“THE GIFTS OF LIGHT AND SONG”
During the recess period of a brilliant October day, Mahala spent her
time inviting those pupils of her school who were her particular friends
to attend her birthday party. At fourteen in appearance Mahala was what
she had been destined to be from birth. Fourteen years of unceasing
drilling, of constant care, of daily admonition on the part of Elizabeth
Spellman had made habitual with her daughter an exquisite daintiness of
person. The only criticism Jemima Davis had ever been known to make
concerning Mrs. Spellman was that she was “nasty nice.” Mahala
instinctively drew back from contact with anything that might soil her
clothing or her person. While she was thus dainty concerning her
exterior, she was equally cleanly and refined in the workings of her
heart and her brain. Hers was an unusually active brain; her eyes were
flashingly comprehensive. All her life she had been seeing and
understanding a great many things that her father and mother never
suspected that she had either seen or understood. But since her personal
fastidiousness extended to her brain as well as to her body, the result
made a composite that was wholly charming.
Mahala’s keen sense of humour kept her lips slightly curled, a dancing
light in her eyes. She was always whispering to the anæmic shadow at her
elbow: “Oh, Edith, did you see?” “Did you hear?”
Almost always Edith did see and hear, but her interpretations and
conclusions were scarcely ever the same as Mahala’s. The sour discontent
of her really beautiful dark face came almost as a shock in contrast
with Mahala’s person; while mentally the girls were even more unlike.
Mahala always had a remedy, always had hope; Edith believed the worst of
every one; so when she had leisure time she spent it looking for
something worse that she might believe on the slightest pretext.
The result was that every one in the village thought they loved Mahala,
and it was curious that this should have been a universal attitude
because the particularly spiritual quality of the child’s beauty always
had been enhanced by the most tasteful and expensive clothing, so that
no other girl of the town could bear comparison with her. Because she
always had been generous, always considerate, always just, and always
mirthful, she was sure that she was among friends. Every pupil who had
gone through seven years of schooling with her knew that her word was
secure. If she talked of an incident at all, she could be depended upon
to tell the truth. If she criticised an offender, she cut deep, but she
did it with fairness. She never wore offensively her dainty clothing, so
carefully selected for her in the Eastern cities where her father went
to buy goods. She was quite capable of pulling off her coat on the
street and allowing any of her girl friends to carry it home that a
pattern might be cut from it.
The most shocking occurrence the town had to record concerning Mahala
was that one day, in bitter winter weather, she had surrounded herself
on the street with a circle of her girl friends and in their shelter
deftly removed her exquisitely embroidered petticoat for the benefit of
a schoolmate who was visibly shivering with cold. When Mahala, with
watery eyes and a red nose, faced her mother that night and confessed
what she had done, Elizabeth Spellman began by being shocked and ended
by becoming bewildered.
“It was all right,” she said primly, “for you to give Susanna Bowers _a_
petticoat, but you should have gone to the store to Papa and gotten one
suitable for Susanna.”
Mahala looked at her mother intently.
“But, Mama,” she protested, “Susanna was chilling. She needed something
that minute; my petticoat doesn’t care who wears it. It just loves to
keep Susanna warm.”
A slow red suffused Elizabeth Spellman’s face.
“And you didn’t stop to consider,” she said coldly, “that all the hours
of work I put upon that petticoat went there for my very own little
daughter, and not for a girl who will not know either how to appreciate
or how to care for it, and who will have nothing else suitable to wear
with it.”
Mahala’s brightest light swept across her forehead.
“That’s exactly the truth, Mother,” she said emphatically. “I’ll tell
Susanna about the borax and the rain water and how to wash her pretty
new petticoat, and I’ll ask Papa to give me some more clothes for her,
so the petticoat won’t feel so lonesome and ashamed of the things it’s
with.”
