boom! Boom!
Boomety, boomety, boom!”
So splendid was the effect upon himself of all this pomp and realism,
that the sidewalk no longer contented him. Vociferating for the moment
as a bugle, the drum-corps swung to the right and debouched to the
middle of the street, where such a martial body was more in place, and
thenceforth marched, resounding. “_Boom! Boom! Boomety, boomety, boom!_”
There followed repetitions of the chant concerning the celebrated trap
purchased by Mr. Boom.
A little girl leaned upon a gate that gave admission to a pleasant yard,
shaded by a vast old walnut tree, and from this point she watched the
approach of the procession. She was a homely little girl, as people say;
but a student of small affairs would have guessed that she had been
neatly dressed earlier in the day; and even now it could be seen that
the submergence of her right stocking into its own folds was not due to
any lack of proper equipment, for equipment was visible. She stood
behind the gate, eagerly looking forth, and by a coincidence not unusual
in that neighbourhood, a beautiful little girl was at the gate of the
next yard, some eighty or a hundred feet beyond; but this second little
girl’s unspotted attire had suffered no disarrangements, and her face
was clean; even her hands were miraculously clean.
When the sonorous Laurence came nearer, the homely little girl almost
disappeared behind her gate; her arms rested upon the top of it, and
only her hair, forehead and eyes could be seen above her arms. The eyes,
however, had become exceedingly sharp, and they shone with an elfin
mirth that grew even brighter as the drum-corps drew closer.
“_Boom!_” said Laurence. “_Boomety, boomety, boom!_” And again he gave
an account of Mr. Boom’s purchase; but he condescended to offer no sign
betokening a consciousness of the two spectators at their gates. He went
by the first of these in high military order, executing a manœuvre as he
went—again briefly becoming a trumpeter, swinging to the right, then to
the left, and so forward once more, as he resumed the drums. “_Boom!
Boom! Boomety, boomety, boom!_
“Boom! Boom!
Boom bought a rat trap,
Bigger than a bat trap——”
But here he was profoundly annoyed by the conduct of the homely little
girl. She darted out of her gate, ran to the middle of the street and
pranced behind him in outrageous mockery. In a thin and straining voice,
altogether inappropriate for the representation of a drum-corps, she
piped:
“Boom bought a rat trap,
Bigger than a bat trap,
Bigger than a _cat_ trap!
Boom!”
Laurence turned upon her. “For heavenses’ sakes!” he said. “My
good-_nuss_, Daisy Mears, haven’t you got _any_ sense? For heavenses’
sakes, pull up your ole stockin’s!”
“I won’t,” Miss Mears returned with instant resentment. “I guess you
can’t order _me_ around, Mister Laurence Coy! I doe’ know who ever
’pointed you to be _my_ boss! Besides, only one of ’em’s fell down.”
“Well, pull _it_ up, then,” he said crossly. “Or else don’t come hangin’
around me!”
“Oh, you don’t say so!” she retorted. “Thank you ever so kinely an’
p’litely for your complimunts just the same, but I pull up my stockin’s
whenever _I_ want to, not when every person I happen to meet in the
street goes an’ takes an’ tells me to!”
“Well, you better!” said Laurence, at a venture, for he was not
absolutely certain of her meaning. “Anyway, you needn’t hang around _me_
unless——”
He stopped, for Daisy Mears had begun, not to hang around him indeed,
but to dance around him, and indecorously at that! She levelled her
small, grimy right forefinger at him, appearing to whet it with her left
forefinger, which was equally begrimed, and at the same time she
capered, squealing triumphantly: “Ya-ay, Laurunce! Showin’ off! Showin’
off ’cause Elsie Threamer’s lookin’ at you! Showin’ off for Elsie!
Showin’ off for Elsie!”
“I am not!” Laurence made loud denial, but he coloured and glanced
wretchedly at the other little girl, who had remained at her own gate.
Her lovely, shadowy eyes appeared to be unaware of the dispute in the
street; and, crooning almost soundlessly to herself, she had that
perfect detachment from environment and events so often observed in
Beauties.
“I am _not_!” Laurence repeated. “If I was goin’ to show off before
anybody, I wouldn’t show off before Elsie!” And on the spur of the
moment, to prove what he said, he made a startling misrepresentation of
his sentiments. “I hate her!” he shouted.
But his tormentress was accustomed to deal with wild allegations of this
sort, and to discount them. “Ya-ay, Laur-runce!” she cried. “Showin’ off
for Elsie! Yes, you were! Showin’ off for Elsie! Show-win’ off for
Ell-_see_!” And circling round him in a witch dance, she repeated the
taunt till it nauseated him, his denials became agonized and his
assertions that he hated Elsie, uproarious. Thus within the space of
five minutes a pompous drum-corps passed from a state of discipline to
one of demoralization.
“Children! Children!” a woman’s voice called from an open window. “Get
out of the street, children. Look out for the automobiles!”
Thereupon the witch dance stopped, and the taunting likewise; Daisy
returned to the sidewalk with a thoughtful air; and Master Coy followed
her, looking rather morbid, but saying nothing. They leaned against the
hedge near where the indifferent and dreamy Elsie stood at her gate; and
for some time none of the three spoke: they had one of those apparently
inexplicable silences that come upon children. It was Laurence who broke
it, with a muttering.
“Anyways, I wasn’t,” he said, seemingly to himself.
“You was, too,” Daisy said quietly.
