The Sick a Bed Lady Part 8

"N--o, not going to be married," he corrected, "but going to be married--again."

He spoke as though there were a great difference; but it was man-talk and you did not understand it.

Then he gathered you into the big, dark chair and pushed you way out on his knees and scrunched your cheeks in his hands and ate your face all up with his big eyes. When he spoke at last, his voice was way down deep like a ba.s.s drum.

"Little Boy Jack," he said, "you must never, never, never forget your Dear Mother!"

His words and the bir-r-r of them shook you like a leaf.

"But what was my Dear Mother like?" you whimpered. You had never seen your Mother.

Then your Father jumped up and walked hard on the creaky floor. When he turned round again, his eyes were all wet and s.h.i.+ny like a brown stained-gla.s.s window.

"What was your Dear Mother like?" he repeated. "Your Dear Mother was like--was like--the flash of a white wing across a stormy sea. And your Dear Mother's name was 'Clarice.' I give it to you for a Memorial. What better Memorial could a little boy have than his Dear Mother's name? And there is a date--" His voice grew suddenly harsh and hard like iron, and his lips puckered on his words as with a taste of rust--"there is a date--the 26th of April--No, that is too hard a date for a little boy's memory! It was a Thursday. I give you Thursday for your--Happy-Day.

'Clarice' for a Memorial, and Thursday for your Happy-Day." His words began to beat on you like blows. "As--long--as--you--live," he cried, "be very kind to any one who is named 'Clarice.' And no matter what Time brings you--weeks, months, years, centuries--_keep Thursday for your Happy-Day_. No cruelty must ever defame it, no malice, no gross bitterness."

Then he crushed you close to him for the millionth, billionth fraction of a second, and went away, while you stayed behind in the scary black-oak library, feeling as big and achy and responsible as you used to feel when you and your Dear Father were carrying a heavy suit-case together and your Dear Father let go his share just a moment to light his brown cigar. It gave you a beautiful feeling in your head, but way off in your stomach it tugged some.

So you crept away to bed at last, and dreamed that on a s.h.i.+ning path leading straight from your front door to Heaven you had to carry all alone two perfectly huge suit-cases packed tight with love, and one of the suit-cases was marked "Clarice" and one was marked "Thursday." Tug, tug, tug, you went, and stumble, stumble, stumble, but your Dear Father could not help you at all because he was perfectly busy carrying a fat leather bag, some golf sticks, and a bull-terrier for a strange lady.

It was not a pleasant dream, and you screamed out so loud in the night that the Housekeeper-Woman had to come and comfort you. It was the Housekeeper-Woman who told you that on the morrow your Father was going far off across the salt seas. It was the Housekeeper-Woman who told you that you, yourself, were to be given away to a Grandmother-Lady in Ma.s.sachusetts. It was also the Housekeeper-Woman who told you that your puppy dog Bruno--Bruno the big, the black, the curly, the waggy, was not to be included in the family gift to the Grandmother-Lady. Everybody reasoned, it seemed, that you would not need Bruno because there would be so many other dogs in Ma.s.sachusetts. That was just the trouble. They _would_ all be "other dogs." It was Bruno that you wanted, for he was the only _dog_, just as _you_ were the only _boy_ in the world. All the rest were only "other boys." You could have explained the matter perfectly to your Father if the Housekeeper-Woman had not made you cry so that you broke your explainer. But later in the night the most beautiful thought came to you. At first perhaps it tasted a little bit sly in your mouth, but after a second it spread like ginger, warm and sweet over your whole body except your toes, and you crept out of bed like a flannel ghost and fumbled your way down the black hall to your Dear Father's room and woke him shamelessly from his sleep. His eyes in the moonlight gleamed like two frightened dreams.

"Dear Father," you cried--you could hardly get the words fast enough out of your mouth--"Dear--Father--I--do--not--think--Bruno--is--a--very--good --name--for--a--big--black--dog--I--am--going--to--name--him--Clarice --instead!"

That was how you and Bruno-Clarice happened to celebrate together your first Happy-Day with a long, magic, joggling train journey to Ma.s.sachusetts--the only original _boy_ and the only original _dog_ in all the world.

The Grandmother-Lady proved to be a very pleasant purple sort of person. Exactly whose Grandmother she was, you never found out. She was not your Father's mother. She was not your Mother's mother. With these links missing, whose Grandmother could she be? You could hardly press the matter further without subjecting her to the possible mortification of confessing that she was only adopted. Maybe, crudest of all, she was just a Paid-Grandmother.

