"Yes, thank you, I shall."
"Come over any time."
"Yes, I shall, thank you, and _you_ come over. Don"t wait for me.
I hardly go any place."
Mrs. Wilson was moving her broad and well-intentioned person sidewise down the porch steps, which still shone wet in the broad white light of the moon, already looking serenely out through the changeful interstices of the breaking storm clouds. Miss Eastman watched her safely to the bottom step, but I regret to say that she went into the house even before her neighbor had disappeared down the glistening front walk.
Alone at last! She sighed with relief, and in the darkness of the silent house she stole to the door of David"s room that she might listen there with some slight motherly apprehension, and then peep in at the little white figure on the bed, where the moonlight lay asleep.
Behold David, not greatly changed in looks. The cutting away of his curls did not make such a difference in him as Mother had supposed. He was as charming to her; he was as much her own little boy as though no meddlesome hands had even been laid upon him. In size he was quite the same, and, as Mother stood peering in at him, she presently heard a small, far-away voice. In it was the whispered awe of a child who feels the bigness of the night about him and the strangeness of silvery moonbeams on his face.
"Mother!"
The queerness of everything was so very big that the little boy"s voice almost got lost in it.
"Yes, David, Mother is here."
"Are you coming to bed?"
"Do you want me to come?"
"I got trouvers," he said. But there was no pride in this announcement; there was a touch of disappointment. For how is it possible to have trouvers and at the same time to call babyishly for your mother?
"Yes, David, you have them." A pause. The little boy was sitting up, with a bare foot held meditatively in his hand. A wee, forlorn figure of a child he was, who seemed to be listening to the silence of the room. And by and by he was asking dispiritedly:--
"You aren"t--you aren"t afraid, are you, Mother?"
"How can I be afraid when I have a soldier-man to look out for me? Are you afraid?"
No, indeed; David was not afraid. He flopped suddenly back upon the bed, and resolutely turned his face to the wall. Mother need not sit by him.
So she went back to her chair and rocked quietly, and thought of a little child who was struggling hard to be more than a little child. Later, as she was preparing to go to bed, she heard the wee, sweet voice of him asking ruefully if she were not--maybe--a little lonesome.
"I"m afraid so, dear," she reluctantly admitted.
One could see that this made a difference. If she was really lonesome she might now come into the bedroom; she might sit by David; she might even tell him a story if she wanted to.
"If you do," he said, "it won"t matter to-night. It will help you to get use-ter to having me all grown up."
In the trail of soft radiance across the pillow Mother could see how wide open were the eyes of her little boy, but not long after she had drawn a chair to the bedside the drowsy lids began to droop.
"If you"re real lonesome I"ll hold your hand," said David, and he went to sleep still holding her hand.
Before he was awake the next day she stood looking at her little boy in the darkness of early morning, and she lighted the gas in order to have a better look at him. According to an unvarying custom, there was one wee fist cuddled under his cheek--a wretched insurgent of a fist that had ever disdained all orders to abide under the coverlet. Often in the night Mother had bowed over the tiny sleeper to press her lips upon the plump, smooth wrist before lifting the pretty arm to tuck it softly away into the quilted warmth of the bed. And during such a time it was her wont to listen, in the fear that is never far away from the heart of motherhood, to know if his breathing was quite regular and sweet. It sometimes happened, when she felt the tickling thrill of his ringlets against her cheek, that she would want to wake him up instantly to ask if he was not a dear.
But now had come a time when she felt no impulse to rouse him. The touch of curls upon her cheek she would not feel any more. They were gone, and that baby of hers was gone. When he presently awoke, his greeting was characteristic of his altered condition.
He did not call to her, he did not crow with laughter of good feeling and fine health. He merely sat up and solemnly whispered:--
"Trouvers!"
Mother a.s.sured him that they were not a dream. He could get up now and put them on, for presently he and she would be setting out to see their old friend, Dr. Redfield.
Little David did not instantly hop out of bed, as she had supposed he would. Little David sat very still. He looked at Mother and at the floor. Then he suddenly lay down again and turned his face to the wall.
"You want to put them on, don"t you?"
Mother seemed greatly puzzled. She waited, but David did not move. He said nothing. It was as though he had grown suddenly deaf.
"You had a fine time yesterday, didn"t you?" she asked, but David did not reply. He flattened himself against the wall. And Mother added: "It was great fun, wasn"t it?--to go to the barber shop with Doctor and afterward to get trouvers?"
There was no sign of life in the little boy, until presently his foot began to wiggle. By degrees he turned over and slowly sat up.
Mother did not seem to see him; she was seated at a low table strewn with toilet articles that sparkled under the rays of the gas-jet. She was dressing her hair, and her arm swung in long, even strokes; from time to time she paused to wind something from the teeth of the white comb about her fingers, which she afterwards tucked deftly into a small wicker box beneath the tilted mirror. In the meantime David was looking at her with a very long face, and by and by he slid quietly off the bed and went to her, pressing himself against her knees.
"What else," she inquired, "did Dr. Redfield give you?"
David did not answer. He pushed his face deep into Mother"s lap.
"Didn"t Doctor give you something else?"
"No."
The word came with smothered indistinctness, but its meaning was unmistakable.
"What, nothing?"
David raised his head and caught hold of Mother"s hand. He had grown very red in the face.
"Then what about the picture?" she asked, giving no heed to his embarra.s.sment. "Where did you get that?"
Both of David"s fists were now clinging fast to the woman"s hand.
"Mother," he said, "I just tooked it."
"Oh, dear me!"
"Mother, I knocked it down. It broke. I tooked it."
A sudden silence had got hold of the room. The little boy"s head sank once more into Mother"s lap and he shook with silent sobs. A moist warmth went through her skirt and was felt upon her knee.
"This is hard on the Doctor," she said, and her voice was firm, but her hand gently stroked her little boy"s hair. "He let you look at the picture, and now it is spoiled. He had only the one, and can never get another like it. You broke it, and you took it from him. We cannot mend it; it is done for. My, my! what are we to do?"
David"s arms went tight about Mother"s knees. In mute anguish he clung to her, pleading for help without saying a word.
"If only we had another picture!" Mother suggested.
Would--would that do?