“Well, how you goin’ to prove it?” Laurence inquired, speaking louder.
“If it’s so, then you got to prove it. You either got to prove it or
else you got to take it back.”
“I don’t either haf to!”
“You do too haf to!”
“All right, then,” said Daisy. “I’ll prove it by Elsie. He was, wasn’t
he, Elsie?”
“What?” Elsie inquired vaguely.
“Wasn’t Laurence showin’ off out in the street? He _was_ showin’ off,
wasn’t he?”
“I was not!”
“You was, too! Wasn’t he, Elsie?”
“I doe’ know,” Elsie said, paying no attention to them; for she was
observing a little group that had made its appearance at the next
corner, a few moments earlier, and now came slowly along the sidewalk in
the mottled shade of the maple trees. “Oh, look!” she cried. “Just look
at that _darling_ little coloured baby!”
Her companions turned to look where she pointed, and Daisy instantly
became as ecstasized as Elsie. “Oh, _look_ at the precious, darling,
little _thing_!” she shouted.
As for Laurence, what he saw roused little enthusiasm within his bosom;
on the contrary, he immediately felt a slight but distinct antipathy;
and he wondered as, upon occasion he had wondered before, why in the
world little girls of his own age, and even younger girls, as well as
older girls and grown-up women, so often fell into a gesticular and
vocal commotion at the sight of a baby. However, he took some interest
in the dog accompanying this one.
The baby sat in a small and rickety wooden wagon which appeared to be of
home manufacture, since it was merely a brown box on small wheels or
disks of solid wood. A long handle projected behind as a propelling
device, but the course of the vehicle was continually a little devious,
on account of a most visible eccentricity of the front wheels. The
infant was comfortable among cushions, however, and over its head a
little, ancient, fringed red parasol had been ingeniously erected,
probably as much for style as for shade. Moreover, this note of fashion
was again touched in the baby’s ribboned cap, and in the embroidered
scarf that served as a coverlet, and, though plainly a relic, still
exhibited a lively colour.
An unevenly ponderous old coloured woman pushed the wagon; but her
complexion was incomparably darker than the occupant’s, which was an
extremely light tan, so that no one would have guessed them to be as
nearly related as they really were. And although this deeply coloured
woman’s weight was such a burden to her that she advanced at a slow,
varying gait, more a sag-and-shuffle than a walk, she was of an
exuberantly gracious aspect. In fact, her expression was so benevolent
that it was more than striking; it was surprising. Her eyes, rolling and
curiously streaked, were visibly moist with kindness; her mouth was
murmurous in loving phrases addressed sometimes to life generally,
sometimes to the baby, and sometimes to the dog accompanying the
cortège.
This dog was one of those dogs who feel themselves out of place in the
street, and show that they do by the guardedness of their expressions.
Their relief when they reach an alley is evident; then they relax at
once; the look of strain vanishes from their eyes, and their nerves
permit them once more to sit when they massage their ears. They seem
intended to be white, but the intention appears to have become early
enfeebled, leaving them the colour of a pale oyster;—and they do not
wear collars, these dogs. A collar upon one of them would alter his
status disturbingly, and he would understand that, and feel confused and
troubled. In a word, even when these dogs are seen in an aristocratic
environment, for some straying moment, they are dogs instantly
recognizable as belonging to coloured persons.
This one was valued highly by his owners; at least that was implied by
what the benevolent old woman said to him as they moved slowly along the
sidewalk toward the three children at Elsie Threamer’s gate.
“Hossifer,” she said, addressing the dog, “Hossifer, I b’lieve my soul
you the fines’ dog in a worl’! I feel the lovin’es’ to you I ever feel
any dog. You wuff fo’, fi’ hunnud dolluhs, Hossifer. You wuff fousan’
dolluhs; yes, you is! You a lovin’ dog, Hossifer!” Then she spoke to the
baby, but affection and happiness almost overcame her coherence.
“Dah-li-dah-li-dah-li-deedums!” she said. “Oh, but you the lovin’,
lovin’, lovin’ baby, honey! You is my swee’, swee’, li’l dee-dee-do! Oh,
oh, oh, bless Lawd, ain’ it a fine day! Fine day fer my honey lovin’
baby! Fine day f’um lovin’ heaven! Oh, oh, oh, I’m a-happy! Swee’ lovin’
livin’, lem me sing! _Oh_, lem me _sing_!”
She sang, and so loudly that she astonished the children; whereupon,
observing their open mouths and earnestly staring eyes, she halted near
them and laughed.
“Why all you look at me so funny?” she inquired hilariously. “Li’l whi’
boy, what fer you open you’ mouf at me, honey?”
“I didn’t,” Laurence said.
“Yes’m, indeed you did, honey,” she gaily insisted. “You all free did.
Open you’ moufs and look so funny at me—make me laugh an’ holler!” And
with unconventional vivacity she whooped and cackled strangely.
Finding her thus so vociferously amiable, Daisy felt encouraged to
approach the wagon; and bending down over it, she poked the mulatto baby
repeatedly in an affectionate manner. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I do think
this is the darlingest baby!”
“Ain’ it!” the coloured woman cried. “Ain’ it! Yes’m, you say what’s
_so_! Ain’ it!”
“Does it belong to you?” Daisy inquired.
“Yes’m, indeed do! I’m baby’ grammaw. Baby my li’l lovin’ gran’chile.”
