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By the Light of the Soul: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 11 |
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_ Chapter XI Maria had fallen in love with the baby, and her first impulse, as in the case of all true love, was secrecy. Why she should have been ashamed of her affection, her passion, for it was, in fact, passion, her first, she could not have told. It was the sublimated infatuation half compounded of dreams, half of instinct, which a little girl usually has for her doll. But Maria had never had any particular love for a doll. She had possessed dolls, of course, but she had never been quite able to rise above the obvious sham of them, the cloth and the sawdust and the paint. She had wondered how some little girls whom she had known had loved to sleep with their dolls; as for her, she would as soon have thought of taking pleasure in dozing off with any little roll of linen clasped in her arms. It was rather singular, for she had a vivid imagination, but it had balked at a doll. When, as sometimes happened, she saw a little girl of her own age, wheeling with solemnity a doll in a go-cart, she viewed her with amazement and contempt, and thought privately that she was not altogether bright. But this baby was different. It did not have to be laid on its back to make its eyes close, it did not have to be shaken and squeezed to make it vociferous. It was alive, and Maria, who was unusually alive in her emotional nature, was keenly aware of that effect. This little, tender, rosy thing was not stuffed with sawdust, it was stuffed with soul and love. It could smile; the smile was not painted on its face in a doll-factory. Maria was so thankful that this baby, Ida's baby, did not have Her smile, unchanging and permanent for all observers and all vicissitudes. When this baby smiled it smiled, and when it cried it cried. It was honest from the crown of its fuzzy head to the soles of its little pink worsted socks. At the first reception which Ida gave after the baby came, and when it was on exhibition in a hand-embroidered robe, it screamed every minute. Maria was secretly glad, and proud of it. It meant much to her that _her_ baby should not smile at all the company, whether it was smiling in its heart or not, the way She did. Maria had no room in her heart for any other love, except that for her father and the baby. She looked at Wollaston Lee, and wondered how she could ever have had dreams about him, how she could ever have preferred a boy to a baby like her little sister, even in her dreams. She ceased haunting the post-office for a letter from that other boy in New England, who had asked her to correspond over the garden fence, and who had either never written at all, or had misdirected his letter. She wondered how she had thought for a moment of doing such a thing as writing to a boy like that. She remembered with disgust how overgrown that boy was, and how his stockings were darned at the knees; and how she had seen patches of new cloth on his trousers, and had heard her aunt Maria say that he was so hard on his clothes on account of his passion for bird-nesting, that it was all his mother could do to keep him always decent. How could she have thought for a moment of a bird-nesting sort of boy? She was so thankful that the baby was a girl. Maria, as sometimes happens, had a rather inverted system of growth. With most, dolls come first, then boys; with her, dolls had not come at all. Boys came first, then her little baby sister, which was to her in the place of a doll, and the boys got promptly relegated to the background. Much to Maria's delight, the French nurse, whom she at once disliked and stood in awe of, only remained until the baby was about two months old, then a little nurse-girl was engaged. On pleasant days the nurse-girl, whose name was Josephine, wheeled out the baby in her little carriage, which was the daintiest thing of the kind to be found, furnished with a white lace canopy lined with rose-colored silk. It was on these occasions that Maria showed duplicity. On Saturdays, when there was no school, she privately and secretly bribed Josephine, who was herself under the spell of the baby, to go home and visit her mother, and let her have the privilege of wheeling it herself. Maria had a small sum every week for her pocket-money, and a large part of it went to Josephine in the shape of chocolates, of which she was inordinately fond; in fact, Josephine, who came of the poor whites, like Gladys Mann, might have been said to be a chocolate maniac. Maria used to arrange with Josephine to meet her on a certain corner on Saturdays, and there the transfer was made: Josephine became the possessor of half a pound of chocolates, and Maria of the baby. Josephine had sworn almost a solemn oath to never tell. She at once repaired to her mother's, sucking chocolates on the way, and Maria blissfully wheeled the baby. She stood in very little danger of meeting Her on these occasions, because the Edgham Woman's Club met on Saturday afternoon. It often happened, however, that Maria met some of the school-girls, and then nothing could have exceeded her pride and triumph. Some of them had little brothers or sisters, but none of them such a little sister as hers. The baby had, in reality, grown to be a beauty among babies. All the inflamed red and aged puckers and creases had disappeared; instead of that was the sweetest flush, like that of just-opened rosebuds. Evelyn