The Chronicles of Rhoda Part 3

"You slapped your little sister."

"But she slapped me, too!" I pleaded.

"Not until after you slapped her. And you are six years old."

That was one of the unkindest things about Lily-Ann; she was always trying to make me live up to my station. And it was so hard to be good, and hardest of all to be good enough for my great age. That night, however, I made a compact with her.

"Dear Lily-Ann," I said, piteously, "if I go right to sleep by myself, so you can get your supper, will you chase away the Things and tell the Bear that there is no bad child in this house?"

I was not p.r.o.ne to criticise my elders and betters; but somehow I had remarked that Lily-Ann was fond of her supper.

She went away without much urging, and I lay there miserably in the dark. It seemed to me that there was a stir all through the quiet room, and out in the hall the garret door creaked in a new manner. The dark was so much blacker than it had ever been before, and even when I went down head and all under the covers I could hear the Things pattering about the floor, and the Bear rattling at the k.n.o.b. Many a night after that I huddled myself up into a heap, afraid to sleep lest my hands should unclasp and slip out of bed, afraid to move lest the Bear on the prowl for bad children should pounce on me and eat me up, sins and all.

I used to pretend to sleep very loudly and heavily that he might think me a good child. Still, I felt that it must be hard to deceive a Bear, and that sooner or later he would make an end of me. As for the Things, I never had any hope of getting the better of them. All through the long nights they slipped and slid about, or stood waiting at the edge of the bed to shake hands, with a friendliness that was truly awful.

Even in my greatest fear, however, I never betrayed Lily-Ann. I was too much in her power to dare to tell tales about her. I used to marvel when the family commented on her faithfulness, or devised schemes for improving the home from which she had come. Many large bundles went out of our house, and I often heard my mother speaking in a sympathetic fas.h.i.+on of the little girl whose childhood was pa.s.sed in the service of others.

"Poor Lily-Ann, she's never had any childhood of her own," she would say, regretfully.

Out in the kitchen, too, I had heard our Norah exchanging confidences on the subject with her cousin, who came in sometimes, when there was company, to help with the work.

"I give her all the cold things to take home every night," Norah confided. "The praties and bits of mate; just anything. They are that starving that they are not particular. Every smithereen of clothes that she has the mistress gave her, and the old lady has been open-handed, too. There's many a ten-dollar bill finds its way to that house."

The cousin sniffed.

"The rest of us have to work for our own," she said. "Faith, it's fine to be reckless sometimes."

"But I'm not trusting her," Norah continued, darkly. "She tells lies.

And she's cross to my child!"

"Who is your child, Norah?" I asked, with sudden eagerness, pressing up close to her gingham ap.r.o.n.

Norah lifted me upon her capacious lap and patted my back.

"And it's herself that wants to know," she cried, with a rallying laugh.

"See that now! Ain't she growing a big girl, Bridget? See the praties in her cheeks! Sure, she's purty enough to be Irish."

"But who is your child, Norah?" I persisted, jealously; and it was only when a burst of laughter broke from the two women that I understood, and hid my face in the concealing folds of the gingham ap.r.o.n.

I was very good to Lily-Ann after this time. Not that I had ever been bad to her before; but now I began to join in the work of charity. I made her a present of the little gold locket which my grandmother Lawrence gave me on my last birthday, and of my second-best pair of shoes, which had been red once, and still retained a delightful color. I wanted to give her my Sunday cloak, also, but she reminded me that there were other Sundays yet to come. She did take my bank with its one jingling gold coin in it. Unfortunately, all the money of less value had been pried out long ago to buy candy, but I told Lily-Ann how sorry I was that the little red house was not filled to the chimney with pennies. I promised that I would give her all my money in the future to take home to her family, so that they might never be hungry again.

Lily-Ann heard me in silence. She did not thank me with her lips, but when the Things grew too rampant at night she would reprove them sometimes in a stern manner.

"Go away!" she would cry, stamping her foot energetically. "Rhoda is a good child."

The Things and the Bear all grunted with the same voice as they retreated in discontent to their lairs; but I was not critical. It was enough for me that they went, if only for a time. Always I remembered that Lily-Ann could summon them at will, and her importance grew greater day by day.

