She pinned it on tremblingly and then crept back to bed. Perhaps she went to sleep,--at any rate, quite suddenly there were voices at her door--_Her_ voice and--His. She did not stir, but lay and listened to them.
"Dear child! Wouldn"t you wake her up, Henry? What do you suppose could have happened?" That was the voice that used to be Mother"s.
It made Margaret feel thrilly and homesick.
"Something at school, probably, dear,--you mustn"t worry. All sorts of little troubles happen at school." The voice that used to be her Father"s.
"I know, but this must have been a big one. If you had seen her little face, Henry! If she were Nelly, I should think somebody had been telling her--about her origin, you know--"
Margaret held her breath. Nelly was the Enemy, but what was an origin? This thing that they were saying--hark?
"I"ve always expected Nelly to find out that way--it would be so much kinder to tell her at home. You know it would, Henry, instead of letting her hear it from strangers and get her poor little heart broken. Henry, if G.o.d hadn"t given us a precious little child of our own and we had ever adopted--"
Margaret dashed off the quilts and leaped to the floor with a cry of ecstasy. The anguish--the shame--the cruel gibing Things--were left behind her; they had slid from her burdened little heart at the first glorious rush of understanding; they would never come back,--never come back,--never come back to Margaret! Glory, glory, hallelujah, "twasn"t her! _Her_ soul went marching on!
The two at the door suffered an unexpected, an amazing onslaught from a flying little figure. Its arms were out, were gathering them both in,--were strangling them in wild, exultant hugs.
"Oh! Oh, you"re mine! I"m yours! We"re each other"s! I"m not an Adopted any more! I thought I was, and I wasn"t! I was going away and die--oh, oh, oh!"
Then Margaret remembered the Enemy, and in the throes of her pity the enmity was swallowed up forever. The instant yearning that welled up in her to put her arms around the poor real Adopted almost stifled her. She slid out of the two pairs of big tender arms and scurried away like a hare. She was going to find Nelly and love her--oh, love her enough to make up! She would give her the coral beads she had always admired; she would let her be mistress and _she"d_ be maid when they kept house,--she"d let her have the frosting half of all their cake and _all_ the raisins.
"I"ll let her wear the spangly veil when we dress up--oh, poor, poor Nelly!" Margaret cried softly as she ran. "And the longest trail.
She may be the richest and have the most children--I"d _rather_."
There did not seem anything possible and beloved that she would not let Nelly do. She took agitated little leaps through the soft darkness, sending on ahead her yearning love in a tender little call: "Nelly! Nelly!"
She could never be too tender--too generous--to Nelly, to try to make up. And all her life she would take care of her and keep her from finding out. She shouldn"t find out! When they were both, oh, very old, she would still be taking care of Nelly like that.
"Nelly! Nelly!"
If she could only think of some Great Thing she could do, that would--would _hurt_ to do! And then she thought. She stopped quite suddenly in her impetuous rush, stilled by the Greatness of it.
"I"ll let her love her mother the best," whispered Margaret to the stars,--"so there!"
Chapter IV
Bobby Unwelcome
Bobby had learned U that day in school, and he strutted home beside his nurse, Olga, with conscious relief in the swing of his st.u.r.dy legs. There was a special reason why Bobby felt relieved to get to U. He glanced up, up, up, sidewise, at the non-committal face so far above him, and wondered in his anxious little way whether or not it would be prudent to speak of the special reason now. Olga _had_ times, Bobby had discovered, when you da.s.sent speak of things, and it looked--yes, cert"nly--as though she was having one now. Still, if you only dast to--
"It"s the same one that"s in the middle o" my name, don"t you know,"
he plunged in, hurriedly.
"Mercy! What iss it the child iss talking about!"
There! wasn"t she having one? Didn"t she usually say "Mercy!" like that when she was?
"That letter, you know--U. The one in the middle o" my name," Bobby hastened on--"right prezac"ly in the middle of it. I wish"--but he caught himself up with a jerk. It didn"t seem best, after all, to consult Olga now--not now, while she was having one. Better wait--only, dear, dear, dear, how long he had waited a"ready!
