Kitabı oku: «In the Morning Glow: Short Stories», sayfa 3

Little Sister

In the daytime she played with you, and believed all you said, and was always ready to cry. At night she slept with you and the four dolls. She was your little sister, Lizbeth.

"Whose little girl are you?" they would ask her. If she were sitting in Father's lap, she would doubtless reply —

"Father's little girl."

But —

"Oh, Lizbeth!" Mother would cry.

" – and Mother's," Lizbeth would add, to keep peace in the family. Though she never mentioned you at such times, she told you privately that she would marry you when you grew to be a man, and publicly she remembered you in her prayers. Kneeling down at Mother's knee, you and Lizbeth, in your little white nighties, before you went to bed, you said "Now I lay me" in unison, and ended with blessing every one, only at the very end yousaid:

" – and God bless Captain Jinks," for even a wooden soldier needed God in those long, dark nights of childhood, while Lizbeth said:

" – and God bless all my dollies, and send my Sally doll a new leg."

But though God sent three new legs in turn, Sally was always losing them, so that finally Lizbeth confided in Mother:

"Pretty soon God 'll be tired of sending Sally new legs, I guess. You speak to Him next time, Mother, 'cause I'm 'shamed to any more."

And when Mother asked Him, He sent a new Sally instead of a new leg. It would be cheaper, Mother told Father, in the long-run.

In the diplomatic precedence of Lizbeth's prayers, Father and Mother were blessed first, and you came between "Grandfather and Grandmother" and "God bless my dollies." Thus was your family rank established for all time by a little girl in a white night-gown. You were a little lower than your elders, it is true, but you were higher than the legless Sally or the waxen blonde.

When Lizbeth and you were good, you loved each other, and when you were bad, both of you at the same time, you loved each other too, very dearly. But sometimes it happened that Lizbeth was good and you were bad, and then she only loved Mother, and ran and told tales on you. And you – well, you did not love anybody at all.

When your insides said it would be a long time before dinner, and your mouth watered, and you stood on a chair by the pantry shelf with your hand in a brown jar, and when Lizbeth found you there, you could tell by just looking at her face that she was very good that day, and that she loved Mother better than she did you. So you knew without even thinking about it that you were very bad, and you did not love anybody at all, and your heart quaked within you at Lizbeth's sanctity. But there was always a last resort.

"Lizbeth, if you tell" – you mumbled awfully, pointing at her an uncanny forefinger dripping preserves – "if you tell, a great big black Gummy-gum 'll get you when it's dark, and he'll pick out your eyes and gnaw your ears off, and he'll keep one paw over your mouth, so you can't holler, and when the blood comes – "

Lizbeth quailed before you. She began to cry.

"You won't tell, will you?" you demanded, fiercely, making eyes like a Gummy-gum and showing your white teeth.

"No – o – o," wailed Lizbeth.

"Well, stop crying, then," you commanded, sucking your syrupy fingers. "If you cry, the Gummy-gum 'll come and get you now."

Lizbeth looked fearfully over her shoulder and stopped. By that time your fingers were all sucked, and the cover was back on the jar, and you were saved. But that night, when Mother and Father came home, you watched Lizbeth, and lest she should forget, you made the eyes of a Gummy-gum, when no one but Lizbeth saw. Mother tucked you both into bed and kissed you and put out the light. Then Lizbeth whimpered.

"Why, Lizbeth," said Mother from the dark.

Quick as a flash you snuggled up to Lizbeth's side. "The Gummy-gum 'll get you if you don't stop," you whispered, warningly – but with one dismal wail Lizbeth was out of bed and in Mother's arms. Then you knew all was over. Desperately you awaited retribution, humming a little song, and so it was to the tune of "I want to be an angel" that you heard Lizbeth sob out her awful tale:

"Harry … he … he said the Gummy-gum 'd get me … if I told about the p'serves."

And it was you the Gummy-gum got that time, and your blood, you thought, almost came.

But other nights when you went to bed – nights after days when you had both been good and loved each other – it was fine to lie there in the dark with Lizbeth, playing Make-Believe before you fell asleep.

"I tell you," you said, putting up your foot so that the covers rose upon it, making a little tent – "I tell you; let's be Indians."

"Let's," said Lizbeth.

"And this is our little tent, and there's bears outside what 'll eat you up if you don't look out."

Lizbeth shivered and drew her knees up to her chin, so that she was nothing but a little warm roll under the wigwam.

"And now the bears are coming – wow! wow! wow!"

And as the great hungry beasts pushed their snouts under the canvas and growled and gnashed their teeth, Lizbeth, little squaw, squealed with terror, and seized you as you lay there helpless in your triple rôle of tent and bears and Indian brave; seized you in the ticklish ribs so that the wigwam came tumbling about your ears, and the Indian brave rolled and shrieked with laughter, and the brute bears fled to their mountain caves.

