The Adopted

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Title:     The Adopted
Author: Annie Hamilton Donnell [More Titles by Donnell]

The Enemy's chin just reached comfortably to the top fence-rail, and there it rested, while above it peered a pair of round blue eyes. It is not usual for an enemy's eyes to be so round and blue, nor an enemy's chin to reach so short a distance from the ground.

"She's watching me," Margaret thought; "she wants to see if I've got far as she has. 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!"

"She knows I'm here," reflected the Enemy, "just as well as anything. 'Fore I'd peek at people out o' the ends o' my eyes!"

Between the two, a little higher than their heads, tilted a motherly bird on a syringa twig.

"Ter-wit, ter-wee,--pit-ee, pit-ee!" she twittered under her breath. And it did seem a pity to be quarrellers on a day in May, with the apple buds turning as pink as pink!

"I sha'n't ever tell her any more secrets," Margaret mused, rather sadly, for there was that beautiful new one aching to be told.

"I sha'n't ever skip with her again," the Enemy's musings ran drearily, and the arm she had always put round Margaret when they skipped felt lonesome and--and empty. And there was that lovely new level place to skip in!

"Pit-ee! Pit-ee!" sang softly the motherly bird.

It had only been going on a week of seven days. It was exactly a week ago to-day it began, while they were making the birthday presents together, Margaret sitting in this very chair and Nell--the Enemy sitting on the toppest door-step. Who would have thought it was coming? There was nothing to warn--no thunder in the sky, no little mother-bird on the syringa bush. It just came--oh, hum!

"I'm ahead!" the Enemy had suddenly announced, waving her book-mark. She had got to the "h" in her Mother, and Margaret was only finishing her capital "M." They were both working "Honor thy Mother that thy days may be long," on strips of cardboard for their mothers' birthdays, which, oddly enough, came very close together. Of course that wasn't exactly the way it was in the Bible, but they had agreed it was better to leave "thy Father" out because it wasn't his birthday, and they had left out "the land which the Lord thy God giveth" because there wasn't room for it on the cardboard.

"I'm ahead!"

"That's because I'm doing mine the carefulest," Margaret had retorted, promptly. "There aren't near so many hunchy places in mine."

"Well, I don't care; my mother's the best-looking, if her book-mark isn't!" in triumph. "Her hair curls, and she doesn't have to wear glasses."

Margaret's wrath had flamed up hotly. Mother's eyes were so shiny and tender behind the glasses, and her smooth brown hair was so soft! The love in Margaret's soul arose and took up arms for Mother.

"I love mine the best, so there!--so there!--so there!" she cried. But side by side with the love in her soul was the secret consciousness of how very much the Enemy loved her mother, too. Now, sitting sewing all alone, with the Enemy on the other side of the fence, Margaret knew she had not spoken truly then, but the rankling taunt of the curls that Mother hadn't, and the glasses that she had, justified her to herself. She would never, never take it back, so there!--so there!--so there!

"She's only got to the end o' her 'days,'--I can see clear from here," soliloquized the Enemy, with awakening exultation. For the Enemy's "days" were "long,"--she had finished her book-mark. The longing to shout it out--"I've got mine done!"--was so intense within her that her chin lost its balance on the fence-rail and she jarred down heavily on her heels. So close related are mind and matter.

Margaret resorted to philosophic contemplation to shut out the memory of the silent on-looker at the fence. She had swung about discourteously "back to" her. "I guess," contemplated Margaret, "my days 'll be long enough in the land! I guess so, for I honor my mother enough to live forever! That makes me think--I guess I better go in and kiss her good-night for to-night when she won't be at home."

It was mid-May and school was nearly over. The long summer vacation stretched endlessly, lonesomely, ahead of Margaret. Last summer it had been so different. A summer vacation with a friend right close to you all the time, skipping with you and keeping house with you and telling all her secrets to you, is about as far away as--as China is from an Enemy 'cross the fence! Oh, hum! some vacations are so splendid and some are so un-splendid!