When Elizabeth Spellman detailed this conversation to Mahlon that night,
she had considerable difficulty in gaining either his comprehension or
his credence. There are not many men in the world named “Mahlon,” while
it is a curious coincidence that all of them who are, seem very similar.
Every fastidious fibre in Mahlon Spellman’s being rebelled at the
thought of the high grade of pressed flannel bearing the exquisite
handwork that always had enfolded his child, being put on the person of
any Susanna of the outskirts. Such a wonderful town as Ashwater had no
business with outskirts; it had no business with men who were not
successful; it had no business with women who were not thrifty and good
housekeepers. It was possible for every human being to be comfortably
housed, well dressed, and well fed, if they would exercise even a small
degree of the personal efforts of which each one was capable. Mahlon
felt outraged and he said so succinctly. He told his wife in very
distinct terms that she had failed in her manifest duty. She should have
sent Mahala to recover the garment at once.
Mrs. Spellman looked at Mahlon intently. She usually toadied to him
because that was the well-considered attitude that as a bride she
assumed to be the proper one; ordinarily it was effective, but there
were occasions when she told Mahlon the unvarnished truth. This appealed
to her as very nearly, if not quite, an Occasion.
“I did not tell her to go and bring it back,” she said very
deliberately, “because I had grave doubts in my mind as to whether she
would do it. I have never considered it the part of wisdom to begin
anything with our child that I feared I should not be able to finish.
There was something about the look in her eyes, the tones of her voice
that told me that she had done what she thought was right. I did not
feel equal to the task of convincing her that she was wrong.”
Mahlon Spellman habitually increased his height by rising on his
tiptoes; in extremes he increased it further by running his fingers
through his hair to stand it on end. He metaphorically relegated the
whole race of Susannas to limbo by flipping wholly imaginary particles
from his sleeves and wiping imaginary taint from immaculate fingers with
an equally immaculate handkerchief. From this elevation and mental
attitude, Mahlon glared accusingly at his wife. This was rather unusual;
but the thing had occurred with sufficient frequency for Elizabeth to
recognize its portent.
“I am constrained to admit,” she said deliberately, “that there are
times, very rare times, when Mahala’s mentality so resembles yours that
I am forced to confess myself unequal to the strain of controlling her.
At such times I always have made a practice of sending her to you. Your
superior judgment, your poise, and strength, will stand your child in
good stead at such a time as the present.”
Thereupon Elizabeth courtesied low to her self-ordained lord and master
and swept from the room, leaving him a defenseless, a flabbergasted man.
In his soul Mahlon knew that he was no more capable of controlling
Mahala when she was in that mental attitude which her mother sometimes
described as “having her head set,” than was his wife. With hurried
steps he began pacing the room. By the time Mahala entered, he was
walking in nervous, flatfooted indecision; he had lost all height
obtained by any subterfuge. He faced Mahala, and if his wife had been
there to observe the interview, she would have been rejoiced to realize
that Mahala was tiptoeing, while her father was on his soles. All the
lofty attitude he had assumed with Elizabeth, vanished like river mist
before an hour of compelling sunshine. Mr. Spellman was so undone that
he nearly stuttered.
“Wh—what’s this your mother tells me about this disgusting Susanna
business?” he asked as Mahala stood slim and straight before him.
Her lips were curved in their very sweetest smile, but far back in the
depths of her eyes there was a cold gray light that Mahlon Spellman did
not recall ever having seen there before. He realized with a severe
mental shock exactly what his wife had meant when she said that there
were times when she did not force matters with Mahala.
But it was the girl’s lips that were speaking, and the lips were sweetly
saying: “How right you are, Papa! Isn’t it disgusting and absurd, in a
town where there is as much money and as many comfortable people as
there are in this town, that any child should be started to school so
thinly clad that her teeth are chattering and her hands blue and stiff?”
Mahlon tried to recover some least degree of his lost attitude.
“That girl’s father never did an honest day’s work in his life.”
He tried to thunder it; he did succeed in making it impressive.
