Fairy Prince and Other Stories Part 13

My Father gruffed his throat.

"Oh Derry's just a young friend of ours," he said.

"He lives in Cuba," said my Mother.

"Cuba's an island!" I said. "It floats in water! They eat bananas! They have fights! It's very hot! There's lots of moonlight! Derry's father says that when Rosalee's married he'll build a----."

"Hush, Ruthy!" said my Father. "You've talked quite enough already!"

The Blinded Lady patted her skirts. They billowed all around her like black silk waves. It looked funny.

"H-m-m-mmm!" she said. "Let the Child-Who's-Talked-Too-Much-Already come forward now so that I can feel her face!"

I went forward just as fast as I could.

The Blinded Lady touched my forehead.

She smoothed my nose,--my cheeks,--my chin.

"U-m-mmm," she said. "And 'Ruthy' you say is what you call her?"

My Father twinkled his eyes.

"We have to call her something!" he said politely.

"And is this b.u.mp on the forehead a natural one?" said the Blinded Lady.

"Or an accidental one?"

"Both!" said my Father. "That is, it's pre-em-i-nently natural for our daughter Ruthy to have an accidental b.u.mp on her forehead."

"And there are, I infer," said the Blinded Lady, "one or two freckles on either side of the nose?"

"Your estimate," said my Father, "is conservative."

"And the hair?" said the Blinded Lady. "It hasn't exactly the texture of gold."

"'Penny-colored' we call it!" said my Mother.

"And not exactly a _new_ penny at that, is it?" said the Blinded Lady.

"N--o," said my Mother. "But rather jolly all the same like a penny that's just bought two sticks of candy instead of one!"

"And the nose turns up a little?" said the Blinded Lady.

"Well maybe just a--trifle," admitted my Mother.

The Blinded Lady stroked my face all over again. "U-m-m-m," she said.

"Well at least it's something to be thankful for that everything is perfectly normal!" She put her hands on my shoulders. She shook me a little. "Never, _never_, Ruthie," she said, "be so foolish as to complain because you're not pretty!"

"No'm!" I promised.

"Put all the Beauty you can _inside_ your head!" said the Blinded Lady.

"Yes'm!" I promised. "And I've just thought of another one that I know!

It's about

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be----"

"_Foolis.h.!.+_" said the Blinded Lady. "It wasn't sounds I was thinking of this time, but _sights_!" She pushed me away. She sighed and sighed. It puffed her all out. "O--h," she sighed. "O--h! Three pairs of Young Eyes and all the World waiting to be looked at!"

She rocked her chair. She rocked it very slowly. It was like a little pain.

"I never saw _anything_ after I was seventeen!" she said. "And G.o.d himself knows that I hadn't seen anywheres near enough before that! Just the little gra.s.s road to the village now and then on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon to buy the rice and the meat and the matches and the soap!

Just the wood-lot beyond the hill-side where the Arbutus always blossomed so early! Just old Neighbor Nora's new patch-work quilt!--Just a young man's face that looked in once at the window to ask where the trout brook was! But even these pictures," said the Blinded Lady, "They're fading! Fading! Sometimes I can't remember at all whether old Nora's quilt was patterned in diamond shapes or squares. Sometimes I'm not so powerful sure whether the young man's eye were blue or brown!

After all, it's more'n fifty years ago. It's new pictures that I need now," she said. "New pictures!"

She took a peppermint from a box. She didn't pa.s.s 'em. She rocked her chair. And rocked. And rocked. She smiled a little. It wasn't a real smile. It was just a smile to save her dress. It was just a little gutter to catch her tears.

"Oh dear me--Oh dear me--Oh dear me!" said my Mother.

"Stop your babbling!" said the Blinded Lady. She sniffed. And sniffed.

"But I'll tell you what I'll do," she said. "These children can come back here next Sat.u.r.day afternoon and----."

"Why there's no reason in the world," said my Mother, "why they shouldn't come every day!"

The Blinded Lady stopped rocking. She almost screamed.

"Every day?" she said. "Mercy no! Their feet are muddy! And besides it's tiresome! But they can come next Sat.u.r.day I tell you! And I'll give you a prize! Yes, I'll give two prizes--for the two best new pictures that they bring me to think about! And the first prize shall be a Peac.o.c.k Feather Fan!" said the Blinded Lady. "And the second prize shall be a Choice of Cats!"

"A Choice of Cats?" gasped my Father.

The Blinded Lady thumped her cane. She thumped it pretty hard. It made you glad your toes weren't under it.

"Now mind you, Children!" she said.

"It's got to be a _new_ picture! It's got to be something you've seen yourself! The most _beautifulest_! The most _darlingest_ thing that you've ever seen! Go out in the field I say! Go out in the woods! Go up on the mountain top! And _look around_! n.o.body I tell you can ever make another person see anything that he hasn't seen himself! Now be gone!"

said the Blinded Lady. "I'm all tuckered out!"

"Why I'm sure," said my Father, "we never would have come at all if we hadn't supposed that----."

The Blinded Lady shook her cane right at my Father.

"Don't be stuffy!" she said. "But get out!"

We got out.

Old Mary who washed and ironed and cooked for the Blinded Lady showed us the shortest way out. The shortest way out was through the wood-shed.

There were twenty-seven little white bowls of milk on the wood-shed floor. There was a cat at each bowl. It sounded lappy! Some of the cats were black. Some of the cats were gray. Some of the cats were white.