Dr. Trumbull listened. “I have known such cases,” he said when Sally had
finished.
“What did you do for them?” Sally asked, anxiously.
“Nothing. Such cases have to be cured by time. Children get over these
fancies when they grow up.”
“Do you mean to say that we have to put up with big sister Solly until
Content is grown up?” asked Sally, in a desperate tone. And then Jim
came in. Content had run up-stairs.
“It is all right, mother,” said Jim.
Sally caught him by the shoulders. “Oh, Jim, has she told you?”
Jim gave briefly, and with many omissions, an account of his
conversation with Content.
“Did she say anything about that dress, Jim?” asked his mother.
“She said her aunt had meant it for that out-West rector's daughter Alice
to graduate in, but Content wanted it for her big sister Solly, and told
the rector's wife it was hers. Content says she knows she was a naughty
girl, but after she had said it she was afraid to say it wasn't so.
Mother, I think that poor little thing is scared 'most to death.”
“Nobody is going to hurt her,” said Sally. “Goodness! that rector's wife
was so conscientious that she even let that dress go. Well, I can send
it right back, and the girl will have it in time for her graduation,
after all. Jim dear, call the poor child down. Tell her nobody is going
to scold her.” Sally's voice was very tender.
Jim returned with Content. She had on a little ruffled pink gown
which seemed to reflect color on her cheeks. She wore an inscrutable
expression, at once child-like and charming. She looked shy, furtively
amused, yet happy. Sally realized that the pessimistic downward lines
had disappeared, that Content was really a pretty little girl.
Sally put an arm around the small, pink figure. “So you and Jim have
been talking, dear?” she said.
“Yes, ma'am,” replied little Content. “Jim is my big brother--” She just
caught herself before she said Solly.
“And your sister Solly is married and living out West?”
“Yes,” said Content, with a long breath. “My sister Solly is married.”
Smiles broke all over her little face. She hid it in Sally's skirts, and
a little peal of laughter like a bird-trill came from the soft muslin
folds.
LITTLE LUCY ROSE
BACK of the rectory there was a splendid, long hill. The ground receded
until the rectory garden was reached, and the hill was guarded on either
flank by a thick growth of pines and cedars, and, being a part of the
land appertaining to the rectory, was never invaded by the village
children. This was considered very fortunate by Mrs. Patterson, Jim's
mother, and for an odd reason. The rector's wife was very fond of
coasting, as she was of most out-of-door sports, but her dignified
position prevented her from enjoying them to the utmost. In many
localities the clergyman's wife might have played golf and tennis, have
rode and swum and coasted and skated, and nobody thought the worse of
her; but in The Village it was different.
Sally had therefore rejoiced at the discovery of that splendid, isolated
hill behind the house. It could not have been improved upon for a long,
perfectly glorious coast, winding up on the pool of ice in the garden
and bumping thrillingly between dry vegetables. Mrs. Patterson steered
and Jim made the running pushes, and slid flat on his chest behind his
mother. Jim was very proud of his mother. He often wished that he felt
at liberty to tell of her feats. He had never been told not to tell, but
realized, being rather a sharp boy, that silence was wiser. Jim's mother
confided in him, and he respected her confidence. “Oh, Jim dear,” she
would often say, “there is a mothers' meeting this afternoon, and I
would so much rather go coasting with you.” Or, “There's a Guild meeting
about a fair, and the ice in the garden is really quite smooth.”
It was perhaps unbecoming a rector's wife, but Jim loved his mother
better because she expressed a preference for the sports he loved, and
considered that no other boy had a mother who was quite equal to his.
Sally Patterson was small and wiry, with a bright face, and very thick,
brown hair, which had a boyish crest over her forehead, and she could
run as fast as Jim. Jim's father was much older than his mother, and
very dignified, although he had a keen sense of humor. He used to laugh
when his wife and son came in after their coasting expeditions.
“Well, boys,” he would say, “had a good time?”
Jim was perfectly satisfied and convinced that his mother was the very
best and most beautiful person in the village, even in the whole world,
until Mr. Cyril Rose came to fill a vacancy of cashier in the bank, and
his daughter, little Lucy Rose, as a matter of course, came with him.
Little Lucy had no mother. Mr. Cyril's cousin, Martha Rose, kept his
house, and there was a colored maid with a bad temper, who was said,
however, to be invaluable “help.”