“That’s exactly the truth,” agreed Mahala instantly. “He never did, he
never will. That’s the reason why every one should make a point of
seeing that Susanna has warm and comfortable clothing until she can get
enough education so that she will be able to teach or do something that
will help out her mother and her little brothers and sisters. I was just
coming to you about it when Mother came to my room to suggest that I
talk it over with you. I want you to tell about Susanna at the next
board meeting of the church. I want you to tell those people plainly how
narrow-minded and how selfish they are and what a disgrace it is to the
whole town to have a member of their church trying to go to high school
so thinly clad that she is stiff and blue—and she is one of the very
best scholars in our class, too. Mind, I have to study good and hard to
keep ahead of her and once or twice, I wouldn’t have had my problems if
she had not held up her slate and let me see how to begin a solution. I
owe her that petticoat all right, Father.”
Mahlon Spellman stood very still. He wanted to say something scathing.
He had intended to be extremely severe about his daughter doing such an
unprecedented thing as to remove her petticoat on the street. He wanted
to tell her that she should be ashamed to accept help from anything so
low down in the social world as a Susanna. But some way, memory
performed a kaleidoscopic jump, so that he saw himself in crucial
moments looking anxiously toward the slate of some of his fellow pupils.
Then it struck Mahlon like a blow that he never, in his life before, had
admitted even to himself that he had done this; but Mahala was facing
him with perfectly frank eyes, acknowledging her obligations.
What he said was not in the very least what he had contemplated saying.
“The next time you feel that you owe any one a petticoat, come and tell
_me_,” he said. “There are some suitable ones of heavy stamped felt in
dark colours that many of the girls of Susanna’s age and size are
wearing. It is scarcely fair to your mother that hours of painstaking
work she has spent upon you, in an effort to express her love for you,
should be discarded by you without a thought of her.”
Mahala’s eager face showed deep concentration.
“If that’s the way you and Mama feel about it, Papa,” she said quietly,
“I’ll pay for one of the felt skirts from my monthly allowance, and I’ll
go to-morrow and ask Susanna to accept it instead of Mother’s beautiful
work. Certainly I didn’t intend to hurt Mother’s feelings or yours.”
Now this was precisely the thing that Mahlon Spellman had determined
that Mahala should do, yet when she, herself, proposed making that trip,
it touched his egotism from an entirely different point of view. He felt
soiled and contaminated, even at the thought of such a thing, when he
really came to picture his daughter, bone of his bone, flesh of his
flesh, as being placed in such a humiliating position.
“You will do nothing of the kind,” he said grandiloquently.
The strain on his tiptoes was crucial, the gesture that ran through his
flattened hair raised it beautifully.
“You must learn to think before you do a thing in this world,” he
admonished Mahala. “I should consider it distinctly humiliating to me,
to have a daughter of mine go and ask to be given back a gift that she
had seen fit to make. Since Susanna has the petticoat, she must keep it.
Simply fix in your consciousness the idea that the next time my daughter
is not to be like the foolish little grasshopper that refused to look
before it leaped, and so found itself in trouble.”
There was a bewildered look in Mahala’s eyes. Her teeth were set rather
hard on her under lip. The breath she drew was deep. She turned from her
father and laid her hand upon the door.
Then she faced him again: “I think,” she said quietly, “that it would
save Susanna’s pride as well as ours if you didn’t take this matter up
with the church board. She’s as old as I am; she probably would feel as
keenly as I should about it. She didn’t want to take the petticoat; I
made her do it. But she really needed it, Father, she truly needed it
awfully. And she needs a great many other things just as badly. Don’t
bring me anything the next time you go to the city, but let me come
after school to-morrow and give me the clothing that will make Susanna
comfortable. Will you, dear?”
When Mahala said, “Will you, dear?” there was not a thing on earth that
Mahlon Spellman would not have undertaken to do for her, because it
would have broken his heart to admit to her that there was anything on
earth that he could not do for her if he chose.