It did not seem possible that anything drearier than this could happen. Margaret would not have dreamed it possible. But a little way farther down Lonesome Road waited something a great deal worse. It was waiting for Margaret behind the schoolhouse stone-wall. The very next day it jumped out upon her.

Usually at recess Nell--the Enemy--and Margaret had gone wandering away together with their arms around each other's waist, as happy as anything. But for a week of recesses now they had gone wandering in opposite directions--the Enemy marching due east, Margaret due west. The stone-wall stretched away to the west. She had found a nice lonesome little place to huddle in, behind the wall, out of sight. It was just the place to be miserable in.

"I know something!" from one of a little group of gossipers on the outside of the wall. "She needn't stick her chin out an' not come an' play with us. She's nothing but an adopted!"

"Oh!--a what?" in awestruck chorus from the listeners. "Say it again, Rhody Sharp."

"An adopted--that's all she is. I guess nobody but an adopted need to go trampin' past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we're good as she is an' better, too, so there!"

Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she breathed with difficulty. If--supposing they meant--

"Rhody Sharp, you're fibbing! I don't believe a single word you say!" sprang forth a champion valiantly. "She's dreadfully fond of her mother--just dreadfully!"

"She doesn't know it," promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice stabbing poor Margaret's ear like a sharp little sword. "They're keeping it from her. My gran'mother doesn't believe they'd ought to. She says--"

But nobody cared what Rhody Sharp's gran'mother said. A clatter of shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with them--an' she'd stuck her chin out!

"Why! Why, then she's a--orphan!" one voice exclaimed. "Really an' honest she is--an' she doesn't know it!"

"Oh my, isn't it awful!" another voice. "Shouldn't you think she'd hide her head--I mean, if she knew?"

It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist grass--a little heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on.

"It's just like a disgrace, isn't it? Shouldn't you s'pose it would feel that way if 'twas you?"

"Think o' kissin' your mother good-night an' it's not bein' your mother?"

"Say, Rhody Sharp--all o' you--look here! Do you suppose that's why her mother--I mean she that isn't--dresses her in checked aperns? That's what orphans--"

The shorn head dug deeper. A soft groan escaped Margaret's lips. This very minute, now while she crouched in the grass,--oh, if she put out her hands and felt she would feel the checks! She had been to an orph--to a place once with Moth--with Her and seen the aprons herself. They were all--all checked.

At home, folded in a beautiful pile, there were all the others. There was the pink-checked one and the brown-checked one and the prettiest one of all, the one with teenty little white checks marked off with buff. The one she should feel if she put out her hand was a blue-checked.

Margaret drove her hands deep into the matted grass; she would not put them out. It was--it was terrible! Now she understood it all. She remembered--things. They crowded--with capital T's, Things,--up to her and pointed their fingers at her, and smiled dreadful smiles at her, and whispered to one another about her. They sat down on her and jounced up and down, till she gasped for breath.

The teacher's bell rang crisply and the voices changed to scampering feet. But Margaret crouched on in the sweet, moist grass behind the wall. She stayed there a week--a month--a year,--or was it only till the night chill stole into her bones and she crept away home?

She and Nell--she and the Enemy--had been so proud to have aprons just alike and cut by the same dainty pattern. But now if she knew--if the Enemy knew! How ashamed it would make her to have on one like--like an adopted's! How she'd wish hers was stripes! Perhaps--oh, perhaps she would think it was fortunate that she was an enemy now.

But the worst Things that crowded up and scoffed and gibed were not Things that had to do with enemies. The worst-of-all Things had to do with a little, tender woman with glasses on--whose hair didn't curl. Those Things broke Margaret's heart.

"Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it's wrinkly," gibed one Thing.

"And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings," another Thing.

"She doesn't make me do the biggest ones!" flashed Margaret, hotly, but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.

"Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes--"

"And won't let you eat two pieces of pie--"

"Or one piece o' fruit-cake--"

"Maybe you remember now the times she's said, 'This is no little daughter of mine'?"