Little Lucy attended Madame's school. She came the next Monday after Jim
and his friends had planned to have a chicken roast and failed. After
Jim saw little Lucy he thought no more of the chicken roast. It
seemed to him that he thought no more of anything. He could not by any
possibility have learned his lessons had it not been for the desire
to appear a good scholar before little Lucy. Jim had never been a
self-conscious boy, but that day he was so keenly worried about her
opinion of him that his usual easy swing broke into a strut when he
crossed the room. He need not have been so troubled, because little Lucy
was not looking at him. She was not looking at any boy or girl. She
was only trying to learn her lesson. Little Lucy was that rather rare
creature, a very gentle, obedient child, with a single eye for her duty.
She was so charming that it was sad to think how much her mother had
missed, as far as this world was concerned.
The minute Madame saw her a singular light came into her eyes--the light
of love of a childless woman for a child. Similar lights were in the
eyes of Miss Parmalee and Miss Acton. They looked at one another with
a sort of sweet confidence when they were drinking tea together after
school in Madame's study.
“Did you ever see such a darling?” said Madame. Miss Parmalee said she
never had, and Miss Acton echoed her.
“She is a little angel,” said Madame.
“She worked so hard over her geography lesson,” said Miss Parmalee, “and
she got the Amazon River in New England and the Connecticut in South
America, after all; but she was so sweet about it, she made me want to
change the map of the world. Dear little soul, it did seem as if she
ought to have rivers and everything else just where she chose.”
“And she tried so hard to reach an octave, and her little finger is too
short,” said Miss Acton; “and she hasn't a bit of an ear for music, but
her little voice is so sweet it does not matter.”
“I have seen prettier children,” said Madame, “but never one quite such
a darling.”
Miss Parmalee and Miss Acton agreed with Madame, and so did everybody
else. Lily Jennings's beauty was quite eclipsed by little Lucy, but
Lily did not care; she was herself one of little Lucy's most fervent
admirers. She was really Jim Patterson's most formidable rival in the
school. “You don't care about great, horrid boys, do you, dear?” Lily
said to Lucy, entirely within hearing of Jim and Lee Westminster and
Johnny Trumbull and Arnold Carruth and Bubby Harvey and Frank Ellis, and
a number of others who glowered at her.
Dear little Lucy hesitated. She did not wish to hurt the feelings of
boys, and the question had been loudly put. Finally she said she didn't
know. Lack of definite knowledge was little Lucy's rock of refuge in
time of need. She would look adorable, and say in her timid little fluty
voice, “I don't--know.” The last word came always with a sort of gasp
which was alluring. All the listening boys were convinced that little
Lucy loved them all individually and generally, because of her “I
don't--know.”
Everybody was convinced of little Lucy's affection for everybody, which
was one reason for her charm. She flattered without knowing that she did
so. It was impossible for her to look at any living thing except with
soft eyes of love. It was impossible for her to speak without every tone
conveying the sweetest deference and admiration. The whole atmosphere
of Madame's school changed with the advent of the little girl. Everybody
tried to live up to little Lucy's supposed ideal, but in reality she had
no ideal. Lucy was the simplest of little girls, only intent upon being
good, doing as she was told, and winning her father's approval, also her
cousin Martha's.
Martha Rose was quite elderly, although still good-looking. She was not
popular, because she was very silent. She dressed becomingly, received
calls and returned them, but hardly spoke a word. People rather dreaded
her coming. Miss Martha Rose would sit composedly in a proffered chair,
her gloved hands crossed over her nice, gold-bound card-case, her chin
tilted at an angle which never varied, her mouth in a set smile which
never wavered, her slender feet in their best shoes toeing out precisely
under the smooth sweep of her gray silk skirt. Miss Martha Rose dressed
always in gray, a fashion which the village people grudgingly admired.