“Certainly,” he said suavely. “Most certainly!”
That night, in the privacy of their bed chamber, Mahlon told Elizabeth
that it was the easiest thing in the world to manage Mahala; when he had
put the matter to her in the proper light, she had immediately _offered_
to go and recover the petticoat, but he had felt that it was beneath
their dignity to allow her to ask to be given back a gift. It might look
as if they were in straitened circumstances, or as if they could not
trust their daughter to do what was right and proper upon any given
occasion. He told his wife, also, that he had arranged with Mahala to
come to him after school the following day and he would secretly provide
Susanna with comfortable clothing so that she might continue with her
school work.
Elizabeth immediately fell upon his neck and kissed him. She told him
that he was the most wonderful, the most generous of men. Mahlon
expanded with her appreciation until he slept that night with a beatific
smile illumining his face. He never felt more thoroughly that he had
justified himself to himself and to Elizabeth than he did in the matter
of Susanna and the Spellman petticoat, while he could trust the clerks
in his store, through a few words he could drop, to let his townsmen
know of his essential rightness and benevolence.
Because of many diverse ramifications in Mahala’s life similar to the
petticoat affair, she always had been made to feel that she had the
devoted love of every boy and girl in each advancing grade of her school
work. Her teachers always depended upon her to tell them the truth
concerning any occasion in the schoolroom otherwise inexplainable.
Mahala’s mother had told her that she might invite her particular
friends for the celebration of her birthday, so Mahala was busy
delivering the invitations. She was also extremely busy facing a very
uncomfortable condition. There was no one in the room who was not her
friend so far as she knew. There was no one to whom she had not been
lovely and gracious. There was no one who did not think her beautiful,
who was not proud to be seen in proximity to her. But Mahala very well
understood that her father and mother would not want to entertain in
their home the Susannas of the town and neither would they wish to
entertain the Jasons. That, she knew, was an utter impossibility, and
yet, in her heart, she distinctly rebelled.
Jason always had been the best scholar in any grade to which he had
advanced but Mahala knew that she dared not ask him to be her guest. She
watched his lean figure as he crossed the playground. He would go to the
well, take a drink of water, stretch up his arms toward heaven as if he
were imploring that the gift of equality with the other children should
be dropped into his hands. He would cast a slow glance of longing at the
boys playing ball and leap-frog, then he would reënter the building, go
to his desk and spend ten minutes on his next lesson, while the other
pupils were playing.
She never had known him to practise an evasion. She never had known him,
no matter how hard pressed, to do an unkind thing or to tell a lie.
Sometimes, when unobserved she looked at him between narrowed lids,
there came a feeling that, as he grew older and his lean frame filled
out and became better clothed and his face took on maturity, he would be
a pleasing figure physically. She dared not invite him to come to her
party. Yet that imp of perversity that had always lived in the back of
Mahala’s head and found dancing ground on the platform of her heart,
possessed her strongly at that minute.
She managed to pass near him, while as she did so, she said in a low
voice: “I am asking my friends to come to my birthday party this week
and I wish that I might invite you.”
Jason stood very still; his eyes were on the ground. He dared not trust
himself to look at the girl beside him. He was only a boy, but Marcia’s
harsh tongue had taught him many things. He realized Mahala’s position
instantly.
“Thank you,” he said in a voice as lifeless as if he were struggling
with a contrary equation. “Of course, I couldn’t come, but it’s good of
you to want me.”
Then he passed her and went up to the schoolroom. Taking out his books,
he studied with a deeper concentration than he ever before had used. He
had a new incentive.
