Only a Girl Part 17

"Do you believe all that your mother says?" asked Ernestine, shaking her head.

"Certainly; of course. Mamma always tells the truth."

"How do you know that?"

Angelika stared at Ernestine. "How? Why, because I do."

"Yes, but who told you so?"

"No one; I know it myself."

Ernestine looked down and said nothing.

"I know it myself," she repeated thoughtfully, not comprehending why the words struck her so oddly. "But suppose she should tell you what you could not believe?"

"Oh, a child must always believe what her mother says."

"How if she cannot do it?"

"But she must!" cried Angelika angrily.

"She must? How can we believe anything because we must? It is not possible," said Ernestine, and she thought Angelika very silly.

Suddenly it occurred to her that the pastor was no wiser when he said that we must have faith and that it was a sin not to believe. What if you could not,--what was the use of that _must_?

"Ernestine, don't stare so at nothing," said Angelika, interrupting her reverie. "Just look how straight my doll can sit, all alone, without anything to lean against! Oh, just give her one kiss; she is your namesake--I christened her Ernestine."

"No, I don't want to,--it is nothing but a lump of leather, it cannot feel, and I will not kiss anything that is not alive and does not feel!"

"Oh, Ernestine, don't say that. She is not alive now, but perhaps she may get alive. Mamma told me once of a man in Greece, called Pygmalion, who made a marble doll for himself, and loved it so dearly that it grew warm and came to life. And I believe that if I should love my doll dearly she might get alive; and I am sure I shall love her very dearly!

She can say 'papa' and 'mamma' already, which Herr Pygmalion's doll could not do at all; and in time I shall perhaps bring her on, just as he did his!"

And she clasped the "lump of leather" to her little heart, gazed tenderly and hopefully into its blue gla.s.s eyes, and was quite content.

Ernestine looked at her with mournful wonder; she understood now that "Faith gives peace," and she envied the child her happiness.

"Would you not rather have a puppy or a kitten?" she asked gently. "It could eat and drink, and you could feed it, and it would understand what was said to it, and run after you, and love you? Would not that be nicer?"

A shade of sorrow pa.s.sed over Angelika's rosy face, like a cloud over the sun. "Oh," she sighed, "we have a little dog; but I cannot feed it; it does not eat nor drink!"

"Why not? Is it sick?"

"No; it is stuffed."

Ernestine smiled in spite of herself. "Then you have no dog!"

"Oh, yes, we have! he is called a.s.sor. He only died, and mamma had him stuffed, so that he lies perfectly quiet near the fire, and never stirs. Mamma says he will not come to life again. Oh, Ernestine, it is very sad,--when I stroke him, he never licks my hand any more! I call him hundreds of times, and he used to turn his pretty black head round towards me, but he does not do it now; he cannot see nor hear me, and he used to love me so much."

The little girl covered her eyes with her hand and began to cry.

Ernestine tried to soothe her. "Your mother ought to have had the dog buried. Then you would have forgotten him and not grieved after him."

"No! oh, no! I could not have borne that. What! have the faithful old dog hidden in the ground! It would have been too hard! He was so faithful; he never left our side; and when he could hardly walk, he used to creep out of his basket to welcome us when we came into the room, and when he was dying in my lap, he looked up at me so mournfully, as if to say, 'I must leave you now.' And could I hide him away and forget him? That would be dreadful. No, no! he shall lie by the fire in the drawing-room; it is far more comfortable there than in the cold ground, and I will always think how good he was. And I'll tell you what,--when mamma dies she shall not be buried either. I will put her dressing gown on her and let her lie in her soft bed. Then I will pretend she is sick, and I will sit by her every day and talk to her, and, even if she does not answer me, I shall know what she would say if she could speak. And if she cannot kiss me, I will kiss her all the more. That will be a great deal better than to have nothing left of her; will it not?"

Ernestine shook her head. "That can't be done, Angelika; you can't keep dead bodies; they decay. How can you think of such a thing?"

"Oh, you say, 'That can't be done,'--you say, 'That's nothing,' to everything, and spoil all my pleasure; I tell you it is very unkind of you!"

Ernestine felt ashamed. She had been treating Angelika as her uncle Leuthold treated herself. The child was pained and unhappy when her dolls were treated with contempt, and her childish fancies not encouraged; and was she, Ernestine, to endure without a moan the utter overthrow of the hopes of her entire existence, when her uncle dragged down into the dust all that she had held most sacred? She leaned her forehead, heavy with the weight of her thoughts, against the window-pane, and looked up into the gray, storm-lashed clouds, through which there beamed no star, not a ray of moonlight. The children had not noticed the gathering darkness in the room, and Rieka almost startled them when she entered with a light.

"Is not mamma coming soon?" asked Angelika with a sigh. "Pray tell her that I want to go home."

"I will tell her," replied Rieka, and left the room.

"You are tired of being with me," Ernestine whispered sadly. "You cannot love me either, can you?"

Angelika was confused, and did not answer. Ernestine looked disappointed and bitter. "Very well, then--I need not like you either.

Uncle Leuthold would only scold me if I did."

"What for?" Angelika asked amazed.

"Because it is silly to love anything except science, and because n.o.body loves me--n.o.body!"

As she was speaking, a carriage drove up, and old Heim alighted from it. Ernestine was startled; she felt as if the pastor, whom she had shunned, were coming. The door opened, and he entered the room.

"Well, here you both are!" he cried after his hearty fas.h.i.+on. "I wanted to say good-by to you, my little Ernestine, before you leave us for so long. But what is the matter? Have you been quarrelling about the doll?

Why, what a lovely creature she is!" He took the doll, seated himself in a chair, and dandled it upon his knee; the machinery of the toy was set in motion, and the doll screamed "mamma" and "papa" loudly. "Good gracious, how frightened I am!" laughed the old gentleman. "But she is very naughty,--you must train her better, Angelika. She ought not to scream so at strangers."

Angelika clapped her hands with delight. "Oh, I knew that you would like her, Uncle Heim. You will love her just as you do the rest of my dolls, won't you?"

"Of course; she is really such a lovely creature, that I must bring her some bonbons the next time I come."

"Oh, yes--do, uncle, do!" cried Angelika.

"But be careful not to let her eat too many, or she will have to be put to bed like your old Selma, and I shall have to play doll's-doctor again."

"Oh, no, uncle; I will eat some with her myself; bring them soon, pray do."

Meanwhile Heim had been observing Ernestine, who stood mute at a little distance.

"Well, what does our little Ernestine say to this wonderful new child?"

"Oh, uncle," Angelika complained, "she called it a lump of leather."

Heim looked gravely at Ernestine. "So young, and already such a skeptic! Only twelve years old, and take no pleasure in dolls? Poor child!"

Ernestine was silent. The words "Poor child" fell like molten lead into an open wound. Heim gave back the doll to Angelika. "Come here, Ernestine." She approached him shyly.

"What have you been doing? you look as if you had a guilty conscience?"