"Children!"

"W-what?"

"Stop that noise and go right to sleep. Do you hear me?"

Was it not the voice of the mamma bear? Stealthily you crept under the fallen canvas, which had grown smaller, somehow, in the mêlée, so that when you pulled it up to your chin and tucked it in around you, Lizbeth was out in the cold; and when Lizbeth tucked herself in, then you were shivering. But by-and-by you huddled close in the twisted sheets and talked low beneath the edge of the coverlet, so that no one heard you – not even the Gummy-gum, who spent his nights on the back stairs.

"Does the Gummy-gum eat little folks while they're asleep?" asked Lizbeth, with a precautionary snuggle-up.

"No; 'cause the Gummy-gum is afraid of the little black gnomes what live in the pillows."

"Well, if the little black gnomes live in the pillows, why can't you feel them then?"

"'Cause, now, they're so teenty-weenty and so soft."

"And can't you ever see them at all?"

"No; 'cause they don't come out till you're asleep."

"Oh … Well, Harry – now – if a Gummy-gum had a head like a horse, and a tail like a cow, and a bill like a duck, what?"

"Why – why, he wouldn't, 'cause he isn't."

"Oh … Well, is the Gummy-gum just afraid of the little gnomes, and that's all?"

"Um-hm; 'cause the little gnomes have little knives, all sharp and shiny, what they got on the Christmas-tree."

"Our Christmas-tree?"

"No; the little gnomes's Christmas-tree."

"The little gnomes's Christmas-tree?"

"Um-hm."

"Why?"

"'Cause … why, there ain't any why … just Christmas-tree."

"Just … just Christmas-tree?"

"Um."

"Why … I thought … I …"

And you and Lizbeth never felt Mother smooth out the covers at all, though she lifted you up to straighten them; and so you slept, spoon-fashion, warm as toast, with the little black gnomes watching in the pillows, and the Gummy-gum, hungry but afraid, in the dark of the back stairs.

The pear-tree on the edge of the enchanted garden, green with summer and tremulous with breeze, sheltered a little girl and her dolls. On the cool turf she sat alone, preoccupied, her dress starched and white like the frill of a valentine, her fat little legs straight out before her, her bright little curls straight down behind, her lips parted, her eyes gentle with a dream of motherhood – Mamma Lizbeth crooning lullabies to her four children cradled in the soft grass.

"I'll tell you just one more story," she was saying, "just one, and that's all, and then you children must go to sleep. Sally, lie still! Ain't you 'shamed, kicking all the covers off and catching cold? Naughty girl. Now you must listen. Well … Once upon a time there was a fairy what lived in a rose, and she had beautiful wings – oh, all colors – and she could go wherever she wanted to without anybody ever seeing her, 'cause she was iwisible, which is when you can't see anybody at all. Well, one day the fairy saw a little girl carrying her father's dinner, and she turned herself into an old witch and said to the little girl, 'Come to me, pretty one, and I will give thee a stick of peppermint candy.' Now the little girl, she just loved candy, and peppermint was her favorite, but she was a good little girl and minded her mother most dut'fly, and never told any lies or anything; so she courtesied to the old witch and said, 'Thank you kindly, but I must hurry with my father's dinner, or he will be hungry waiting.' And what do you think? Just then the old witch turned into the beautiful fairy again, and she kissed the little girl, and gave her a whole bag of peppermint candy, and a doll what talked, and a velocipede for her little brother. And what does this story teach us, children? … Yes. That's right. It teaches us to be good little boys and girls and mind our parents. And that's all."

The dolls fell asleep. Lizbeth whispered lest they should awake, and tiptoed through the grass. A blue-jay called harshly from a neighboring tree. Lizbeth frowned and glanced anxiously at the grassy trundle-bed. "'Sh!" she said, warningly, her finger on her lip, whenever you came near.

Suddenly there was a rustle in the leaves above, and out of their greenness a little pear dropped to the grass at Lizbeth's feet.

"It's mine," you cried, reaching out your hand.

"No – o," screamed Lizbeth. "It's for my dollies' breakfast," and she hugged the stunted, speckled fruit to her bosom so tightly that its brown, soft side was crushed in her hands. You tried to snatch it from her, but she struck you with her little clinched fist.

"No – o," she cried again. "It's my dollies' pear." Her lip quivered. Tears sprang into her eyes. You straightened yourself.

"All right," you muttered, fiercely. "All right for you. I'll run away, I will, and I'll never come back —never!"

You climbed the stone wall.

"No," cried Lizbeth.

"I'll never come back," you called, defiantly, as you stood on the top.