It was undoubtedly becoming and distinguished, but savored ever so
slightly of ostentation, as did her custom of always dressing little
Lucy in blue. There were different shades and fabrics, but blue it
always was. It was the best color for the child, as it revealed the fact
that her big, dark eyes were blue. Shaded as they were by heavy, curly
lashes, they would have been called black or brown, but the blue in
them leaped to vision above the blue of blue frocks. Little Lucy had the
finest, most delicate features, a mist of soft, dark hair, which curled
slightly, as mist curls, over sweet, round temples. She was a small,
daintily clad child, and she spoke and moved daintily and softly;
and when her blue eyes were fixed upon anybody's face, that person
straightway saw love and obedience and trust in them, and love met love
half-way. Even Miss Martha Rose looked another woman when little Lucy's
innocent blue eyes were fixed upon her rather handsome but colorless
face between the folds of her silvery hair; Miss Martha's hair had
turned prematurely gray. Light would come into Martha Rose's face, light
and animation, although she never talked much even to Lucy. She never
talked much to her cousin Cyril, but he was rather glad of it. He had
a keen mind, but it was easily diverted, and he was engrossed in his
business, and concerned lest he be disturbed by such things as feminine
chatter, of which he certainly had none in his own home, if he kept
aloof from Jenny, the colored maid. Hers was the only female voice ever
heard to the point of annoyance in the Rose house.
It was rather wonderful how a child like little Lucy and Miss Martha
lived with so little conversation. Martha talked no more at home than
abroad; moreover, at home she had not the attitude of waiting for some
one to talk to her, which people outside considered trying. Martha did
not expect her cousin to talk to her. She seldom asked a question. She
almost never volunteered a perfectly useless observation. She made no
remarks upon self-evident topics. If the sun shone, she never mentioned
it. If there was a heavy rain, she never mentioned that. Miss Martha
suited her cousin exactly, and for that reason, aside from the fact that
he had been devoted to little Lucy's mother, it never occurred to him
to marry again. Little Lucy talked no more than Miss Martha, and nobody
dreamed that she sometimes wanted somebody to talk to her. Nobody
dreamed that the dear little girl, studying her lessons, learning
needlework, trying very futilely to play the piano, was lonely; but she
was without knowing it herself. Martha was so kind and so still; and her
father was so kind and so still, engrossed in his papers or books,
often sitting by himself in his own study. Little Lucy in this peace and
stillness was not having her share of childhood. When other little
girls came to play with her. Miss Martha enjoined quiet, and even Lily
Jennings's bird-like chattering became subdued. It was only at school
that Lucy got her chance for the irresponsible delight which was the
simple right of her childhood, and there her zeal for her lessons
prevented. She was happy at school, however, for there she lived in
an atmosphere of demonstrative affection. The teachers were given
to seizing her in fond arms and caressing her, and so were her girl
companions; while the boys, especially Jim Patterson, looked wistfully
on.
Jim Patterson was in love, a charming little poetical boy-love; but it
was love. Everything which he did in those days was with the thought of
little Lucy for incentive. He stood better in school than he had ever
done before, but it was all for the sake of little Lucy. Jim Patterson
had one talent, rather rudimentary, still a talent. He could play by
ear. His father owned an old violin. He had been inclined to music in
early youth, and Jim got permission to practise on it, and he went by
himself in the hot attic and practised. Jim's mother did not care for
music, and her son's preliminary scraping tortured her. Jim tucked the
old fiddle under one round boy-cheek and played in the hot attic, with
wasps buzzing around him; and he spent his pennies for catgut, and
he learned to mend fiddle-strings; and finally came a proud Wednesday
afternoon when there were visitors in Madame's school, and he stood on
the platform, with Miss Acton playing an accompaniment on the baby grand
piano, and he managed a feeble but true tune on his violin. It was
all for little Lucy, but little Lucy cared no more for music than his
mother; and while Jim was playing she was rehearsing in the depths
of her mind the little poem which later she was to recite; for this
adorable little Lucy was, as a matter of course, to figure in the
entertainment. It therefore happened that she heard not one note of Jim
Patterson's painfully executed piece, for she was saying to herself in
mental singsong a foolish little poem, beginning:
There was one little flower that bloomed
Beside a cottage door.
When she went forward, little darling blue-clad figure, there was a
murmur of admiration; and when she made mistakes straight through the
poem, saying,
There was a little flower that fell
On my aunt Martha's floor,
for beginning, there was a roar of tender laughter and a clapping of
tender, maternal hands, and everybody wanted to catch hold of little
Lucy and kiss her. It was one of the irresistible charms of this child
that people loved her the more for her mistakes, and she made many,
although she tried so very hard to avoid them. Little Lucy was not in
the least brilliant, but she held love like a precious vase, and it gave
out perfume better than mere knowledge.