The Grandmother-Lady lived in a perfectly brown house in a perfectly green garden on the edge of a perfectly blue ocean. That was the Sight of it. Salted mignonette was the Smell of it. And a fresh wind flapping through tall poplar trees was always and forever the Sound of it.

The brown house itself was the living image of a prim, old-fas.h.i.+oned bureau backed up bleakly to the street, with its piazza side yanked out boldly into the garden like a riotous bureau drawer, through which the Rising Sun rummaged every morning for some particular new shade of scarlet or yellow nasturtiums. As though quite shocked by such bizarre untidiness, the green garden ran tattling like mad down to the ocean and was most frantically shooed back again, so that its little trees and shrubs and flowers fluttered in a perpetual nervous panic of not knowing which way to blow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The blue ocean was the most wonderful thing of all]

But the blue ocean was the most wonderful thing of all. Never was there such an ocean! Right from the far-away edge of the sky it came, roaring, ranting, rumpling, till it broke against the beach all white and frilly like the Grandmother-Lady's best ruching. It was morning when you saw the ocean first, and its pleasant waters gleamed like a gorgeous, bright-blue looking-gla.s.s covered with paper s.h.i.+ps all filled with Other Boys' fathers. It was not till the first night came down--black and mournful and moany--it was not till the first night came down that you saw that the ocean was Much Too Large. There in your chill linen bed, with the fear of Sea and Night and Strangers upon you, you discovered a very strange droll thing--that your Father was a Person and might therefore leave you, but that your Mother was a _feeling_ and would never, never, never forsake you. Bruno-Clarice, slapping his fat, black tail against your bedroom floor, was something of a _feeling_ too.

Most fortunately for your well-being, the Grandmother-Lady's house was not too isolated from its neighbors. To be sure, a tall, stiff hedge separated the green garden from the lavender-and-pink garden next door, but a great scraggly hole in the hedge gave a beautiful p.r.i.c.kly zest to friendly communication.

More than this, two children lived on the other side of the hedge.

You had never had any playmates before in all your life!

One of the children was just Another Boy--a duplicate of you. But the other one was--_the only original girl_. Next to the big ocean, she was the surprise of your life. She wore skirts instead of clothes. She wore curls instead of hair. She wore stockings instead of legs. She cried when you laughed. She laughed when you cried. She was funny from the very first second, even when the Boy asked you if your big dog would bite. The Boy stood off and kept right on asking: "Will he bite? Will he bite? _W-i-l-l_ he _bite_?" But the Girl took a great rough stick and pried open Bruno-Clarice's tusky mouth _to see if he would_, and when he _g-r-o-w-l-e-d_, she just kissed him smack on his black nose and called him "A Precious," and said, "Why, of course he'll bite."

The Boy was ten years old--a year older, and much fatter than you. His name was Sam. The Girl was only eight years old, and you could not tell at first whether she was thin or fat, she was so ruffledy. She had a horrid dressy name, "Sophia." But everybody called her Ladykin.

Oh, it is fun to make a boat that will flop sideways through the waves.

It is fun to make a windmill that will whirl and whirl in the gra.s.s. It is fun to make an education. It is fun to make a fortune. But most of anything in the world it is fun to make a _friend_!

You had never made a _friend_ before. First of all you asked, "How old are you?" "Can you do fractions?" "Can you name the capes on the west coast of Africa?" "What is your favorite color? Green? Blue? Pink? Red?

Or yellow?" Sam voted for green. Ladykin chose green _and_ blue _and_ pink _and_ red _and_ yellow, _also_ purple. Then you asked, "Which are you most afraid of, the Judgment Day or a Submarine Boat?" Sam chose the Submarine Boat right off, so you had to take the Judgment Day, which was not a very pleasant fear to have for a pet. Ladykin declared that she wasn't afraid of anything in the world except of Being Homely. Wasn't that a silly fear? Then you got a little more intimate and asked, "What is your Father's business?" Sam and Ladykin's Father kept a huge candy store. It was mortifying to have to confess that your Father was only an Artist, but you laid great stress on his large eyes and his long fingers.

Then you three went off to the sandy beach and climbed up on a great huddly gray rock to watch the huge yellow sun go down all s.h.i.+ny and important, like a twenty-dollar gold piece in a wad of pink cotton batting. The tide was going out, too, the mean old "injun-giver,"

taking back all the pretty, chuckling pebbles, the s.h.i.+ning ropes of seaweed, the dear salt secrets it had brought so teasingly to your feet a few hours earlier. You were very lonesome. But not till the gold and pink was almost gone from the sky did you screw your courage up to its supreme point. First you threw four stones very far out into the surf, then--

"What--is--your--Mother--like?" you whispered.