It was plain that all three children thought the statement remarkable;
they repeatedly looked from the light tan grandchild to the dark brown
grandmother and back again, while Daisy, in particular, had an air of
doubt. “Are you _sure_?” she asked. “Are you _sure_ you’re its gran’ma?”
“Yes’m indeed!”
“Honest?”
“Yes’m indeed!”
“Well——” Daisy began, and was about to mention the grounds of her
doubt; but tact prevailed with her, and she asked a question instead.
“What’s its name?”
“Name Willamilla.”
“What?”
“Name Willamilla.”
“Willamilla?” said Daisy. “I never heard it before, but it’s a right
pretty name.”
“Yes’m indeed!” the coloured woman agreed enthusiastically. “Willamilla
lovin’, happy, _gran’_ name!”
“What’s the dog’s name?” Laurence asked.
“Hossifer.”
Laurence frowned importantly. “Is he full-blooded?” he inquired.
“Is he who?”
“I guess he isn’t very full-blooded,” Laurence said. “Will he bite?”
“Hossifer?” she said. “Hossifer, he a mighty lovin’ dog! Bite? He ain’
bite nobody. Hossifer, he a lovin’-hearted dog.”
Elsie had come out of her gate, and she bent over the wagon with Daisy.
“Oh, my!” she said wistfully. “I do wish we could have this baby to play
with.”
“Couldn’t we?” Daisy asked of the baby’s grandmother. “Would you be
willing to sell it to us?”
“No’m,” the coloured woman replied, though she manifested no surprise at
the question. “No’m; my son-’law, he wouldn’ lem me sell no Willamilla.”
“Well, would you give it to us, then?”
“No’m. Can’ give Willamilla ’way.”
“Oh, my!” Daisy exclaimed. “I do wish we could have this baby to play
with awhile, anyway.”
The woman appeared to consider this, and her processes of considering it
interested the children. Her streaked eyes were unusually large and
protuberant; she closed them, letting the cumbrous lids roll slowly down
over them, and she swayed alarmingly as she did this, almost losing her
balance, but she recovered herself, opened her eyes widely, and said:
“How long you want play with Willamilla, honey?”
“Oh!” Daisy cried. “Will you let us? Oh, all afternoon!”
“Listen me,” said Willamilla’s grandmother. “I got errand I love to go
on. Wagon push ri’ heavy, too. I leave Willamilla with you lovin’ li’l
whi’ chillun, an’ come back free o’clock.”
“Oh, lovely!” Daisy and Elsie both shouted.
“Free o’clock,” said the coloured woman.
“That’ll give us _lots_ o’ time,” said Elsie. “Maybe almost an hour!”
The woman took a parcel from the wagon; it was wrapped in an old
newspaper, and its shape was the shape of a bottle, though not that of
an infant’s milk-bottle. Also, the cork was not quite secure, and the
dampened paper about the neck of this bottle gave forth a faint odour of
sweet spirits of niter mingled with the spicy fragrance of a decoction
from juniper, but naturally neither the odour nor the shape of the
parcel meant anything to the children. It meant a great, great deal to
Willamilla’s grandma, however; and her lovingness visibly increased as
she took the parcel in her arms.
“I’m go’ take this nice loaf o’ bread to some po’ ole sick folks whut
live up the alley ovuh yonnuh,” she said. “Hossifer he go’ stay with
Willamilla an’ li’l wagon.” She moved away, but paused to speak to
Hossifer, who followed her. “Hossifer, you the lovin’est dog in a wide
worl’, but you go on back, honey!” She petted him, then waved him away.
“Go on back, Hossifer!” And Hossifer returned to the wagon, while she
crossed the street toward the mouth of an alley.
The children stared after her, being even more interested just then in
her peculiar progress than they were in their extraordinary new
plaything. When the coloured woman reached a point about half way across
the street, she found a difficulty in getting forward; her feet bore her
slowly sidewise for some paces; she seemed to wander and waver; then,
with an effort at concentration, she appeared to see a new path before
her, followed it, and passed from sight down the alley.
Behind her she left a strongly favourable impression. Never had Daisy
and Elsie met an adult more sympathetic to their wishes or one more
easily persuaded than this obliging woman, and they turned to the baby
with a pleasure in which there was mingled a slight surprise. They began
to shout endearing words at Willamilla immediately, however, and even
Master Coy looked upon the infant with a somewhat friendly eye, for he
was warmed toward it by a sense of temporary proprietorship, and also by
a feeling of congeniality, due to a supposition of his in regard to
Willamilla’s sex. But of course Laurence’s greater interest was in
Hossifer, though the latter’s manner was not encouraging. Hossifer’s
brow became furrowed with lines of suspicion; he withdrew to a distance
of a dozen yards or so, and made a gesture indicating that he was about
to sit down, but upon Laurence’s approaching him, he checked the
impulse, and moved farther away, muttering internally.
“Good doggie!” Laurence said. “_I_ won’t hurt you. Hyuh, Hossifer! Hyuh,
Hossifer!”
Hossifer’s mutterings became more audible, his brow more furrowed, and
his eyes more undecided. Thus by every means he sought to make plain
that he might adopt any course of action whatever, that he but awaited
the decisive impulse, would act as it impelled, and declined
responsibility for what he should happen to do on the spur of the
moment. Laurence made a second effort to gain his confidence, but after
failing conspicuously he thought best to return to Willamilla and the
ladies.
“My goodness!” he said. “What on earth you doin’ to that baby?”
