The Chronicles of Rhoda Part 4

"Grandma, put her to bed for me," my mother said, still with that frightened look on her face. "I don't know what to say to her. I must ask her father."

Grandmother put me to bed, with slow, patient fingers. She tucked me in, and kissed me in quite a tender way.

"Tell grandma," she urged, in a whisper, bending down until her spectacles touched my hot cheek.

But still I would not confess.

It was very quiet in my little room after she had gone. I could hear the dishes rattling down-stairs, as Norah set the table with a bang of the plates and a thump of the knives. We were going to have honey for supper and little cakes with frosted tops baked in scolloped patty-pans. I wondered whether I should have any supper, or must lie there in the dark, while they talked about me at the supper-table. I did not think that _I_ could enjoy frosted cake baked in scolloped patty-pans if _my_ little girl were alone up-stairs in the dark. When I grew up and married, for I might as well marry now, I would never treat any one so.

Never! Never!! Never!!!

"Oh, please, G.o.d, let me hurry and grow up," I whispered to the darkness. "And, oh, please, G.o.d, let me have frosted cake for my supper!"

I waited for the prayer to bear fruit. Sometimes prayers were rather slow. I heard my father come home with a cheerful rustle of parcels. He hung up his coat and hat in the hall, and tiptoed upstairs to wash his hands. He knew that the twins were asleep in their cribs; but he did not know that I was beyond in the darkness, afraid to speak to him. He did not miss me, although I was always the first to welcome him at the door.

n.o.body seemed to miss me. I heard them draw up their chairs to the table. Now they were eating honey. Now they were eating frosted cake.

Lily-Ann would have some of the cake. They believed in her. It was only their own little girl whom they sent to bed without her supper. It was only Rhoda whom n.o.body loved. If G.o.d would let me grow up quick, I would go away and not be a trouble to them any more. Perhaps off in the country I might find somebody who would love me, and believe in me, for I did not want to be loved unless I was believed in. I should be very lonely at first, nearly as lonely as I was now. A sore place came in my throat that made me cry because it hurt so.

The kitchen door opened in the distance, and a whirlwind swept into the dining-room. There was a pause, punctuated by loud remarks delivered in a high Irish voice, and then the whirlwind came up the stairs, and swept me out of my bed. It was Norah. I clung to her, for she was the only thing which I had left to love in the whole world. My father and mother had deserted me, but Norah was staunch. She kissed me as she carried me, big girl as I was, straight down the steps into the dazzling light of the supper-table. Norah was excited. She had a red spot on each cheek, and her eyes shone like stars. She held me tightly with one arm and gesticulated with the other. Against the white panel of the kitchen door Lily-Ann was crouched in a timid, frightened fas.h.i.+on, with all the spirit gone out of her wide face, and almost the very curl gone out of her hair.

"She had them dolls yisterday," Norah cried, accusingly, her finger pointed straight at the kitchen door. "I saw them in her box. Sure, I thought that the mistress gave them to her, and it's not for the likes of me to say what the mistress shall give or not give. Then this morning when there was questions asked, she crept upstairs and put them in the doll-house. The sarpent! Is my child to lie in the dark crying her heart out, and that sarpent set at my kitchen-table drinking her tay, and telling me wicked tales of my child?"

n.o.body answered her. They stared at her in bewilderment. Norah had never acted like that before.

"If there was questions to be asked, why wasn't I asked?" she went on, angrily. "If the mistress or the master had said to me, 'Norah, where's them little dolls?' I would have told them the truth. I would have said, 'Lily-Ann stole them yisterday, ma'am, and to-day she put them in the doll-house, sur.' But, no, they don't ask honest old Norah. They listen to that sarpent backbiting my child. The little innocent creatur! The dear little old-fas.h.i.+oned thing that niver took nought from n.o.body!"

I put my arms around Norah's neck, and hugged her until I nearly strangled her.

"Give Rhoda to me, Norah," my mother said, jealously.

"There's only one thing more to be said, ma'am," Norah continued, obstinately standing her ground, still with my arms about her neck.

"Either old Norah goes or that sarpent goes. I'll have no sarpents in my kitchen."

They were all looking at Lily-Ann now. There was a ring of truth about Norah's story which had convinced them at last.

"Have you anything to say, Lily-Ann?" my father asked, sternly.