Margaret turned sharply. "That was only because I was naughty," she pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn't "only because." She knew it was because. The terror within her was growing more terrible every moment.

Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been lurking in the background waiting its turn,--it was its turn now. Margaret stood quite still, ashamed. She could not name the strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs. Streeter's and the minister's and the Enemy's!--oh, most of all past the Enemy's!--for fear they'd look out of the window and say, "There goes an adopted!" Perhaps they'd point their fingers.--Margaret closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter's plump one and the minister's lean one and the Enemy's short brown one, all pointing. She could feel something burning her on her forehead,--it was "Adopted," branded there.

The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she got to the Enemy's house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.

Moth--She That had Been--would be wondering why Margaret was late. If she looked sober out of her eyes and said, "This can't be my little girl, can it?" then Margaret would know for certain. That would be the final proof.

The chimney was in sight now,--now the roof,--now the kitchen door, and She That Had Been was in it! She was shading her eyes and looking for the little girl that wasn't hers. A sob rose in the little girl's throat, but she tramped steadily on. It did not occur to her to snatch off her hat and wave it, as little girls that belonged did. She had done it herself.

The kitchen door was very near indeed now. It did not seem to be Margaret that was moving, but the kitchen door. It seemed to be coming to meet her and bringing with it a dear slender figure. She looked up and saw the soberness in its dear eyes.

"This can't be my little girl, can--" but Margaret heard no more. With a muffled wail she fled past the slender figure, up-stairs, that she did not see at all, to her own little room. On the bed she lay and felt her heart break under her awful little checked apron. For now she knew for certain.

Two darknesses shut down about her, and in the heart-break of one she forgot to be afraid of the other. She had always before been afraid of the night-dark and imagined creepy steps coming along the hall and into the door. The things she imagined now were dreadfuler than that. This new dark was so much darker!

They thought she was asleep and let her lie there on her little bed alone. By-and-by would be time enough to probe gently for the childish trouble. Perhaps she would leave it behind her in her sleep.

Out-of-doors suddenly a new sound rose shrill above the crickets and the frogs. It was the Enemy singing "Glory, glory, hallelujah." That was the last straw. Margaret writhed deeper into the pillows. She knew what the rest of it was--"Glory, glory, hallelujah, 'tisn't me! My soul goes marching on!" She was out there singing that a-purpose!

In her desperate need for some one to lay her trouble to, Margaret "laid it to" the Enemy. A sudden, bitter, unreasoning resentment took possession of her. If there hadn't been an Enemy, there wouldn't have been a trouble. Everything would have been beautiful and--and respectable, just as it was before. She would have been out there singing "Glory, glory hallelujah," too.

"She's to blame--I hate her!" came muffledly from the pillows. "Oh, I do!--I can't help it, I do! I'm always going to hate her forevermore! She needn't have--"

Needn't have what? What had the little scape-goat out there in the twilight done? But Margaret was beyond reasoning now. "Mine enemy hath done it," was enough for her. If she lived a thousand years--if she lived two thousand--she would never speak to the Enemy again,--never forgive her,--never put her into her prayer again among the God blesses.

A plan formulated itself after a while in the dark little room. It was born of the travail of the child's soul. Something must be done--there was something she would do. She began it at once, huddled up against the window to catch the failing light. She would pin it to her pin-cushion where they would find it after--after she was gone. Did folks ever mourn for an Adopted? In her sore heart Margaret yearned to have them mourn.

"I have found it out," she wrote with her trembling little fingers. "I don't suppose its wicked becaus I couldent help being one but it is orful. It breaks your hart to find youre one all of a suddin. If I had known before, I would have darned the big holes too. Ime going away becaus I canot bare living with folks I havent any right to. The stik pin this is pined on with is for Her That Wasent Ever my Mother for I love her still. When this you see remember me the rose is red the violet blue sugger is sweet and so are you.

"Margaret."

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 God 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!"

[The end]
Annie Hamilton Donnell's short story: Adopted

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