Jim Patterson was so deeply in love with her when he went home that
night that he confessed to his mother. Mrs. Patterson had led up to the
subject by alluding to little Lucy while at the dinner-table.
“Edward,” she said to her husband--both she and the rector had
been present at Madame's school entertainment and the tea-drinking
afterward--“did you ever see in all your life such a darling little girl
as the new cashier's daughter? She quite makes up for Miss Martha, who
sat here one solid hour, holding her card-case, waiting for me to talk
to her. That child is simply delicious, and I was so glad she made
mistakes.”
“Yes, she is a charming child,” assented the rector, “despite the fact
that she is not a beauty, hardly even pretty.”
“I know it,” said Mrs. Patterson, “but she has the worth of beauty.”
Jim was quite pale while his father and mother were talking. He
swallowed the hot soup so fast that it burnt his tongue. Then he turned
very red, but nobody noticed him. When his mother came up-stairs to kiss
him good night he told her.
“Mother,” said he, “I have something to tell you.”
“All right, Jim,” replied Sally Patterson, with her boyish air.
“It is very important,” said Jim.
Mrs. Patterson did not laugh; she did not even smile. She sat down
beside Jim's bed and looked seriously at his eager, rapt, shamed little
boy-face on the pillow. “Well?” said she, after a minute which seemed
difficult to him.
Jim coughed. Then he spoke with a blurt. “Mother,” said Jim, “by and by,
of course not quite yet, but by and by, will you have any objection to
Miss Lucy Rose as a daughter?”
Even then Sally Patterson did not laugh or even smile. “Are you thinking
of marrying her, Jim?” asked she, quite as if her son had been a man.
“Yes, mother,” replied Jim. Then he flung up his little arms in pink
pajama sleeves, and Sally Patterson took his face between her two hands
and kissed him warmly.
“She is a darling, and your choice does you credit, Jim,” said she. “Of
course you have said nothing to her yet?”
“I thought it was rather too soon.”
“I really think you are very wise, Jim,” said his mother. “It is too
soon to put such ideas into the poor child's head. She is younger than
you, isn't she, Jim?”
“She is just six months and three days younger,” replied Jim, with
majesty.
“I thought so. Well, you know, Jim, it would just wear her all out,
as young as that, to be obliged to think about her trousseau and
housekeeping and going to school, too.”
“I know it,” said Jim, with a pleased air. “I thought I was right,
mother.”
“Entirely right; and you, too, really ought to finish school, and take
up a profession or a business, before you say anything definite. You
would want a nice home for the dear little thing, you know that, Jim.”
Jim stared at his mother out of his white pillow. “I thought I would
stay with you, and she would stay with her father until we were both
very much older,” said he. “She has a nice home now, you know, mother.”
Sally Patterson's mouth twitched a little, but she spoke quite gravely
and reasonably. “Yes, that is very true,” said she; “still, I do think
you are wise to wait, Jim.”
When Sally Patterson had left Jim, she looked in on the rector in his
study. “Our son is thinking seriously of marrying, Edward,” said she.
The rector stared at her. She had shut the door, and she laughed.
“He is very discreet. He has consulted me as to my approval of her as
daughter and announced his intention to wait a little while.”
The rector laughed; then he wrinkled his forehead uneasily. “I don't
like the little chap getting such ideas,” said he.
“Don't worry, Edward; he hasn't got them,” said Sally Patterson.
“I hope not.”
“He has made a very wise choice. She is that perfect darling of a Rose
girl who couldn't speak her piece, and thought we all loved her when we
laughed.”
“Well, don't let him get foolish ideas; that is all, my dear,” said the
rector.
“Don't worry, Edward. I can manage him,” said Sally.
But she was mistaken. The very next day Jim proposed in due form
to little Lucy. He could not help it. It was during the morning
intermission, and he came upon her seated all alone under a hawthorn
hedge, studying her arithmetic anxiously. She was in blue, as usual, and
a very perky blue bow sat on her soft, dark hair, like a bluebird. She
glanced up at Jim from under her long lashes.
“Do two and seven make eight or ten? If you please, will you tell me?”
said she.
“Say, Lucy,” said Jim, “will you marry me by and by?”
Lucy stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Marry me by and by?”
Lucy took refuge in her little harbor of ignorance. “I don't know,” said
she.
“But you like me, don't you, Lucy?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't you like me better than you like Johnny Trumbull?”
“I don't know.”