Ladykin went to her answer with impetuous certainty:

"Our Mother," she announced, "is fat and short and wears skin-tight dresses, and is President of the Woman's Club, and is sometimes cross."

A great glory came upon you and you clutched for wonder at the choking neck of your little blouse.

"M-y Mother," you said, "m-y Mother is like the Flash of a White Wing across a Stormy Sea!"

You started to say more, but with a wild war-whoop of amus.e.m.e.nt, Sam lost his balance and fell sprawling into the sand. "Oh, what a funny Mother!" he shouted, but Ladykin jumped down on him furiously and began to kick him with her scarlet sandals. "Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" she cried, "Jack's Mother is dead!" and then in an instant she had clambered back to your side again and snuggled her little soft girl-cheek close against yours, while with one tremulous hand she pointed way out beyond the surf line where a solitary, snow-white gull swooped down into the Blue. "Look!"

she gasped, "L-o-o-k!" and when you turned to her with a sudden gulping sob, she kissed you warm and sweet upon your lips.

It was not a Father kiss with two tight arms and a scrunching pain. It was not a Grandmother-Lady kiss complimenting your clean face. It was not a Bruno-Clarice kiss, mute and wistful and lappy. There was no pain in it. There was no compliment. There was no doggish fealty. There was just _sweetness_.

Then you looked straight at Ladykin, and Ladykin looked straight at you, looked and _looked_ and LOOKED, and you both gasped right out loud before the first miracle of your life, the Miracle of the Mating of Thoughts. Without a word of suggestion, without a word of explanation, you and Ladykin clasped hands and tiptoed stealthily off to the very edge of the water, and knelt down slus.h.i.+ly in the sand, and stooped way over, oh, way, way over, with the cold waves squirting up your cuffs; and kissed two perfectly round floaty kisses out to the White Sea-Gull, and after a minute the White Gull rose in the sky, swirled round and round and round, stopped for a second, and then with a wild cry swooped down again into the blue--Once! Twice! and then with a great fountainy splash of wings rose high in the air like a white silk kite and went scudding off like mad into the Grayness, then into the Blackness, then into the Nothingness of the night. And you stayed behind on that pleasant, safe, sandy edge of things with all the sweetness gone from your lips, and nothing left you in all the world but the thudding of your heart, and a queer, sad, salty pucker on your tongue that gave you a thirst not so much for water as for _life_.

Oh, you learned a great deal about living in those first few days and weeks and months at the Grandmother-Lady's house.

You learned, for instance, that if you wanted to _do_ things, Boys were best; but if you wanted to _think_ things, then Girls were infinitely superior. You, yourself, were part Thinker and part Doer.

Sam was a _doer_ from start to finish, strong of limb, long of wind, st.u.r.dy of purpose. But Sam was certainly prosy in his head. Ladykin, on the contrary, had "gray matter" that jumped like a squirrel in its cage, and fled hither and yon, and turned somersaults, and leaped through hoops, and was altogether alert beyond description. But she could not _do_ things. She could not stay in the nice ocean five minutes without turning blue. She could not climb a tree without falling and b.u.mping her nose. She could not fight without getting mad. Out of these proven facts you evolved a beautiful theory that if Thinky-Girls could only be taught to _do_ things, they would make the most perfect playmates in all the wide, wide world. Yet somehow you never made a theory to improve Sam, though Sam's inability to think invariably filled you with a very cross, unholy contempt for him, while Ladykin's inability to _do_ only served to thrill you with the most delicious, sweet, puffy pride in _yourself_.

Sam was very evidently a Person. Ladykin was a Feeling. You began almost at once to distinguish between Persons and Feelings. Anything that straightened out your head was a Person. Anything that puckered up your heart was a Feeling. Your Father, you had found out, was a Person. The Grandmother-Lady was a Person. Sam was a Person. Suns.h.i.+ne was a Person.

A Horse was a Person. A Chrysanthemum was a Person. But your Mother was a Feeling. And Ladykin was a Feeling. And Bruno-Clarice was a Feeling.

And the Ocean Blue was a Feeling. And a Church Organ was a Feeling. And the Smell of a June Rose was a Feeling. Perhaps your Happy-Day was the biggest Feeling of All.

Thursday, to be sure, came only once a week, but--_such a Thursday_!

