She had only one confidant. The Child had always lived a rather proscribed, uneventful little life, with pitifully few intimates,--none of her own age. The Child was eight.
The confidant, oddly, was a picture in the silent, awe-inspiring company-room. It represented a lady with a beautiful face, and a baby in her arms. The Child had never heard it called a Madonna, but it was because of that picture that she was never afraid in the company-room. Going in and out so often to confide things to the Lady had bred a familiarity with the silent place that came to amount in the end to friendliness. The Lady was always there, smiling gently at the Child, and so the other things did not matter--the silence and the awe-inspiringness.
The Child told the Lady everything, standing down under the picture and looking up at it adoringly. She was explaining her conclusions concerning the Greatest Thing of All now.
"I didn"t tell you before," she said. "I wanted to get it reasoned _out_. If," rather wistfully, "you were a--a flesh-and-b.l.o.o.d.y lady, you could tell me if I haven"t got it right. But I think I have.
"You see, there are a great many kinds of fathers and mothers, but I"m only talking of my kind. I"m going to love my father one day and my mother the next. Like this: my mother Monday, my father Tuesday, mother Wednesday, father Thursday--right along. Of course you can"t divide seven days even, but I"m going to love them both on Sundays.
Just one day in the week I don"t think it will do any harm, do you?-- Oh, you darling Lady, I wish you could shake your head or bow it! I"m only eight, you see, and eight isn"t a very _reasonable_ age. But I couldn"t think of any better way."
The Child"s eyes riveted to the beautiful face almost saw it nod a little.
"I haven"t decided "xactly, but perhaps I shall love my mother Sunday mornings and my father Sunday afternoons. If--if it seems best to.
I"ll let you know." She stopped talking and thought a minute in her serious little way. She was considering whether to say the next thing or not. Even to the Lady she had never said why-things about her father and mother. If the Lady knew--and she had lived so long in the company-room, it seemed as if she must,--then there was no need of explaining. And if she didn"t know--suddenly the Child, with a throb of pride, hoped that the Lady did not know. But perhaps some slight explanation was necessary.
"Of course," the Child burst out, hurriedly, her cheeks aflame,--"of course it would be nice to love both of "em the same day, but--but they"re not that kind of a father and mother. I"ve thought it all over and made the reasonablest plan I know how to. I"m going to begin to-morrow--to-morrow is Tuesday, my father"s day."
It was cold in the company-room, and any moment Marie might come and take her away. She was always a little pressed for time.
"I must be going," she said, "or Marie will come. Good-bye. Give my love to the baby." She always sent her love to the baby in the beautiful Lady"s arms.
The Child"s home, though luxurious, had to her the effect of being a double tenement. An invisible part.i.tion divided her father"s side from her mother"s; her own little white room, with Marie"s alcove, seemed to be across the dividing line, part on one side, part on the other. She could remember when there had not been any invisible part.i.tion, but the intensity of her little mental life since there _had_ been one had dimmed the beautiful remembrance. It seemed to her now as a pleasant dream that she longed to dream again.
The next day the Child loved her father, for it was Tuesday. She went about it in her thorough, conscientious little way. She had made out a little programme. At the top of the sheet, in her clear, upright hand, was, "Ways to Love My farther." And after that:
"1. Bringing in his newspaper.
"2. Kissing Him goodmorning.
"3. Rangeing his studdy table.
"4. Putting flours on " "
"5. Takeing up His male.
"6. Reeching up to rub My cheak against his cheak.
"7. Lerning to read so I can read His Books."
There were many other items. The Child had used three pages for her programme. The last two lines read:
"Praing for Him.
"Kissing Him goodnight."
The Wednesday programme was almost identical with this one, with the exception of "my mother" instead of "my farther." For the Child did not wish to be partial. She had always had a secret notion that it would be a little easier to read her mother"s books, but she meant to read just as many of her "farther"s."
During the morning she went in to the Lady and reported progress so far. Her cheeks were a delicate pink with excitement, and she panted a little when she spoke.
"I"m getting along splendidly," she said, smiling up at the beautiful face. "Perhaps--of course I can"t tell for sure, but I"m not certain but that he will like it after he gets used to it. You have to get used to things. He liked the flowers, and when I rubbed my cheek "gainst his, and when I kissed him. How I know he did is because he smiled--I wish my father would smile all the time."
The Child did not leave the room when she had finished her report, but fidgeted about the great silent place uncertainly. She turned back by-and-by to the Lady.