She had nothing to say. As she drooped a little closer to the door and wiped her eyes in a miserable fas.h.i.+on, I felt that I could forgive her all the harm which she had done me. Poor Lily-Ann, who my mother said had never been a child!

"Oh, please, Norah, let Lily-Ann stay!" I cried, piteously. "I'll be so good if you'll let Lily-Ann stay!"

Norah might, perhaps, have been softened by my appeal, but my father would not listen. The words which he used were very stern ones, and his was the hand that held open the door for Lily-Ann to pa.s.s out of the house. She went slowly, almost regretfully, as though at the last she felt repentance. I never saw her again.

It was many a long year, however, before I cast off her evil spell. Even in the illnesses of my maturer years those crawling Things have come back, pa.s.sing across the mirror of a pain-racked mind with all the horror of childish ignorance and fear. Yet I still feel that I have forgiven Lily-Ann. Coming from the home that she did, and unwatched and unsuspected as she was, she might easily have destroyed the holy innocence of a child's life. But she left me as she found me.

I went upstairs very quietly that night. There was a candle burning on the bedroom table, and something which my prayer had brought, something frosted, with scolloped edges, was tucked under my pillow. The whole family came to put me to bed, and made so much of me that I glowed under their affection.

"She will forget it all in time," my father said, tenderly, unwitting of my long memory. "Evil dies away quickly from a child's mind."

My mother was more impulsive. She went down on her knees and put her arms about me.

"Forgive mother," she whispered, with her mouth against my ear. "Mother knows how true you are, Rhoda!"

After all there was really something for which to thank Lily-Ann.

III

THE OLD MAJOR

ABOUT our house there was a garden, with round beds of blooming plants, and a shady apple-tree or two to break the glare of the summer sun. In one corner the hollyhocks grew, and along the path to the gate purple flags appeared each spring in uneven rows, like isolated bands of soldiers marching on a common enemy. There were dandelions in the gra.s.s, and a lilac bush near the front door. Here I used to play, in a bright pink sun-bonnet, and little black slippers which b.u.t.toned with a band about my ankle. Secretly I considered myself rather beautiful, and as for my conquests, they stretched down the street and around the block.

There was the grocer's boy, and the elderly lady from over the way, who wore one kind of hair in the morning and another kind in the afternoon, and ordinary strangers pa.s.sing through the town, and, last of all, but first in my estimation, the old major.

Every day at the same hour he pa.s.sed the house, leaning on a cane. When the sun was bright he stepped along quickly, with an alert carriage of the head; but there were cloudy days when his step was slow and feeble, and even his smile lost some of its usual charm.

"h.e.l.lo, little girl," he said, in a ponderous fas.h.i.+on, the first time that he saw me perched on the gate. "h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo!"

The h.e.l.los reached a long distance, and grew very gruff at the end, but there was a twinkle in his eye, and he had a beautiful bright star on his watch-chain, with which I longed to play.

I gravely put out a small hand to him.

"My name is Rhoda," I said, in a burst of confidence. "I live here in this house. I was six years old yesterday."

"Were you!" he replied, evidently much impressed. "That's very old, very old."

He went on slowly down the block, but when he turned on his way back, he stopped again at the gate to discuss my age.

"Six, was it?" he questioned. "Well! Well! Perhaps you can tell me what time it is."

I shook my head, with a fascinated look at the gleaming star.

"I haven't a watch."

"But you don't need a watch," he answered. "See here."

He stooped down, painfully, grasping the fence for support, and picked the snowy seed-ball of a dandelion plant. Then he straightened up, slowly, and blew at the feathery toy.

"One, two, three, four, five! Five o'clock. Time for the old major to go in out of the damp."

Then he turned away from me, and went on up the street, his cane digging little holes in the path, and he himself forgetting all about the child whom he had left still perched on her gate. I had not entirely pa.s.sed from his memory, however, for when he came to his own gate far in the distance, he took off his hat, and gallantly waved it to me before he went in out of the damp.

"Mother, I love the old major!" I said one day.

"What major?" my mother asked, looking up from her work with a smile.

She was making small ruffled skirts and ap.r.o.ns with pockets. She could make the most beautiful things, all out of her own head.

"What major? Why, my major. Mother, has the old major any little girls or boys that I could play with? Oh, I should so like to play with his little girls and boys!"