Even now, if you shut your eyes tight and gasp a quick breath, you can sense once more the sweet, crisp joy of fresh, starched clothes, and the pleasant, s.h.i.+ny jingle of new pennies in your small white cotton pockets. White? Yes; your Father had said that always on that day you should go like a little white Flag of Truce on an emba.s.sy to Fate. And Happiness? Could anything in the world make more for happiness than to be perfectly clean in the morning and perfectly dirty at night, with something rather frisky to eat for dinner, and Sam and Ladykin invariably invited to supper? Your Happy-Day was your Sacristy, too.

n.o.body ever punished you on Thursday. n.o.body was ever cross to you on Thursday. Even if you were very black-bad the last thing Wednesday night, you were perfectly, blissfully, lusciously safe until Friday morning.

Oh, a Happy-Day was a very simple thing to manage compared with the terrible difficulties of being kind to everybody named "Clarice." There was _n.o.body_ named Clarice! In all the town, in all the directory, in all the telephone books, you and Ladykin could not find a single person named Clarice. Once in a New York newspaper you read about a young Clarice-Lady of such and such a street who fell and broke her hip; and you took twenty s.h.i.+ny pennies of your money and bought a beautiful, hand-painted celluloid brush-holder and sent it to her; but you never, never heard that it did her any good. You did not want your Father to be mad at you, but Ladykin reasoned you out of your possible worry by showing you how if you ever saw your Father again you could at least plant your feet firmly, fold your arms, puff out your chest, and affirm distinctly: "Dear Father, I have _never_ been cruel to _any one_ named 'Clarice.'" Ladykin knew perfectly well how to manage it. Ladykin knew perfectly well how to manage everything.

Sam was the stupid one. Sam took a certain pleasure in Bruno-Clarice, but he never realized that Bruno-Clarice was a sacred dog. Sam thought that it was very fine for you to have a Happy-Day, with Clean Clothes, and Ice-Cream, and Pennies, but he never almost _burst_ with the wonder of the day.

Sam thought that it was pleasant enough for you to have a dead Mother who was like "the flash of a white wing across a stormy sea," but he did not see any possible connection between that fact and stoning all the white sea-gulls in sight. Ladykin, on the contrary, told Sam distinctly that she'd knock his head off if he ever hit a gull, but fortunately--or unfortunately--Ladykin's aim was not so sure as Sam's. It was you who had to stay behind on the beach and pommel more than half the life out of Sam while Ladykin, pink as a posy in her best muslin, scared to death of wet and cold, plunged out to her little neck in the chopping waves to rescue a quivering fluff of feathers that struggled broken-winged against the cruel, drowning water. "Gulls are gulls!" persisted Sam with every blubbering breath. "Gulls are _Mothers_!" gasped Ladykin, staggering from the surf all drenched and dripping like a bursted water-pail. "Well, boy-gulls are gulls!" Sam screamed in a perfect explosion of outraged _truth_. But Ladykin defied him to the last.

Through chattering teeth her vehement rea.s.sertion sounded like some horrid, wicked blasphemy: "Nnnnnnnnnnnn-oo! Bbb-o-y ggggg-ggulls are MMMMMM-Mothers too!" Then with that pulsing drench of feathers cuddled close to her breast, she struggled off alone to the house to have the Croup, while you and Sam went cheerily up the beach to find some s.h.i.+ners and some seaweed for your new gull hospital. Not till you were quite an old boy did you ever find out what became of that gull. Sacred Bruno-Clarice ate him. Ladykin, it seems, knew always what had happened to him, but she never dreamed of telling you till you were old enough to bear it. To Ladykin, Truth out of season was sourer than strawberries at Christmas time.

Sam would have told you _anything_ the very first second that he found it out. Sam was perfectly great for Truth. He could tell more Great Black Truths in one day than there were thunder-clouds in the whole hot summer sky. This quality made Sam just a little bit dangerous in a crowd. He was always and forever shooting people with Truths that he didn't know were loaded. He was always telling the Grandmother-Lady, for instance, that her hair looked _exactly_ like a wig. He was always telling Ladykin that she smelled of raspberry jam. He was always telling you that he didn't believe your Father really loved you. Oh, everything that Sam said was as straight and lank and honest as a lady's hair when it's out of crimp. Nothing in the world could be straighter than that.

But sometimes, when you had played st.u.r.dily with Sam for a good many hours, you used to coax Ladykin off all alone to the puffy, scorchy-looking smoke tree, where you could cuddle up on the rustic seat and rest your Honesty. And when you were thoroughly rested, you used to stretch your little arms behind your yawning face and beg:

"Oh, Ladykin, wouldn't you, couldn't you _please_ say something curly?"

Ladykin's mind seemed to curl perfectly naturally. The crimp of it never came out. Almost any time you could take her words that looked so little and tight, and unwind them and unwind them into yards and yards and yards of pleasant, magic meanings.