was a compact little baby, fat, but not overlapping and grossly fat. It was such a matter of pride to Maria that the baby's cheeks did not hang the least bit in the world, but had only lovely little curves and dimples. She had become quite a connoisseur in babies. When she saw a baby whose flabby cheeks hung down and touched its bib, she was disgusted. She felt as if there was something morally wrong with such a baby as that. Her baby was wrapped in the softest white things: furs, and silk-lined embroidered cashmeres, and her little face just peeped out from the lace frill of a charming cap. There was only one touch of color in all this whiteness, beside the tender rose of the baby's face, and that was a little knot of pale pink baby-ribbon on the cap. Maria often stopped to make sure that the cap was on straight, and she also stopped very often to tuck in the white fur rug, and she also stopped often to thrust her own lovely little girl-face into the sweet confusion of baby and lace and embroidery and fur, with soft kisses and little, caressing murmurs of love. She made up little love phrases, which she would have been inexpressibly ashamed to have had overheard. "Little honey love" was one of them--"Sister's own little honey love." Once, when walking on Elm Street under the leafless arches of the elms, where she thought she was quite alone, although it was a very bright, warm afternoon, and quite dry--it was not a snowy winter--she spoke more loudly than she intended, and looked up to see another, bigger girl, the daughter of the Edgham lawyer, whose name was Annie Stone. Annie Stone was large of her age--so large, in fact, that she had a nickname of "Fatty" in school. It had possibly soured her, or her over-plumpness may have been due to some physical ailment which rendered her irritable. At all events, Annie Stone had not that sweetness and placidity of temperament popularly supposed to be coincident with stoutness. She had a bitter and sarcastic tongue for a young girl. Maria inwardly shuddered when she saw Annie Stone's fat, malicious face surveying her from under her fur-trimmed hat. Annie Stone was always very well dressed, but even that did not seem to improve her mental attitude. Her large, high-colored face was also distinctly pretty, but she did not seemed to be cognizant of that to the result of any satisfaction. "Sister's little honey love!" she repeated after Maria, with fairly a snarl of satire. Maria had spirit, although she was for the moment dismayed. "Well, she is--so there," said she. "You wait till you have a few more little honey loves," said Annie Stone, "and see how you feel." With that Annie Stone went her way, with soft flounces of her short, stout body, and Maria was left. She was still defiant; her blood was up. "Sister's little honey love," she said to the baby, in a tone so loud that Annie Stone must have heard. "Were folks that didn't have anything but naughty little brothers jealous of her?" Annie Stone had, in fact, a notorious little brother, who at the early age of seven was the terror of his sisters and all law-abiding citizens; but Annie Stone was not easily touched. "Sister's little honey love," she shouted back, turning a malignant face over her shoulder. She had that very morning had a hand-to-hand fight with her naughty little brother, and finally come out victorious, by forcing him to the ground and sitting on him until he said he was sorry. It was not very reasonable that she should be at all sensitive with regard to him. After Annie Stone had gone out of sight, Maria went around to the front of the little carriage, adjusted the white fur rug carefully, secured a tiny, white mitten on one of the baby's hands, and whispered to the baby alone. "You _are_ sister's little honey love, aren't you, precious?" and the baby smiled that entrancing smile of honesty and innocence which sent the dimples spreading to the lace frill of her cap, and reached out her arms, thereby displacing both mittens, which Maria adjusted; then, after a fervent kiss, she went her way. However, she was not that afternoon to proceed on her way long uninterrupted. For some time Josephine, the nurse-girl, had either been growing jealous, or chocolates were palling upon her. Josephine had also found her own home locked up, and the key nowhere in evidence. There would be a good half-hour to wait at the usual corner for Maria. The wind had changed, and blew cold from the northwest. Josephine was not very warmly clad. She wore her white gown and apron, which Mrs. Edgham insisted upon, and which she resented. She had that day felt a stronger sense of injury with regard to it, and counted upon telling her mother how mean and set up she thought it was for any lady as called herself a lady to make a girl wear a summer white dress in winter. She shivered on her corner of waiting. Josephine got more and more wroth. Finally she decided to start in search of Maria and the baby. She gave her white skirts an angry switch and started. It was not very long after she had turned her second corner before she saw Maria and the baby ahead of her. Josephine then ran. She was a stout girl, and she plunged ahead heavily until she came up with Maria. The first thing Maria knew, Josephine had grabbed the handle of the carriage--two red girl hands appeared beside her own small, gloved ones. "Here, gimme this baby to once," gabbled Josephine in the thick speech of her kind. Maria looked at her. "The time isn't up, and you know it isn't, Josephine," said