Chattering in the busiest and most important way, they had taken
Willamilla from the wagon and had settled which one was to have the
“first turn.” This fell to Daisy, and holding Willamilla in her arms
rather laboriously—for Willamilla was fourteen months old and fat—she
began to walk up and down, crooning something she no doubt believed to
be a lullaby.
“It’s my turn,” Elsie said. “I’ve counted a hunderd.”
“No fair!” Daisy protested at once. “You counted too fast.” And she
continued to pace the sidewalk with Willamilla while Elsie walked beside
her, insisting upon a rightful claim.
“Here!” Laurence said, coming up to them. “Listen! You’re holdin’ him
all sprawled out and everything—you better put him back in the wagon. I
bet if you hold him that way much longer you’ll spoil somep’m in him.”
“_Him?_” Both of his fair friends shouted; and they stared at Laurence
with widening eyes. “Well, I declare!” Elsie said pettishly. “Haven’t
you even got sense enough to know it’s a girl, Laurence Coy?”
“It is not!”
“It is, too!” they both returned.
“Listen here!” said Laurence. “Look at his name! I guess that settles
it, don’t it?”
“It settles it he’s a girl,” Daisy cried. “I bet you don’t even know
what her name is.”
“Oh, I don’t?”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Willie Miller.”
“What?”
“Willie Miller!” Laurence said. “That’s what his own gran’mother said
his name was. She said his name’s Willie Miller.”
Upon this the others shouted in derision; and with the greatest
vehemence they told him over and over that Willamilla’s name was
Willamilla, that Willamilla was a girl’s name, that Willamilla was
consequently a girl, that she was a girl anyhow, no matter what her name
was, but that her name actually was Willamilla, as her own grandmother
had informed them. Grandmothers, Daisy and Elsie explained pityingly,
are supposed to know the names of their own grandchildren.
Laurence resisted all this information as well as he was able, setting
forth his own convictions in the matter, and continuing his argument
while they continued theirs, but finally, in desperation, he proposed a
compromise.
“Go on an’ _call_ him Willamilla,” he said bitterly, “—if you got to!
_I_ doe’ care if you haven’t got any more sense’n to call him Willamilla
when his real name’s Willie Miller an’ his own gran’mother says so!
_I_’m goin’ to call him Willie Miller till I die; only for heavenses’
sake, hush up!”
The ladies declined to do as he suggested; whereupon he withdrew from
the dispute, and while they talked on, deriding as well as instructing
him, he leaned upon the gate and looked gloomily at the ground. However,
at intervals, he formed with his lips, though soundlessly, the stubborn
words, “His name’s Willie Miller!”
“Oh, I tell you what’d be lovely!” Daisy cried. “Maybe she knows how to
_walk_! Let’s put her down and see—and if she doesn’t know how already,
why, we can teach her!”
Elsie gladly fell in with her friend’s idea, and together they
endeavoured to place Willamilla upon her feet on the ground. In this
they were confronted with insuperable difficulties: Willamilla proved
unable to comprehend their intentions; and although Daisy knelt and
repeatedly placed the small feet in position, the experiment was wholly
unsuccessful. Nevertheless the experimenters, not at all discouraged,
continued it with delight, for they _played_ that Willamilla was
walking. They heaped praises upon her.
“My darling baby!” Daisy cried. “Doesn’t she walk _beautiful_?”
“The precious little love!” Elsie echoed. “She just walks _beautiful_!”
At this the gloomy person in the background permitted himself to sneer.
“That ain’t walkin’,” he said.
“It is, too! You doe’ know what you’re talkin’ about!” the chorus of two
retorted, not interrupting their procedure.
“He ain’t walkin’,” Laurence maintained.
“She is, too!” said Elsie.
“She’s walkin’ now,” said Daisy. “She’s walkin’ all the time.”
“No, he’s not,” Laurence said. “His feet are sort of curly, and they’re
_’way_ too wide apart. I bet there’s somep’m the matter with him.”
“There is not!” The two little girls looked round at him indignantly;
for this unwarranted intimation of some structural imperfection roused
them. “Shame on you!” Daisy said; and to Willamilla: “Show mamma how
beautiful she walks.”
“He can’t do it,” Laurence said obdurately. “I bet there _is_ somep’m
the matter with him.”
“There is _not_!”
“Yes, sir,” said Laurence, and he added, with conviction: “His legs
ain’t fixed on him right.”
“Shame on you, Laurence Coy!”
But Laurence persisted in his view.
“Listen!” he said, arguing. “Look at _my_ legs. Look at anybody’s legs
that can walk. Well, are they fixed on ’em the way _his_ are?”
“Yes, they are!” Daisy returned sharply. “Only hers are fixed on better
than yours!”
“They ain’t,” said Laurence. “Mine are fixed on like other people’s, and
his are—well, they’re terrable!”
“Oh, isn’t he tiresome?” Elsie said pettishly. “Do be quiet about your
ole legs!”
“Yes, _do_!” said Daisy; and then she jumped up, a new idea lighting her
eyes. “_I_ tell you what let’s do,” she cried. “Let’s put her back in
the wagon, an’ play we’re takin’ a walk on Sunday with our baby an’ all
the family.”
“How’ll we play it?” Elsie asked.
“Well, _I_’ll be the mamma and push the wagon,” Daisy said excitedly.