Mahala drew a breath of relief. She had made Jason feel that she had
thought of him, that if she could do as she liked, she would ask him to
her party. Having cleared her conscience by placing the burden upon it
on her parents where she knew it belonged, she turned her attention to
the handsomest face and figure on the playground. She studied Junior
Moreland carefully. Every year his father saw to it that he wore better
and more expensive clothing. Every year made him increasingly handsome
in face and figure; and yet, as Mahala studied him intently, she could
see faint signs of coarseness creeping into his boyish face. The hollows
beneath his eyes were too dark for a schoolboy. He carried himself with
too great surety. His air was that of complete sophistication. What was
there worth knowing that he did not know? Mahala resented the fact that
Junior never approached her without the assumption that every one else
should get out of his way. Day after day, as she watched him, the leader
of every sport and amusement, she recalled how he often evaded the
truth, how he twisted everything to his own advantage, how cruelly
ruthless he was concerning their classmates who were in moderate or poor
circumstances. He always tried to give the impression that she was his
property, that none of the other girls and boys must pass a certain
point in their intercourse with her.
There were times when her bright eyes watched him above the top of her
Ancient History or Physical Geography and then turned to the background,
where, hollow chested, hollow eyed, beaten and defeated, Jason sat
rumpling his hair and plunging into his books. And sometimes, when he
lifted his eyes and she met his glance, he gave her the feeling that he
was a hungry dog that knew he had the strength to capture the bone, but
from bitter experience, also knew that it was not worth while to make
the fight, because superior power would intervene and take it away from
him.
On the day of Mahala’s birthday party, in the midst of the bustle of
cleaning, merely from force of habit, that which was clean, of
decorating that which was already over-decorated, a dray stopped before
the Spellman residence to deliver an expensive piano lamp, the attached
card bearing birthday greetings from Martin Moreland, Jr., to Miss
Mahala Spellman.
When Mahlon Spellman stepped into his parlour that night, the first
thing that attracted his attention was this lamp. He went over and
examined it critically; then he turned a face white with anger toward
Elizabeth, who stood hesitant in the doorway. He was horrified at the
extravagance of such a gift between children.
“Why did you allow this thing to be left here?” he demanded. “Why did
you not return it immediately? You know that it is not suitable that a
gift of such extravagance should be permitted between mere children. It
must go back!”
“Yes, that is what I think,” said Elizabeth.
“Of course, that is what you think,” said Mr. Spellman. “That comes from
being a sensible woman. There is nothing else you could think. I
strenuously object to having Martin Moreland furnish my house for me. A
piano lamp! A piano lamp! Why didn’t _he_ get the piano and let _me_ get
the lamp?”
He leaned toward Elizabeth and thrust out his right hand as if he
expected her to make an answer that would materialize so that he could
pick it up and kick it through the door on the toe of his boot.
“Have you any idea,” he shouted, “what that thing cost?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth quietly. “I heard Mahala say that she would like a
piano lamp, so I looked at this same one yesterday, but I thought the
price was out of all reason. They were asking thirty-five dollars for
it.”
Mahlon arose to the height of the price. He paced the room, talking and
gesticulating.
“I won’t have it!” he cried. “I won’t countenance it! Why, in order to
keep even, the next time Junior has a birthday, I’ll be expected to help
furnish Martin Moreland’s house. I am not in the furniture business.”
Mahlon arranged his cuffs and took a firm stand on widely spread feet;
rocking thereon, he glared at his wife.
“Of course, dear,” she said soothingly, “it shall be exactly as you say.
The Morelands are always obtrusive and vulgar; but I thought that
perhaps, on account of your business relations with Mr. Moreland, he
might be trying to express his appreciation of you, and your patronage
of his bank, and your influence in helping him with other enterprises.”
Slowly Mahlon’s lower jaw dropped on its moorings. A look of
astonishment crept into his eyes.
“You mean,” he said, “that you think the banker is using this
opportunity to pay _me_ a handsome compliment?”