she. "I just passed by a clock in Melvin & Adams's jewelry store, and it isn't time for me to be on the corner." "Gimme the baby," demanded Josephine. She attempted to pull the carriage away from Maria, but Maria, although her strength was inferior, had spirit enough to cope with any poor white. Her little fingers clutched like iron. "I shall not give her up until four o'clock," said she. "Go back to the corner." Josephine's only answer was a tug which dislodged Maria's fingers and hurt her. But Maria came of the stock which believed in trusting the Lord and keeping the powder dry. She was not yet conquered. The right was clearly on her side. She and Josephine had planned to meet at the corner at four o'clock, and it was not quite half-past three, and she had given Josephine half a pound of chocolates. She did not stop to reflect a moment. Maria's impulses were quick, and lack of decision in emergencies was not a failing of hers. She made one dart to the rear of Josephine. Josephine wore her hair in a braided loop, tied with a bow of black ribbon. Maria seized upon this loop of brown braids, and hung. She was enough shorter than Josephine to render it effectual. Josephine's head was bent backward and she was helpless, unless she let go of the baby-carriage. Josephine, however, had good lungs, and she screamed, as she was pulled backward, still holding to the little carriage, which was also somewhat tilted by the whole performance. "Lemme be, you horrid little thing!" she screamed, "or I'll tell your ma." "She isn't my mother," said Maria in return. "Let go of my baby." "She is your ma. Your father married her, and she's your ma, and you can't help yourself. Lemme go, or I'll tell on you." "Tell, if you want to," said Maria, firmly, actually swinging with her whole weight from Josephine's loop of braids. "Let go my baby." Josephine screamed again, with her head bent backward, and the baby-carriage tilted perilously. Then a woman, who had been watching from a window near by, rushed upon the scene. She was Gladys Mann's mother. Just as she appeared the baby began to cry, and that accelerated her speed. The windows of her house became filled with staring childish faces. The woman, who was very small and lean but wiry, a bundle of muscles and nerve, ran up to the baby-carriage, and pulled it back to its proper status, and began at once quieting the frightened baby and scolding the girls. "Hush, hush," cooed she to the baby. "Did it think it was goin' to get hurted?" Then to the girls: "Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, two great girls fightin' right in the street, and most tippin' the baby over. S'posin' you had killed him?" Then Josephine burst forth in a great wail of wrath and pain. The bringing down of the carriage had increased her agony, for Maria still clung to her hair. "Oh, oh, oh!" howled Josephine, her head straining back. "She's most killin' me." "An' I'll warrant you deserve it," said the woman. Then she added to Maria--she was entirely impartial in her scolding--"Let go of her, ain't you shamed." Then to the baby, "Did he think he was goin' to get hurted?" "He's a girl!" cried Maria in a frenzy of indignation. "He is not a boy, he is a girl." She still clung desperately to Josephine's hair, who in her turn clung to the baby-carriage. Then Gladys came out of the house, in a miserable, thin, dirty gown, and she was Maria's ally. "Let that baby go!" she cried to Josephine. She tugged fiercely at Josephine's white skirt. "Gladys Mann, you go right straight into the house. What be you buttin' in for!" screamed her mother. "You let that girl's hair alone. Josephine, what you been up to. You might have killed this baby." The baby screamed louder. It wriggled around in its little, white fur nest, and stretched out imploring pink paws from which the mittens had fallen off. Its little lace hood was awry, the pink rosette was cocked over one ear. Maria herself began to cry. Then Gladys waxed fairly fierce. She paid no attention whatever to her mother. "You jest go round an' ketch on to the kid's wagin," said she, "an' I'll take care of her." With that her strong little hands made a vicious clutch at Josephine's braids. Maria sprang for the baby-carriage. She straightened the lace hood, she tucked in the fur robe, and put on the mittens. The baby's screams subsided into a grieved whimper. "Did great wicked girls come and plague sister's own little precious?" said Maria. But now she had to reckon with Gladys's mother, who had recovered her equilibrium, lost for a second by her daughter's manoeuvre. She seized in her turn the handle of the baby-carriage, and gave Maria a strong push aside. Then she looked at all three combatants, like a poor-white Solomon. "Who were sent out with him in the first place, that's what I want to know?" she said. "I were," replied Josephine in a sobbing shout. Her head was aching as if she had been scalped. "Shet up!" said Gladys's mother inconsistently. "Did your ma send her out with him?" she queried of her. "He is not a boy," replied Maria shiftily. "Yes, she did," said Josephine, still rubbing her head. Gladys, through a wholesome fear of her mother, had released her hold on her braids, and stood a little behind. Mrs. Mann's scanty rough hair blew in the winter wind as she took hold of the carriage. Maria again tucked in the white fur robe to conceal her discomfiture. She was becoming aware that she was being proved in the wrong. "Shet up!" said Mrs. Mann in response to Josephine's