It had not occurred to Bobby to consult his mother. They two were not intimately acquainted, and naturally he felt shy.
Bobby"s mother was very young and beautiful. He had seen her dressed in a wondrous soft white dress once, with little specks of shiny things burning on her bare throat, and ever since he had known what angels look like.
There were reasons enough why Bobby seldom saw his mother. The house was very big, and her room so far away from his;--that was one reason. Then he always went to bed, and got up, and ate his meals before she did.
There was another reason why he and the beautiful young mother did not know each other very well, but even Olga had never explained that one. Bobby had that ahead of him to find out,--poor Bobby! Some one had called him Fire Face once at school, but the kind-hearted teacher had never let it happen again.
At home, in the great empty house, the mirrors were all high up out of reach, and in the nursery there had never been any at all. Bobby had never looked at himself in a mirror. Of course he had seen himself up to his chin--dear, yes--and admired his own little straight legs often enough, and doubled up his little round arms to hunt for his "muscle." In a quiet, un.o.btrusive way Bobby was rather proud of himself. He had to be--there was no one else, you see. And even at six, when there is so little else to do, one can put in considerable time regarding one"s legs and arms.
"I guess you don"t call _those_ bow-legged legs, do you, Olga?" he had exulted once, in an unguarded moment when he had been thinking of Cleggy Munro"s legs at school. "I guess you call those pretty straight-up-"n"-down ones!" And the hard face of the old nurse had suddenly softened in a strange, pleasant way, and for the one only time that he could remember, Olga had taken Bobby in her arms and kissed him.
"They"re beautiful legs, that iss so," Olga had said, but she hadn"t been looking at them when she said it. She had been looking straight into his face. The look hurt, too, Bobby remembered. He did not know what pity was, but it was that that hurt.
The night after he learned U at school Bobby decided to hazard everything and ask Olga what the one in his name stood for. He could not put it off any longer.
"Olga, what does the U in the middle o" my name stand for?" he broke out, suddenly, while he was being unb.u.t.toned for bed. "I know it"s a U, but I don"t know a U-_what_. I"ve "cided I won"t go to bed till I"ve found out."
Things had gone criss-cross. The old Norwegian woman was not in a good humor.
"Unwelcome--that iss what it must stand for," she laughed unpleasantly.
"Bobby Unwelcome!" Bobby laughed too. Then a piteous little suspicion crept into his mind and began to grow. He turned upon Olga sharply. "What does Unwelcome mean?" he demanded.
"Eh? Iss it not enough plain to you? Well, not wanted--that iss what it means then."
"Not wanted,--not wanted." Bobby repeated the words over and over to himself, not quite satisfied yet. They sounded bad--oh, very; but perhaps Olga had got them wrong. She was not a United States person.
It would be easy for another kind of a person to get things wrong.
Still--"not wanted"--they certainly sounded very plain. And they meant--Bobby gave a faint gasp, and suddenly his thoughts turned dizzily round and round one terrible pivot--"not wanted." He sprang away out of the nurse"s hands and darted down the long, bright hall to his mother"s room. She was being dressed for a ball, and the room was pitilessly light. She sat at a table with a little mirror before her. Suddenly another face appeared in it with hers--a little, scarred, red face, stamped deep with childish woe. The contrast appalled her.
Bobby was not looking into the gla.s.s, but into her beautiful face.
"Is that what it stands for?" he demanded, breathlessly. "She said so. Did she lie?"
"Robert! For Heaven"s sake, child, stand away! You are tearing my lace. What are you doing here? Why are you not in bed?"
"Does it stand for _that?_" he persisted.
"Does what stand for what? Look, you are crushing my dress. Stand farther off. Don"t you see, child?"
"She said the U in the middle o" my name stood for Not Wanted. Does it? Tell me quick. Does it?"
The contrast of the two faces in her mirror hurt her like a blow. It brought back all the disappointment and the wounded vanity of that time, six years ago, when they had shown her the tiny, disfigured face of her son.
"No, it wasn"t that. I morember now. It was Unwelcome, but it _means_ that. Is the middle o" my name Unwelcome--what?"