There were hours, however, when I escaped into the safety of my mother's room. I was not too small to understand the delights of that cheerful room,--the glittering objects on the dressing-table, the deep bureau drawers filled with wonders much too dainty for a child to touch. There were keepsakes, also, mementos of my mother's childhood and youth; prize books in foreign tongues, won at school and laid away in tissue paper; bits of costly lace, and many little worthless, well-beloved possessions. In the closet there was a box on an upper shelf. Quite an ordinary box it was on the outside, made of pasteboard and tied with bands of yellow ribbon which had once been white. My mother lifted the cover one day, and showed me what was inside. It was the most wonderful thing, and it had come off her wedding-cake. There was a white platform surrounded with a wreath of white roses and leaves, and in the center of the platform there stood under a wreathed arch two little dolls, arm in arm.

"They are going to be married," my mother said. "They came off the top of my cake when I was married."

"Oh, isn't it too sweet for anything!" I cried, in an ecstasy. "But, mother, why does the lady doll wear a veil?"

"All brides do. You shall, too, some day."

"Shall I?" I questioned, doubtfully. "But, mother, dear, suppose I should grow up, and never get married, won't you give me these little dolls to play with?"

"If that should happen I suppose I must," my mother said, with a laugh, and tied the box up tightly again, and put it back on the upper shelf.

I dreamed about that box. I talked of it to Lily-Ann, and described the enchanting veil at great length; and I even condescended to tell the twins about the dolls that mother had. Once, with great pain from the acute rasping of my knees, I climbed up the closet shelves, and peeked in a loose corner of the box. Then I came down again, perfectly satisfied, for the dolls were still there, and if I escaped marriage they were to be my own. I determined that I would never marry. It would be at too great a cost.

Soon after this there came a day when everything seemed to go wrong.

Lily-Ann was very cross, while my mother looked sad and even frightened.

She went up and down stairs many times. She watched me furtively, and asked whispered questions of Lily-Ann. I wondered what Lily-Ann could possibly be telling her. I knew that it was not about me, for I had been very good that afternoon. To be sure, I had pulled the cat's tail; but she and I had kissed each other affectionately afterwards, and were friends again. Nor was Lily-Ann apt to reveal my misdeeds. She liked to judge me herself in that dread hour when the dark brought repentance.

Still, as the questions went on and on, I was sure that I heard my name, not once but many times, now from Lily-Ann, and now from my mother, with a gasp of dismay.

Then my mother took me in her arms and kissed me, and rocked me as if I were a baby again, and in the middle of it all made me a little confidence.

"Rhoda, mother always meant to give you those little dolls," she said.

"Oh, did you, mother!" I cried, eagerly.

"But giving is different from taking. Do you know what it means to steal a thing, Rhoda?"

I nodded solemnly.

"'Thou shalt not steal,' you know the Bible says."

"Yes, mother."

"Did you climb up into my closet one day?"

I hung my head.

"Rhoda, when you knew that you had only to ask for mother to give them to you, why did you take away my little dolls?"

"But I did not take them," I cried, in surprise. "I only looked at them. Was I very bad, mother?"

"You didn't take them? Think what you are saying, Rhoda."

"I did not take them," I protested, breaking into tears, for though I was bad, I knew that I was not that bad.

I could see that she did not believe me. She sighed in a way that I had never heard my mother sigh before, and set me down on the floor beside her. Then she took me by the hand, and we made a very solemn pilgrimage up the stairs, and through her room into the one which was my own, straight up into the corner where my doll-house stood. She opened the little door, and motioned me to look in. The bride and groom were leaning stiffly side by side against the sofa in the parlor! They stared back at me with scorn on their sugar faces, and there was, also, something accusing in their expression, as if they were saying, "Little girl, how do we come here?" Still I would not confess. I had not taken them. I had wanted them very much, but now I did not want them at all. I should have liked to smash their sugar heads, for it was their fault.

They had done it themselves, stepping down from their high shelf in the middle of the night. They were tired of living tied up in a box, and wanted my doll-house to set up housekeeping in. They had done it themselves just to plague me. There was no other way to explain it.

"What does she say?" grandmother asked, creeping in behind us.

"Not the truth!" my mother cried. "I should never have suspected my child of lying and stealing! But Lily-Ann says it is not the first time!"

I stood and looked at them. It almost seemed as if I did not love them any more. They knew me so little that they thought I could steal those sugar dolls.