“You like me better than you like Arnold Carruth, don't you? He has
curls and wears socks.”
“I don't know.”
“When do you think you can be sure?”
“I don't know.”
Jim stared helplessly at little Lucy. She stared back sweetly.
“Please tell me whether two and seven make six or eleven, Jim,” said
she.
“They make nine,” said Jim.
“I have been counting my fingers and I got it eleven, but I suppose
I must have counted one finger twice,” said little Lucy. She gazed
reflectively at her little baby-hands. A tiny ring with a blue stone
shone on one finger.
“I will give you a ring, you know,” Jim said, coaxingly.
“I have got a ring my father gave me. Did you say it was ten, please,
Jim?”
“Nine,” gasped Jim.
“All the way I can remember,” said little Lucy, “is for you to pick just
so many leaves off the hedge, and I will tie them in my handkerchief,
and just before I have to say my lesson I will count those leaves.”
Jim obediently picked nine leaves from the hawthorn hedge, and little
Lucy tied them into her handkerchief, and then the Japanese gong sounded
and they went back to school.
That night after dinner, just before Lucy went to bed, she spoke of her
own accord to her father and Miss Martha, a thing which she seldom did.
“Jim Patterson asked me to marry him when I asked him what seven and two
made in my arithmetic lesson,” said she. She looked with the loveliest
round eyes of innocence first at her father, then at Miss Martha. Cyril
Rose gasped and laid down his newspaper.
“What did you say, little Lucy?” he asked.
“Jim Patterson asked me to marry him when I asked him to tell me how
much seven and two made in my arithmetic lesson.”
Cyril Rose and his cousin Martha looked at each other.
“Arnold Carruth asked me, too, when a great big wasp flew on my arm and
frightened me.”
Cyril and Martha continued to look. The little, sweet, uncertain voice
went on.
“And Johnny Trumbull asked me when I 'most fell down on the sidewalk;
and Lee Westminster asked me when I wasn't doing anything, and so did
Bubby Harvey.”
“What did you tell them?” asked Miss Martha, in a faint voice.
“I told them I didn't know.”
“You had better have the child go to bed now,” said Cyril. “Good night,
little Lucy. Always tell father everything.”
“Yes, father,” said little Lucy, and was kissed, and went away with
Martha.
When Martha returned, her cousin looked at her severely. He was a fair,
gentle-looking man, and severity was impressive when he assumed it.
“Really, Martha,” said he, “don't you think you had better have a little
closer outlook over that baby?”
“Oh, Cyril, I never dreamed of such a thing,” cried Miss Martha.
“You really must speak to Madame,” said Cyril. “I cannot have such
things put into the child's head.”
“Oh, Cyril, how can I?”
“I think it is your duty.”
“Cyril, could not--you?”
Cyril grinned. “Do you think,” said he, “that I am going to that elegant
widow schoolma'am and say, 'Madame, my young daughter has had four
proposals of marriage in one day, and I must beg you to put a stop to
such proceedings'? No, Martha; it is a woman's place to do such a thing
as that. The whole thing is too absurd, indignant as I am about it. Poor
little soul!”
So it happened that Miss Martha Rose, the next day being Saturday,
called on Madame, but, not being asked any leading question, found
herself absolutely unable to deliver herself of her errand, and went
away with it unfulfilled.
“Well, I must say,” said Madame to Miss Parmalee, as Miss Martha tripped
wearily down the front walk--“I must say, of all the educated women who
have really been in the world, she is the strangest. You and I have done
nothing but ask inane questions, and she has sat waiting for them, and
chirped back like a canary. I am simply worn out.”
“So am I,” sighed Miss Parmalee.
But neither of them was so worn out as poor Miss Martha, anticipating
her cousin's reproaches. However, her wonted silence and reticence stood
her in good stead, for he merely asked, after little Lucy had gone to
bed:
“Well, what did Madame say about Lucy's proposals?”
“She did not say anything,” replied Martha.
“Did she promise it would not occur again?”
“She did not promise, but I don't think it will.”
The financial page was unusually thrilling that night, and Cyril
Rose, who had come to think rather lightly of the affair, remarked,
absent-mindedly; “Well, I hope it does not occur again. I cannot have
such ridiculous ideas put into the child's head. If it does, we get a
governess for her and take her away from Madame's.” Then he resumed his
reading, and Martha, guilty but relieved, went on with her knitting.