“Elsie, you be some lady that’s visitin’ us, an’ sort of walk along with
us, an’——”
“No,” Elsie interrupted. “_I_ want to be the mamma and push the wagon,
an’ _you_ be some lady that’s visitin’ _us_.”
Daisy looked a little annoyed, but she compromised. “Well, we’ll go a
long walk, and I’ll be the mamma the first block, an’ then the next
block you can be the mamma, and I’ll be the lady that’s visitin’ us, an’
then the next block it’ll be my turn again.”
“All right,” said Elsie. “What’ll we have Laurence be?”
“We’ll have him be the father.”
Laurence frowned; the idea was rather distasteful to him, and for some
reason a little embarrassing. “Listen!” he said. “What do I haf to do?”
“Oh, just walk along and kind of talk an’ everything.”
“Well——” he said uncertainly; then he brightened a little. “I’ll be
smokin’ cigars,” he said.
“All right, you can.” And having placed Willamilla in the wagon, Daisy
grasped the handle, pushing the vehicle before her. Laurence put a twig
in his mouth, puffing elaborately; Elsie walked beside Willamilla; and
so the procession moved—Hossifer, still in a mood of indecision,
following at a varying distance. And Daisy sang her lullaby as they
went.
This singing of hers had an unfavourable effect upon Laurence. For a few
minutes after they started he smoked his twig with a little satisfaction
and had a slight enjoyment in the thought that he was the head of a
family—but something within him kept objecting to the game; he found
that really he did not like it. He bore it better on the second and
fourth blocks, for Elsie was the mother then, but he felt a strong
repulsion when Daisy assumed that relation. He intensely disliked being
the father when she was the mother, and he was reluctant to have anybody
see him serving in that capacity. Daisy’s motherhood was aggressive; she
sang louder and louder, and even without the singing the procession
attracted a great deal of attention from pedestrians. Laurence felt that
Daisy’s music was in bad taste, especially as she had not yet pulled up
her stocking.
She made up the tune, as well as the words, of her lullaby; the tune
held beauty for no known ears except her own and these were the words:
“Oh, my da-ar-luh-un baby,
My-y lit-tull baby!
Go to sleep! Go to _slee_-heep!
Oh, my dear lit-_tull_ baby!
My baby, my dar-luh-un bay-bee,
My bay-bee, my bay-_hay_-bee!”
As she thus soothed the infant, who naturally slumbered not, with
Daisy’s shrill voice so near, some people on the opposite side of the
street looked across and laughed; and this caused a blush of
mortification to spread over the face of the father.
“Listen!” he remonstrated. “You don’t haf to make all that noise.”
She paid no attention but went on singing.
“Listen!” said Laurence nervously. “Anyways, you don’t haf to open your
mouth so wide when you sing, do you? It looks terrable!”
She opened it even wider and sang still louder:
“My lit-tull baby, my da-ar-_luh_-un _bay_-bee!
My _bay_-bee! My bay-_hay_-bee!”
“Oh, my!” Laurence said, and he retired to the rear; whereupon Hossifer
gave him a look and fell back a little farther. “Listen!” Laurence
called to Daisy. “You scared the dog!”
Daisy stopped singing and glanced back over her shoulder. “I did not!”
she said. “You scared her yourself.”
“_Who?_” Laurence advanced to the side of the wagon, staring
incredulously. “Who you talkin’ about?”
“She was walkin’ along nice only a little way behind us,” Daisy said,
“until you went near her.”
“I went near _who_?” Laurence asked, looking very much disturbed. “_Who_
was walkin’ along nice?”
“Hossifer was. You said _I_ scared her, and all the time she——”
“Listen!” said Laurence, breathing rapidly. “I won’t stand it. This dog
isn’t a girl!”
“Hossifer’s a girl’s name,” said Daisy placidly. “I bet you never heard
of a boy by that name in your life!”
“Well, what if I never?”
“Well,” said Daisy authoritatively, “that proves it. Hossifer’s a girl’s
name and you just the same as said so yourself. Elsie, didn’t he say
Hossifer isn’t a boy’s name, an’ doesn’t that prove Hossifer’s a girl?”
“Yes, it does,” Elsie returned with decision.
Laurence looked at them; then he shook his head. “Oh, _my_!” he said
morosely, for these two appeared set upon allowing him no colleagues or
associates whatever, and he felt himself at the end of his resources.
Daisy began to sing again at once.
“Oh, my dar-lun lit-_tull_ bay-hay-_bee_-hee!” she sang; and she may
have been too vehement for Willamilla, who had thus far remained
remarkably placid under her new circumstances; Willamilla began to cry.
She began in a mild way, with a whimper, inaudible on account of the
lullaby; then she slightly increased her protest, making use of a voice
like the tinnier tones of a light saxophone; and having employed this
mild mechanism for some time, without securing any relief from the
shrillness that bothered her, she came to the conclusion that she was
miserable. Now, she was of this disposition: once she arrived at such a
conclusion, she remained at it, and nothing could convey to her mind
that altered conditions had removed what annoyed her, until she became
so exhausted by the protraction of her own protests that she slept,
forgot and woke to a new life.
She marked the moment of her decision, this afternoon, by the utterance
of a wail that rose high over the singing; she lifted up her voice and
used the full power of lungs and throat to produce such a sound that
even the heart of the father was disquieted, while the mamma and the
visiting lady at once flung themselves on their knees beside the wagon.