"There"s something I _wish_ you could tell me," she said, with her wistful little face uplifted. "It"s if you think it would be polite to ask my father to put me to bed instead of Marie--just unb.u.t.ton me, you know, and pray me. I was going to ask my mother to-morrow night if my father did to-night. I thought--I thought"--the Child hesitated for adequate words--"it would be the lovingest way to love him, for you feel a little intimater with persons when they put you to bed.
Sometimes I feel that way with Marie--a very little. I wish you could nod your head if you thought it would be polite."
The Child"s eyes, fastened upon the picture, were intently serious.
And again the Lady seemed to nod.
"Oh, you"re nodding, yes!--I b"lieve you"re nodding yes! Thank you ve-ry much--now I shall ask him to. Good-bye. Give my love to the baby." And the little figure moved away sedately.
To ask him in the manner of a formal invitation with "yours very truly" in it appeared to the Child upon thoughtful deliberation to be the best way. She did not feel very intimate yet with her father, but of course it might be different after he unb.u.t.toned her and prayed her.
Hence the formal invitation:
"Dear farther you are respectably invited to put yore little girl to bed tonite at 1/2 past 7. Yores very truely
Elizabeth.
"R s v p.
P.s. the little girl is me."
It was all original except the "R s v p" and the fraction. The Child had asked Marie how to write "half," and the other she had found in the corner of one of her mother"s formal invitations. She did not know what the four letters meant, but they made the invitation look nicer, and she could make lovely capital "R"s."
At lunch-time the Child stole up-stairs and deposited her little folded note on top of her father"s ma.n.u.script. Her heart beat strangely fast as she did it. She had still a lurking fear that it might not be polite.
On the way back she hurried into the company-room, up to the Lady.
"I"ve done it!" she reported, breathlessly. "I hope it was polite--oh, I hope he will!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Elizabeth]
The Child"s father ate his lunch silently and a little hastily, as if to get it over. On the opposite side of the table the Child"s mother ate hers silently and a little hastily. It was the usual way of their meals. The few casual things they said had to do with the weather or the salad. Then it was over and they separated, each to his own side of the divided house.
The father took up his pen to write--it seemed all there was left to do now. But the tiny folded note arrested his hand, and he stared in amazement. The Child had inadvertently set her seal upon it in the form of a little finger-print. So he knew it was hers. The first shock of hope it had awakened subsided into mere curiosity. But when he opened it, when he read it--
He sat a long time very still indeed--so still he could hear the rustle of ma.n.u.script pages in the other writing-room across the hall.
Perhaps he sat there nearly all the afternoon, for the shadows lengthened before he seemed to move.
In the rush of thoughts that came to him two stood out most clearly--the memory of an awful day, when he had seemed to die a thousand deaths, and only come to life when a white-capped nurse came smiling to him and said, "It is a little girl," and the memory of a day two years ago, when a man and a woman had faced each other and said, "We will try to bear it for the child."
The Child found her answer lying on her plate at nursery tea. Marie, who was bustling about the room getting things orderly for the night, heard a little gasp and turned in alarm. The Child was spelling out her letter with a radiant face that belied the gasp. There was something in the lonely little figure"s eagerness that appealed even to the unemotional maid, and for a moment there was likelihood of a strange thing happening. But the crisis was quickly over, and Marie, with the kiss unkissed on her lips, went on with her work. Emotions were rare with Marie.
""Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,"" spelled the Child, in a soft ecstasy, yet not without dread of what might come, supposing he thought she had been impo--
""Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,"" she hurriedly began again, ""your farther will be happy to accept your kind invitation for 1/2 past 7 this evening. Will you please call for him, as he is a little--b-a-s-h-f-u-l"--Marie, what does b-a-s-h-f-u-l spell?"
shrilled the eager voice. It was a new word.
Marie came over to the Child"s chair. "How can I tell without I see it?" she said. But the Child drew away gently.
"This is a very intimate letter--you"ll have to "xcuse seeing it.
Never mind, anyway, thank you,--I can guess it." And she guessed that it spelled the way she would feel when she called for her father at half-past seven, for the Child was a little bashful, too. She told the Lady so.
"I don"t _dread_ it; I just wish it was over," she explained. "It makes me feel a little queer, you see. Probably you wouldn"t feel that way if you was better acquainted with a person. Fathers and mothers are kind of strangers."