answer. There was not the slightest sense nor meaning in the remark, but it was, so to speak, her household note, learned through the exigency of being in the constant society of so many noisy children. She told everybody, on general principles, to "shet up," even when she wished for information which necessitated the reverse. Mrs. Mann was thin and meagre, and wholly untidy. The wind lashed her dirty cotton skirt around her, disclosing a dirtier petticoat and men's shoes. The skin of her worn, blond face had a look as if the soil of life had fairly been rubbed into it. All the lines of this face were lax, displaying utter lassitude and no energy. She, however, had her evanescent streaks of life, as now. Once in a while a bubble of ancestral blood seemed to come to the surface, although it soon burst. She had come, generations back, of a good family. She was the run out weed of it, but still, at times, the old colors of the blossom were evident. She turned to Maria. "If," said she, "your ma sent her out with this young one, I don't see why you went to pullin' her hair fur?" "I gave her a whole half-pound of chocolates," returned Maria, in a fine glow of indignation, "if she would let me push the baby till four o'clock, and it isn't four o'clock yet." "It ain't more than half-past three," said Gladys. "Shet up!" said her mother. She stood looking rather helplessly at the three little girls and the situation. Her suddenly wakened mental faculties were running down like those of a watch which has been shaken to make it go for a few seconds. The situation was too much for her, and, according to her wont, she let it drop. Just then a whiff of strong sweetness came from the house, and her blank face lighted up. "We are makin' 'lasses candy," said she. "You young ones all come in and hev' some, and I'll take the baby. He can get warm, and a little of thet candy won't do him no harm, nuther." Mrs. Mann used the masculine pronoun from force of habit; all her children with the exception of Gladys were boys. Maria hesitated. She had a certain scorn for the Manns. She eyed Mrs. Mann's dirty attire and face. But she was in fact cold, and the smell of the candy was entrancing. "She said never to take the baby in anywhere," said she, doubtfully. Josephine having tired of chocolate, realized suddenly an enormous hunger for molasses candy. She sniffed like a hunting hound. "She didn't say not to go into Mrs. Mann's," said she. "She said anywhere; I heard her tell you," said Maria. "Mrs. Mann's ain't anywhere," said Josephine, who had a will of her own. She rushed around and caught up the baby. "She's most froze," said she. "She'll get the croup if she don't get warmed up." With that, Josephine carrying the baby, Maria, Gladys, and Mrs. Mann all entered the little, squalid Mann house, as hot as a conservatory and reeking with the smell of boiled molasses. When Josephine and Maria and the baby started out again, Maria turned to Josephine. "Now," said she, "if you don't let me push her as far as the corner of our street, I'll tell how you took her into Mrs. Mann's. You know what She'll say." Josephine, whose face was smeared with molasses candy, and who was even then sucking some, relinquished her hold on the carriage. "You'll be awful mean if you do tell," said she. "I will tell if you don't do what you say you'll do another time," said she. When they reached home, Ida had not returned, but she came in radiant some few minutes later. She had read a paper on a famous man, for the pleasure and profit of the Edgham Woman's Club, and she had received much applause and felt correspondingly elated. Josephine had taken the baby up-stairs to a little room which had recently been fitted up for a nursery, and, not following her usual custom, Ida went in there after removing her outer wraps. She stood in her blue cloth dress looking at the child with her usual air of radiant aloofness, seeming to shed her own glory, like a star, upon the baby, rather than receive its little light into the loving recesses of her own soul. Josephine and also Maria were in a state of consternation. They had discovered a large, sticky splash of molasses candy on the baby's white embroidered cloak. They had washed the baby's sticky little face, but they did not know what was to be done about the cloak, which lay over a chair. Josephine essayed, with a dexterous gesture, to so fold the cloak over that the stain would be for the time concealed. But Ida Edgham had not been a school-teacher for nothing. She saw the gesture, and immediately took up the cloak herself. "Why, what is this on her cloak?" said she. There was a miserable silence. "It looks like molasses candy. It is molasses candy," said Ida. "Josephine, did you give this child molasses candy?" Ida's voice was entirely even, but there was something terrible about it. Maria saw Josephine turn white. "She wouldn't have given her the candy if it hadn't been for me," said she. Ida stood looking from one to the other. Josephine's face was white and scared, Maria's impenetrable. "If you ever give this child candy again, either of you," said Ida, "you will never take her out again." Then she went out, still smiling. Josephine looked at Maria with enormous gratitude. "Say," said she, "you're a dandy." "You're a cheat!" returned Maria, with scorn. "I'm awful sorry I didn't wait on the corner till four o'clock, honest." "You'd better be." "Say, but you be a dandy," repeated Josephine. _ |
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