"Twins!" Norah cried, and threw up her arms in the air. "Now the saints be good to us," she said, piously.
"S-s-sh--Not so loud, Norah," grandmother whispered, in rebuke, and trotted her feet a little harder.
"Let Rhoda see," father exclaimed. "Let Rhoda come quite close."
I went up closer by grandmother"s knee and looked at them. It was a new experience, and for a moment I felt sorry for myself. Those about me must have shared the feeling, for their eyes grew kinder, and father patted my back, and Norah muttered under her breath.
"Sure it"s a come down in the world," I heard her say, pityingly.
Then, suddenly, those two little creatures half opened their eyes, and gazed at me. They smiled at me! They knew that I was their big sister!
Oh, the wonder of the two little heads on the pillow, the mystery of the eyes that looked at me so placidly, with that smile of kinship in their depths! I forgot the bird, I forgot my jealousy. I was ready to give them anything, anything, even the woolly dog and the yellow basket with the red handle, for the simple honor of their acquaintanceship. They were so young, and they were so weak! They could not walk, and they could not talk. They had everything to learn. I felt very old beside them, although I did not know that in that first moment when grandmother turned the covering down I had become the eldest child.
"Oh, grandma," I cried, radiantly, "you may have one, but the other one shall belong all to me!"
There was a movement in the bed, and some one called to me. I ran into the darkness and found my mother. There on the pillow beside her pretty dark hair she made a place for me, where we could see each other"s eyes.
Her arm was about me in a protecting way, as if she knew how hard the world had become for me.
"Rhoda," she said, with that smile which always seemed so wise, "mother"s heart is a big, big place! There is room in it both for dear little Rhoda and the dear little babies."
I felt that I was content.
II
LILY-ANN
"THIS is Lily-Ann, Rhoda," my mother said, in an introductory tone. "She is to be your little nurse, and play with you. Do you know many nice games, Lily-Ann?"
From the shelter of my mother"s chair I stared at the new-comer. I almost thought at first that it might be a little girl, until I noticed the shining folds of white ap.r.o.n. Lily-Ann was all white ap.r.o.n, down to the tops of her large, patched shoes. She was fourteen years old, perhaps, with the dignity of forty. She had a wide, smiling face, and appeared to be very agreeable in manner, so when she put out her hand I slipped mine cordially into it.
"I can play at wild beasts, and puss-in-the-corner, and "ride a c.o.c.k horse to Banbury Cross,"" she told my mother over my head. "I am experienced. I have helped to raise three children, ma"am."
She looked so small as she ended in this impressive fashion that my mother laughed, and my grandmother gleamed responsively through her gla.s.ses.
"It must be only quiet games, mind," my mother said. "You mustn"t teach Miss Rhoda to be noisy."
Lily-Ann promised to observe this caution faithfully, and I suppose she thought that they were only quiet games which we played that morning. We had all three,--Banbury Cross, then puss-in-the-corner, and, finally, wild beasts. Lily-Ann crawled under the bed and roared at me, now like a tiger, now plaintively, like a big p.u.s.s.y cat, and again with a deeper note that carried menace in its tone.
"That"s a lion," she explained, in between great volumes of sound.
"Lions eat people all up. So do wolves. Now I"m a wolf. Hear me crunch their bones!"
There was a horrible snarl under the bed, and something white and shining made a s.n.a.t.c.h at my foot, and then retreated, to return the next moment in a panting rush, much too real to be pleasant.
"Oh, please, Lily-Ann, I don"t want to play wild beasts any more!" I exclaimed, half afraid; but only half afraid, for she was very obedient to my whims, and, when I cried loud enough, came out in a crushed state to be a little girl again.
At first I liked Lily-Ann. She was so companionable, and then she knew such quant.i.ties of strange things. For instance, it was she who showed me how to make my hair curl. It could be done by eating crusts! There had always been a great deal of trouble about my crusts. I would never eat them, not even after I had been reminded of all the poor children in the world who had not a crust apiece to stay their hunger on, and whom it seemed that I should benefit in some marvelous way by eating mine.
"They can have these," I replied, generously, to such appeals to my feelings. "I"ll save them for them every day."
That, however, was before Lily-Ann came, and I learned that a crusty diet was warranted to make the hair curl. To think that little Rhoda Harcourt might have curly hair! What a nice thing that would be! Of course it meant months of work, but Lily-Ann, whose hair twisted from the roots, must surely know. Under her encouragement I ate all my own crusts, and begged so earnestly for more at the table that I became a wonder to the family.
"Is the curl coming, Lily-Ann?" I would ask, eagerly, in the mornings when she stood over me, comb in hand.
"It"s coming more and more every day," she a.s.serted, to my great satisfaction.
"Ouch! How you do hurt, Lily-Ann!"
"That"s because it"s so curly. See that long, beautiful one. I can"t hardly get my comb through!"
I sighed blissfully with my eyes full of tears, and wondered when my mother would notice the change in her little girl, for, indeed, something must have happened to my hair, judging from the jerks.
It was Lily-Ann again who taught me how to catch sparrows by throwing salt on their tails. I ran about very hot and eager all one morning, and ended by feeling rather foolish, for not a bird would be caught, though I crept persistently on their track, always sure that the next time I should be successful. Still, I did not bear any grudge against Lily-Ann.
It was not her fault that I was unfortunate, and then, too, she was very sympathetic.
"Why, my cousin caught one only yesterday!" she cried, in astonishment.
"But then she is older than you are. And so smart! She turned a horsehair into a snake once. Did you ever do that, ma"am?"
"No," I answered, doubtfully; and immediately added, with growing enthusiasm, "oh, I should so like to do that!"
The end of it was that a faint suspicion which had crept upon me after the sparrow episode was quenched in the zeal with which I set myself to the awful task of raising snakes by the wholesale. There was always a touch of dread in the eagerness with which I visited the snake incubator,--a rusty pan half-filled with water, and hidden in a secret s.p.a.ce behind the lilac bush. Little by little the horror of the situation so overcame me that I hurriedly weeded the horsehairs out; but the six that remained were the finest and longest which I could find, destined, I could easily expect from their size, to become boa-constrictors.
I believed everything that Lily-Ann told me. Up to that time there had never been occasion for me to question any one"s truth, nor had there been anything of which to be afraid. Now I learned of a new world that lay about me,--the Land of the Dark,--in which familiar furniture played wild pranks, and shadows came to have a very terrible meaning.
"After you go to bed at night," Lily-Ann said, impressively, holding up a fat forefinger, "there are Things that come out and run all about the floor! Under the chairs and under the bed they creep around. Especially under the bed. If you should let your hand hang down, a Thing would take it and shake it!"
I peered at her from out the shelter of the bed-clothes, for I was in bed when this was first related, and she was sitting by me until I should go to sleep.
"I shall never do that, Lily-Ann," I said, faintly, gluing my arms closer to my sides.
"You might in your sleep," she returned, with grim significance.
"And that ain"t all," she went on, after a short but terrible pause.
"There"s a Bear in the garret. He wants something."
"What does he want?" I asked, fearfully, determined to know the worst at once.
"He wants a bad child. He"s hungry!"
Now I was bad, as I had just reason to know. Lily-Ann used to examine my record every night, and she was the greatest one that I have ever seen for pointing out flaws in character.
"I don"t think I"ve been _very_ bad to-day, Lily-Ann," I said, trembling.
"You took your little brother"s ball," she answered, shortly.
"But I gave it back to him!" I cried, aghast.