"No," Lizbeth screamed, scrambling to her feet and turning to you a face wet with tears and white with terror.

"Never, never!" was your farewell to her as you jumped. Deaf to the pitiful wail behind you, you ran out across the meadow, muttering to yourself your fateful, parting cry.

Lizbeth looked for a moment at the wall where you had stood. Then she ran sobbing after you, around through the gate, for the wall was too high for her, and out into the field, where to her blurred vision you were only a distant figure now, never, never to return.

"Harry!" she screamed, and the wind blew her cry to you across the meadow, but you ran on, unheeding. She struggled after you. The daisies brushed her skirt. Creeping vines caught at her little shoes and she fell. Scratched by briers, she scrambled to her feet again and stumbled on, blind with tears, crying ever "Harry, Harry!" but so faintly now in her sobs and breathlessness that you did not hear. At the top of a weary, weary slope she sank helpless and heartbroken in the grass, a little huddle of curls and pinafore, so that your conscience smote you as you stood waiting, half hidden by the hedge.

"Don't be a cry-baby. I was only fooling," you said, and at the sound of your voice Lizbeth lifted her face from the grasses and put out her arms to you with a cry. In one hand was the little pear.

"Oh, I don't want the old thing," you cried, throwing yourself beside her on the turf. Smiling again through her tears, Lizbeth reached out a little hand scratched by briers, and patted your cheek.

"Harry," she said, "you can have all my animal crackers for your m'nagerie, if you want to, and my little brown donkey; and I'll play horse with you any time you want me to, Harry, I will."

So, after all, you did not run away, and you and Lizbeth went home at last across the meadow, hand in hand. Behind you, hidden and forgotten in the red clover, lay your quarrel and the little pear.

When Lizbeth loved you, there were stars in her brown eyes; when you looked more closely, so that you were very near their shining, you saw in their round, black pupils, smiling back at you, the face of a little boy; and then in your own eyes, Lizbeth, holding your cheeks between her hands, found the face of a little girl.

"Why, it's me!" she cried.

And when you looked again into Lizbeth's eyes, you saw yourself; and "Oh, Mother," you said afterwards, for you had thought deeply, "I think it's the goodHarry that's in Lizbeth's eyes, 'cause when I look at him, he's always smiling." That was as far as you thought about it then; but once, long afterwards, it came to you that little boys never find their pictures in a sister's eyes unless they are good, and love her, and hold her cheeks between their hands.

Lizbeth's cheeks were softer than yours, and when she played horse, or the day was windy, so that the grass rippled and the trees sang, or when it was tub-day with soap and towels up-stairs, her cheeks were pink as the roses in Mother's garden. That is how you came to tell Mother a great secret, one evening in summer, as you sat with her and Lizbeth on the front steps watching the sun go down.

"I guess it's tub-day in the sky, Mother."

"Tub-day?"

"Why, yes. All the little clouds have been having their bath, I think, 'cause they're all pink and shiny, like Lizbeth."

But once Lizbeth's cheeks were white, and she stayed in bed every day, and you played by yourself. Twice a day they took you as far as the bedroom door to see her.

"H'lo," you said, as you peeked.

"H'lo," she whispered back, very softly, for she was almost asleep, and she did not even smile at you, and before you could tell her what the Pussy-cat did they took you away – but not till you had seen the two glasses on the table with the silver spoon on top.

There was no noise in the days then. Even the trees stopped singing, and the wind walked on tiptoe and whispered into people's ears, like you.

"Is it to-day Lizbeth comes down-stairs?" you asked every morning.

"Do you think Lizbeth will play with me to-morrow?" you asked every night. Night came a long time after morning in the days when Lizbeth could not play.

"Oh, dear, I don't think I feel very well," you told Mother. Tears spilled out of your eyes and rolled down your cheeks. Mother felt your brow and looked at your tongue.

"I know what's the matter with my little boy," she said, and kissed you; but she did not put you to bed.

One day, when no one was near, you peeked and saw Lizbeth. She was alone and very little and very white.

"H'lo," you said.

"H'lo," she whispered back, and smiled at you, and when she smiled you could not wait any longer. You went in very softly and kissed her where she lay and gave her a little hug. She patted your cheek.

"I'd like my dollies," she whispered. You brought them to her, all four – the two china ones and the rag brunette and the waxen blonde.

"Dollies are sick," she said. "They 'most died, I guess. Play you're sick, too."

Mother found you there – Lizbeth and you and the four dolls, side by side on the bed, all in a little sick row. And from the very moment that you kissed Lizbeth and gave her the little hug, she grew better, so that by-and-by the wind blew louder and the trees sang lustily, and all Our Yard was bright with flowers and sun and voices and play, for you and Lizbeth and the four dolls were well again.