“Why, it looks that way to me,” said Elizabeth. “It is the only feasible
thing I could think of. There is no reason why the Morelands should
spend such an appalling amount of money on Mahala. There must be some
favour that Mr. Moreland wants of you, or some reason why he is anxious
to keep your good will. You know, dear, that the one thing in all this
world that Martin bitterly envies you is your popularity, the high
regard in which you are held in this community. To make himself
appreciated by his fellow citizens as they appreciate you, would please
him far more than money.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mr. Spellman. “I see your point. I think, as usual, that
you are quite right. I never complimented myself so highly as I did in
the selection of a partner for life. Undoubtedly you have arrived at the
correct solution. We shall be forced to keep the lamp; while the next
time Junior Moreland has a birthday, we shall utilize the opportunity to
show the Morelands something about proper giving.”
“Naturally!” said Elizabeth Spellman. “Naturally, you would want to do
that. Now go and dress yourself in order that you may be ready to help
me receive and entertain the children.”
There was a small spot of deep red glowing on each of Elizabeth
Spellman’s cheek bones. She loved to give parties for Mahala or for
herself and Mahlon, but she was compelled to admit that they were a
strain. With her a party began, weeks before the actual day of
entertainment, in general house cleaning, fresh laundering of curtains,
fine dressing for beds and snowy table linens and napkins. Lavish and
delicious refreshments must be prepared; clothing was a matter of
immediate and intense concern.
For Mahala’s birthday each of them must have a new dress. No hands but
those of Elizabeth were sufficiently dainty and painstaking to make
them, so that weeks of hemming fine ruffles, of whipping on lace, of
setting insertion, of placing bows and looping draperies were necessary.
For this particular birthday Elizabeth had done an unprecedented thing.
She had accidentally clothed her small daughter in a combination purely
French. The gold of the girl’s hair was nearly the same shade as the
tarlatan she had selected for her party dress. She had ruffled and
trimmed it to the crest of the prevailing mode. She had combined with it
little running wreaths of leaves that were exactly the blue of Mahala’s
eyes, yet they turned to silver in oblique light rays. Finally, she had
smashed on to it here and there, exactly as a French modiste would have
done, big, soft bows of black velvet ribbon. A pair of black velvet
shoes with the toes brightly embroidered with blue daisies, brought to
Mahala by her father on his return from a recent trip to New York, had
probably suggested the bows and had been saved for the party, while a
wreath of the blue leaves had been kept to bind down the silky curls
hanging free, so that Mahala, thus attired, was probably as beautiful a
picture as could be made with a child of her age.
The night of her party she stood beside her father and mother, quite as
composed, as much at ease, as they, till the last of her guests had
arrived. She was watching her mother carefully as certain faces appeared
in the doorway. When Mrs. Spellman’s lips narrowed and Mr. Spellman’s
eyebrows arose, Mahala made a point of darting out of line and offering
both hands. She doubled in warmth her welcome for every child that she
knew would receive only half a welcome on the part of her father and
mother. There was always a guilty feeling in her heart when she invited
certain children she knew were not wanted, not welcome in her home. She
realized that the day was going to come speedily when her mother would
say: “You may invite so many guests and not one more.” On that
uncomfortable day she would be forced to make a decision. The decision
she would make would not be pleasing to her father and mother. To-night
she thought fleetingly, merely realizing that there was a day of
conflict coming.
On the arrival of the last guest, the games began. First they played
“Who’s Got the Button?” Then they advanced to “London Bridge” and “Drop
the Handkerchief.” All her guests thought it the proper thing to honour
Mahala, and she had sped around the circle until she was weary. Mahala
was given to precedents. She established one. She dropped the
handkerchief behind Edith Williams. Glad of an excuse to get into the
game, Edith snatched it up and ran. Junior saw and had a presentiment.
Edith raced past him with intentions, but two things frustrated her. In
her excitement her aim was poor and Junior cunningly side-stepped,
dragging Sammy Davis with him. When the children shouted: “Junior, run!”