“Whassa _matta_? Whassa _matta_?” Daisy and Elsie inquired some dozens
of times, and they called Willamilla a “peshus baby” even oftener, but
were unable to quiet her. Indeed, as they shouted their soothing
endearments, her tears reached a point almost torrential, and she beat
the coverlet with her small fat hands.
“He’s mad about somep’m, I guess,” the father observed, looking down
upon her. “Or else he’s got a spasm, maybe.”
“She hasn’t either,” Daisy said. “She’ll stop in a minute.”
“Well, it might not be spasms,” Laurence said. “But I bet whatever it
is, it happened from all that singin’.”
Daisy was not pleased with his remark. “I’ll thank you not to be so
kinely complimentary, Mister Laurence Coy!” she said, and she took up
Willamilla in her arms, and rather staggeringly began to walk to and fro
with her, singing:
“Oh, my peshus litt-_tull_ bay-_hay_-bee-hee!”
Elsie walked beside her, singing too, while Willamilla beat upon the air
with desperate hands and feet, closed her effervescent eyes as tightly
as she could, opened her mouth till the orifice appeared as the most
part of her visage, and allowed the long-sustained and far-reaching
ululations therefrom to issue. Laurence began to find his position
intolerable.
“For heavenses’ sakes!” he said. “If this keeps up much longer, _I_’m
goin’ _home_. Everybody’s a-lookin’ at us all up an’ down the street!
Whyn’t you quit singin’ an’ give him a chance to get over whatever’s the
matter with him?”
“Well, why don’t you do somep’m to help stop her from cryin’, yourself?”
Elsie asked crossly.
“Well, I will,” he promised, much too rashly. “I’d stop him in a minute
if I had my way.”
“All right,” Daisy said unexpectedly, halting with Willamilla just in
front of him. “Go on an’ stop her, you know so much!”
“He’ll stop when _I_ tell him to,” Laurence said, in the grim tone his
father sometimes used, and with an air of power and determination, he
rolled up the right sleeve of his shirtwaist, exposing the slender arm
as far as the elbow. Then he shook his small fist in Willamilla’s face.
“You quit your noise!” he said sternly. “You hush up! Hush up this
minute! Hush _opp_!”
Willamilla abated nothing.
“Didn’t you hear me tell you to hush up?” Laurence asked her fiercely.
“You goin’ to _do_ it?” And he shook his fist at her again.
Upon this, Willamilla seemed vaguely to perceive something personal to
herself in his gesture, and to direct her own flagellating arms as if to
beat at his approaching fist.
“Look out!” Laurence said threateningly. “Don’t you try any o’ that with
_me_, Mister!”
But the mulatto baby’s squirmings were now too much for Daisy; she
staggered, and in fear of dropping the lively burden, suddenly thrust it
into Laurence’s arms.
“Here!” she gasped. “I’m ’most worn out! Take her!”
“Oh, golly!” Laurence said.
“Don’t _drop_ her!” both ladies screamed. “Put her back in the wagon.”
Obeying them willingly for once, he turned to the wagon to replace
Willamilla therein; but as he stooped, he was forced to pause and stoop
no farther. Hossifer had stationed himself beside the wagon and made it
clear that he would not allow Willamilla to be replaced. He growled; his
upper lip quivered in a way that exhibited almost his whole set of teeth
as Laurence stooped, and when Laurence went round to the other side of
the wagon, and bent over it with his squirming and noisy bundle,
Hossifer followed, and repeated the demonstration. He heightened its
eloquence, in fact, making feints and little jumps, and increasing the
visibility of his teeth, as well as the poignancy of his growling. Thus
menaced, Laurence straightened up and moved backward a few steps, while
his two friends, some distance away, kept telling him, with unreasonable
insistence, to do as they had instructed him.
“Put her in the wagon, and come _on_!” they called. “We got to go
_back_! It’s after three _o’clock_! Come _on_!”
Laurence explained the difficulty in which he found himself. “He won’t
let me,” he said.
“Who won’t?” Daisy asked, coming nearer.
“This dog. He won’t let me put him back in the wagon; he almost bit me
when I tried it. Here!” And he tried to restore Willamilla to Daisy.
“You take her an’ put her in.”
But Daisy, retreating, emphatically declined—which was likewise the
course adopted by Elsie when Laurence approached her. Both said that
Hossifer “must _want_” Laurence to keep Willamilla, for thus they
interpreted Hossifer’s conduct.
“Well, I _won’t_ keep her,” Laurence said hotly. “I don’t expect to go
deaf just because some old dog don’t want her in the wagon! I’m goin’ to
slam her down on the sidewalk and let her lay there! I’m gettin’ mighty
tired of all this.”
But when he moved to do as he threatened, and would have set Willamilla
upon the pavement, the unreasonable Hossifer again refused permission.
He placed himself close to Laurence, growling loudly, displaying his
teeth, bristling, poising dangerously, and Laurence was forced to
straighten himself once more without having deposited the infant, whom
he now hated poisonously.
“My _good_nuss!” he said desperately.
“Don’t you see?” Daisy cried, and her tone was less sympathetic than
triumphant. “It’s just the way we said; Hossifer _wants_ you to keep
her!”