Junior turned a deliberate head and refused to budge. All could see that
the kerchief was behind Sammy. Sammy, delighted at the favour of the
little rich girl, caught up the handkerchief and sped after Edith, only
to find her in tears of rage and to get a well-aimed slap when he caught
and tried to kiss her. The boys shouted, the girls “Oh-ed”—Mrs. Spellman
raised her brows and cautioned behind an archly shaken finger: “Now!
now! Little ladies! Re-mem-ber!” What all of the children always
remembered was that Edith had chosen Junior and that he had evaded her.
Someway her discomfort consoled the others. She was rich; she was
Mahala’s best friend. She had lost her temper and been rude, and Mrs.
Spellman had chided her. In their hearts most of them felt a little less
unhappy than they had been; a trifle less constrained.
It is very probable that Mahala was the only child at her party who was
completely happy. Every pleasure she ever had enjoyed in her life she
had experienced under the watchful eyes of her father and mother. She
was accustomed to their constant restrictions, their persistent
precautions: “Be careful of your dress,” “Don’t shake out your curls,”
“Don’t damage the furniture,” “Don’t touch the lace curtains.”
Her heart was so full of spontaneous enthusiasm, her body was so
healthy, her brain was such a blessing, that all these millions of
“don’ts” had left no mark upon her. Spontaneously as breathing, she
answered: “Yes, Mama,” “I’ll be careful, Papa,” “Yes, thank you!”—and
went straight ahead with her pleasure.
The other children followed her lead, but they were awkward, their
movements were stilted and perfunctory. They were afraid of the lady of
dainty precision whose quick eyes were following their every movement in
the expectation that they would do some damage. They were afraid of the
wealthy dry-goods merchant, who was so punctilious in his courtesies, so
immaculate in his dress, so self-contained in his personality. To them,
the party did not mean really to throw off restraint and to have a
natural, healthful, childish evening; it meant to get through with
whatever was to be done in such a creditable manner that they would not
be subjected to constantly whispered admonitions of “don’t” and “be
careful.”
With the handkerchief dropped behind Mahala and Junior Moreland speeding
around the circle, the doorbell rang its shrill peal.
Mahlon looked inquiringly at Elizabeth; Elizabeth looked inquiringly at
Mahala. Elizabeth’s hospitality had been strained to the utmost extent.
Half a dozen children she had not expected were present. She had meant
to be lavish, but she was worried in the back of her head for fear the
ice cream and cake and pressed chicken would not hold out.
Mahala smiled reassuringly at her mother.
“It’s some one to see Papa on business,” she said. “Every one I invited
is here.”
Mahlon immediately remembered all the offices that he was accustomed to
perform when he was destined to become, for an instant, the impelling
object in the retina of one of his fellow men. The ceremony began with
his hair, over which he ran his hands; it proceeded to his tie, which he
felt to learn if it had the proper set; and slid down his vest ending
with a little jerk at the points; then each hand busied itself with the
cuff encircling the other wrist; while his eyes travelled rapidly over
his sleeves, down his trouser legs, to the toes of his boots, which
might well have reflected his entire person had there been proper
lighting. Then Mr. Spellman, conceiving that the Morelands might have
called to see how their lamp appeared beside his piano, with Napoleonic
air, advanced to his front door, throwing it wide open. His wife forgot
herself sufficiently to follow the few steps that would give her anxiety
the easement of an unobstructed view. Mahala, quaking in her small heart
for fear she had asked some one more, so that the ring might presage
another unwelcome Susanna, followed frankly.
From his elevation, Mr. Spellman saw the catalpa trees and the
evergreens decorating the front yard on a level with his eyes. It was
with an inarticulate cry of delight that Mahala darted past him to pick
up a little gold cage on a perch of which a bird as yellow as sunshine
burst into song when the light from the doorway streamed on him, giving
the impression of sunrise. Holding the cage outstretched in both hands,
Mahala advanced to her mother. The bird trilled and warbled exquisitely.
The child was entranced.
“Read the card, Mother! See if it is for me,” she cried excitedly.
The card read, “To Mahala on her birthday, from a friend.”
Elizabeth stared at Mahala; Mahlon stared at Mahala, and then at
Elizabeth, and again at Mahala. Mahala wrapped her arms around the cage
and laid her head against it and danced a lively waltz around the room
crooning: “Oh, you lovely little gold bird! You lovely little gold bird!
You are mine! You are mine! Oh, I never had anything half so wonderful!”
She set the cage upon the piano, stretched her arms around it, laid her
face against it, and looked up at her mother, her big, wide-open eyes
demanding love, sympathy, comprehension.
Elizabeth Spellman’s face was a study; but Mahlon’s was a problem. He
opened his lips, but his daughter forestalled him.
“I just know that this lovely surprise is from you, Papa,” she said.
“Nobody ever can think of the wonderful things that you do.”
Then she stopped, because she realized that her father’s face was blank,
even forbidding. The gift was not from him. She turned to her mother,
her lips still parted, and met a duplicate of her father’s expression.
Then her eyes ran around the room in quick question to which there was
not even the hint of an answer. And then, in her bewilderment and with
the swiftness of thought, for one instant her face turned full to the
window beside the piano which opened on the side lawn, while her sharp
eyes thought they saw a fleeting glimpse of a face among the branches of
a tree. Deliberately, she placed a hand on each side of the cage and
again laid her face against the wires as near to the little gold bird as
possible. Then she smiled a smile that would have been very becoming to
any conceivable kind of angel, and her lips began chanting happily: “Oh,
you darling little bird! I love you. You are the most beautiful gift I
ever have had in my whole life.”
Junior Moreland began to sulk from the instant Mahala appeared with the
bird. Every one of her guests had brought her a gift, some of them
expensive and attractive, some of them clumsily made kerchiefs and
pincushions. To all of them she had given warm welcome and appreciation;
but all of them put together had not equalled the magnificence of
Junior’s lamp at which the other girls had looked enviously, and which
the other boys had hated cordially. Now, out of the night, there had
come a bird of gold and Mahala had said that it was the most beautiful
gift she ever had received.
All his life Junior had considered himself first. He was considering
himself now. He felt abused and defrauded. He sneered openly. He said to
Mrs. Spellman: “Are you going to let her keep such a dirty, messy thing
as a bird in this elegant house?”
Mrs. Spellman hesitated. She was repeating “elegant” in her heart. As
words go, she thought it the most wonderful she had ever heard from a
young person. It was the joy of her life to be a perfect wife to Mahlon,
to be a perfect pattern to her neighbours, but every year of her life
made her task more difficult. The most difficult thing of all was the
third task, which tried her more than either of the others—to be a
perfect mother to Mahala. Pride might soar to undue heights where it
concerned her husband or prestige; but the love of her small daughter
cut to the very depths of her heart. Mahala was delighted over the bird.
That was easy to be seen. But Junior Moreland was the son of the rich
banker. He was a handsome lad. He always had been devoted to Mahala, and
while there were things about him of which Mrs. Spellman did not
approve, she had the feeling that under her influence, in combination
with life with Mahala, Junior might develop into a man greatly to be
desired. How very seldom did it happen that such a face and figure as
his were combined with great wealth. Junior was an only child. If the
sinister kind of power that made his father the figure he was in the
little town, extended to the boy, Junior also would have great power—the
power of riches—and how clever he was in the selection of the right
word!
Mrs. Spellman smiled at the lad. He _was_ the son of the rich banker.
“You know,” she said evenly, “I’ve no idea who has sent this little bird
to Mahala. There are several women in the town who raise canaries for
sale. It’s an inexpensive gift. Maybe it comes from some one Mahala has
helped. She is always trying to do kind things to people, as is very
proper that a girl in her position should. Perhaps, by morning, we shall
be able to think who sent the birdie, and then we shall decide what to
do about it.”