Elsie agreed with her, and both seemed pleased with themselves for
having divined Hossifer’s intentions so readily, though as a matter of
fact they were entirely mistaken in this intuitional analysis. Hossifer
cared nothing at all about Laurence’s retaining Willamilla; neither was
the oyster-coloured dog’s conduct so irrational as the cowed and
wretched Laurence thought it. In the first place, Hossifer was never
quite himself away from an alley; he had been upon a strain all that
afternoon. Then, when the elderly coloured woman had forbidden him to
accompany her, and he found himself with strangers, including a white
boy, and away from everything familiar, except Willamilla, in whom he
had never taken any personal interest, he became uneasy and fell into a
querulous mood. His uneasiness naturally concerned itself with the boy,
and was deepened by two definite attempts of this boy to approach him.
When the family Sunday walk was undertaken, Hossifer followed Willamilla
and the wagon; for of course he realized that this was one of those
things about which there can be no question: one does them, and that’s
all. But his thoughts were constantly upon the boy, and he resolved to
be the first to act if the boy made the slightest hostile gesture.
Meanwhile, his nerves were unfavourably affected by the strange singing,
and they were presently more upset by the blatancies of Willamilla. Her
wailing acted unpleasantly upon the sensitive apparatus of his ear—the
very thing that made him so strongly dislike tinny musical instruments
and brass bands. And then, just as he was feeling most disorganized, he
saw the boy stoop. Hossifer did not realize that Laurence stooped
because he desired to put Willamilla into the wagon; Hossifer did not
connect Willamilla with the action at all. He saw only that the boy
stooped. Now, why does a boy stoop? He stoops to pick up something to
throw at a dog. Hossifer made up his mind not to let Laurence stoop.
That was all; he was perfectly willing for Willamilla to be put back in
the wagon, and the father, the mother and the visiting lady were alike
mistaken—especially the father, whose best judgment was simply that
Hossifer was of a disordered mind and had developed a monomania for a
very special persecution. Hossifer was sane, and his motives were
rational. Dogs who are over two years of age never do anything without a
motive; Hossifer was nearing seven.
Daisy and Elsie, mistaken though they were, insisted strongly upon their
own point-of-view in regard to him. “She _wants_ you to keep her! She
_wants_ you to keep her!” they cried, and they chanted it as a sort of
refrain; they clapped their hands and capered, adding their noise to
Willamilla’s, and showing little appreciation of the desperate state of
mind into which events had plunged their old friend Laurence.
“She _wants_ you to keep her!” they chanted. “She _wants_ you to keep
her. She _wants_ you to keep her, Laurence!”
Laurence piteously entreated them to call Hossifer away; but the latter
was cold to their rather sketchy attempts to gain his attention.
However, they succeeded in making him more excited, and he began to bark
furiously, in a bass voice. Having begun, he barked without
intermission, so that with Hossifer’s barking, Willamilla’s relentless
wailing, and the joyous shouting of Daisy and Elsie, Laurence might well
despair of making himself heard. He seemed to rave in a pantomime of
oral gestures, his arms and hands being occupied.
A man wearing soiled overalls, with a trowel in his hand, came from
behind a house near by and walking crossly over the lawn, arrived at the
picket fence beside which stood the abandoned wagon.
“Gosh, I never _did_!” he said, bellowing to be audible. “Git away from
here! Don’t you s’pose nobody’s got no _ears_? There’s a sick lady in
this house right here, and she don’t propose to have you kill her! Go on
git away from here now! Go on! I never _did_!”
Annoyed by this labourer’s coarseness, Elsie and Daisy paused to stare
at him in as aristocratic a manner as they could, but he was little
impressed.
“_Gosh_, I never did!” he repeated. “Git on out the neighbourhood and go
where you b’long; you don’t b’long around here!”
“I should think _not_,” Daisy agreed crushingly. “Where _we_ live, if
there’s any sick ladies, they take ’em out an’ bury ’em!” Just what she
meant by this, if indeed she meant anything, it is difficult to imagine,
but she felt no doubt that she had put the man in his ignoble and proper
place. Tossing her head, she picked up the handle of the wagon and moved
haughtily away, her remarkably small nose in the air. Elsie went with
her in a similar attitude.
“Go on! You hear me?” The man motioned fiercely with his trowel at
Laurence. “Did you hear me tell you to take that noise away from here?
How many more times I got to——”
“My gracious!” Laurence interrupted thickly. “_I_ doe’ want to stay
here!”
He feared to move; he was apprehensive that Hossifer might not like it,
but upon the man’s threatening to vault over the fence and hurry him
with the trowel, he ventured some steps; whereupon Hossifer stopped
barking and followed closely, but did nothing worse. Laurence therefore
went on, and presently made another attempt to place Willamilla upon the
pavement—and again Hossifer supported the ladies’ theory that he wanted
Laurence to keep Willamilla.
“_Listen!_” Laurence said passionately to Hossifer. “_I_ never did
anything to you! What’s got the matter of you, anyway? How long I got to
keep all this _up_?”
Then he called to Elsie and Daisy, who were hurrying ahead and
increasing the distance between him and them, for Willamilla’s weight
made his progress slow and sometimes uncertain. “Wait!” he called. “Can’
chu _wait_? What’s the _matter_ of you? Can’ chu even _wait_ for me?”
But they hurried on, chattering busily together, and his troubles were
deepened by his isolation with the uproarious Willamilla and Hossifer.
Passers-by observed him with hearty amusement; and several boys, total
strangers to him, gave up a game of marbles and accompanied him for a
hundred yards or so, speculating loudly upon his relationship to
Willamilla, but finally deciding that Laurence was in love with her and
carrying her off to a minister’s to marry her.
He felt that his detachment from the rest of his party was largely
responsible for exposing him to these insults, and when he had shaken
off the marble-players, whose remarks filled him with horror, he made a
great effort to overtake the two irresponsible little girls.
“_Hay!_ Can’ chu _wait_?” he bawled. “Oh, my good-_nuss_! For heavenses’
sakes! Dog-_gone_ it. Can’ chu _wait_! _I_ can’t carry this baby _all_
the way!”
But he did. Panting, staggering, perspiring, with Willamilla never
abating her complaint for an instant, and Hossifer warning him fiercely
at every one of his many attempts to set her down, Laurence struggled
on, far behind the cheery vanguard. Five blocks of anguish he covered
before he finally arrived at Elsie Threamer’s gate, whence this
unfortunate expedition had set out.
Elsie and Daisy were standing near the gate, looking thoughtfully at
Willamilla’s grandmother, who was seated informally on the curbstone,
and whistling to herself.
Laurence staggered to her. “_Oh_, my! Oh, _my_!” he quavered, and would
have placed Willamilla in her grandmother’s arms, but once more Hossifer
interfered—for his was a mind bent solely upon one idea at a time—and
Laurence had to straighten himself quickly.
“Make him _quit_ that!” he remonstrated. “He’s done it to me more than
five hunderd times, an’ I’m mighty tired of all this around here!”
But the coloured woman seemed to have no idea that he was saying
anything important, or even that he was addressing himself to her. She
rolled her eyes, indeed, but not in his direction, and continued her
whistling.
“Listen! _Look!_” Laurence urged her. “It’s Willie Miller! I wish he was
dead; _then_ I wouldn’t hold him any longer, I bet you! I’d just throw
him away like I ought to!” And as she went on whistling, not even
looking at him, he inquired despairingly: “My goodness, what’s the
_matter_ around here, anyways?”
“_Elsie!_” a voice called from a window of the house.
“Yes, mamma.”
“Come in, dear. Come in quickly.”
“Yes’m.”
She had no more than departed when another voice called from a window of
the house next door, “Daisy! Come in right away! Do you hear, Daisy?”
“Yes, mamma.” And Daisy went hurriedly upon the summons.
Laurence was left alone in a world of nightmare. The hated Willamilla
howled within his ear and weighed upon him like a house; his arms ached,
his head rang; his heart was shaken with the fear of Hossifer; and
Willamilla’s grandmother sat upon the curbstone, whistling musically,
with no apparent consciousness that there was a busy world about her, or
that she had ever a grandchild or a dog. His terrible and mystifying
condition began to appear to Laurence as permanent, and the accursed
Willamilla an Old-Man-of-the-Sea to be his burden forever. A weariness
of life—a sense of the futility of it all—came upon him, and yet he
could not even sink down under it.
Then, when there was no hope beneath the sky, out of the alley across
the street came a delivering angel—a middle-aged, hilarious coloured
man seated in an enfeebled open wagon, and driving a thin gray antique
shaped like a horse. Upon the side of the wagon was painted, “P. SkoNe
MoVeiNG & DeLiVRys,” and the cheerful driver was probably P. Skone
himself.
He brought his wagon to the curb, descended giggling to Willamilla’s
grandmother, and by the exertion of a muscular power beyond his
appearance, got her upon her feet. She became conscious of his presence,
called him her lovin’ Peter, blessed and embraced him, and then,
consenting to test the tensile strength of the wagon, reclined upon him
while he assisted her into it. After performing this feat, he extended
his arms for Willamilla.
“He won’t let me,” Laurence said, swallowing piteously. “He wants me to
keep him, an’ he’ll bite me if I——”
“Who go’ bite you, white boy?” the cheerful coloured man inquired.
“Hossifer?” Laughing, he turned to the faithful animal, and swept the
horizon with a gesture. “Hossifer, you git in nat wagon!”
With the manner of a hunted fugitive, Hossifer instantly obeyed; the man
lifted Willamilla’s little vehicle into the wagon, took Willamilla in
his arms, and climbed chuckling to the driver’s seat. “Percy,” he said
to the antique, “you git up!”
Then this heavenly coloured man drove slowly off with Willamilla, her
grandmother, Hossifer and the baby-wagon, while Laurence sank down upon
the curbstone, wiped his face upon his polka-dotted sleeve and watched
them disappear into the dusty alley. Willamilla was still crying; and to
one listener it seemed that she had been crying throughout long,
indefinite seasons, and would probably continue to cry forever, or at
least until a calamity should arrive to her, in regard to the nature of
which he had a certain hope.
He sat, his breast a vacancy where lately so much emotion had been, and
presently two gay little voices chirped in the yard behind him. They
called his name; and he turned to behold his fair friends. They were
looking brightly at him over the hedge.
“Mamma called me to come in,” Daisy said.
“So’d mine,” said Elsie.
“Mamma told me I better stay in the house while that ole coloured woman
was out here,” Daisy continued. “Mamma said she wasn’t very nice.”
“So’d mine,” Elsie added.
“What did you do, Laurence?” Daisy asked.
“Well——” said Laurence. “They’re gone down that alley.”
“Come on in,” Daisy said eagerly. “We’re goin’ to play I-Spy. It’s lots
more fun with three. Come on!”
“Come on!” Elsie echoed. “Hurry, Laurence.”
He went in, and a moment later, unconcernedly and without a care in the
world, or the recollection of any, began to play I-Spy with the lady of
his heart and her next neighbour.