The Little Colonel Page 7

  CHAPTER VII.

  That early twilight hour just before the lamps were lit was thelonesomest one the Little Colonel had ever spent.

  Her grandfather was asleep up-stairs. There was a cheery wood firecrackling on the hearth of the big fireplace in the hall, but the greathouse was so still. The corners were full of shadows.

  She opened the front door with a wild longing to run away.

  "Come, Fritz," she said, closing the door softly behind her, "let's godown to the gate."

  The air was cold. She shivered as they raced along under the barebranches of the locusts. She leaned against the gate, peering outthrough the bars. The road stretched white through the gatheringdarkness in the direction of the little cottage.

  "Oh, I want to go home so bad!" she sobbed. "I want to see my mothah."

  She laid her hand irresolutely on the latch, pushed the gate ajar, andthen hesitated.

  "No, I promised the doctah I'd stay," she thought. "He said I could helpmothah and Papa Jack, both of 'em, by stayin' heah, an' I'll do it."

  Fritz, who had pushed himself through the partly opened gate to rustlearound among the dead leaves outside, came bounding back with somethingin his mouth.

  "Heah, suh!" she called. "Give it to me!" He dropped a small gray kidglove in her outstretched hand. "Oh, it's mothah's!" she cried. "Ireckon she dropped it when she was tellin' me good-bye. Oh, you deah olddog fo' findin' it."

  She laid the glove against her cheek as fondly as if it had been hermother's soft hand. There was something wonderfully comforting in thetouch.

  As they walked slowly back toward the house she rolled it up and put itlovingly away in her tiny apron pocket.

  All that week it was a talisman whose touch helped the homesick littlesoul to be brave and womanly.

  When Maria, the coloured housekeeper, went into the hall to light thelamps, the Little Colonel was sitting on the big fur rug in front of thefire, talking contentedly to Fritz, who lay with his curly head in herlap.

  "You all's goin' to have tea in the Cun'ls room to-night," said Maria."He tole me to tote it up soon as he rung the bell."

  "There it goes now," cried the child, jumping up from the rug.

  She followed Maria up the wide stairs. The Colonel was sitting in alarge easy chair, wrapped in a gaily flowered dressing-gown, that madehis hair look unusually white by contrast.

  His dark eyes were intently watching the door. As it opened to let theLittle Colonel pass through, a very tender smile lighted up his sternface.

  "So you did come to see grandpa after all," he cried, triumphantly."Come here and give me a kiss. Seems to me you've been staying away amighty long time."

  As she stood beside him with his arm around her, Walker came in with atray full of dishes. "We're going to have a regular little tea-party,"said the Colonel.

  Lloyd watched with sparkling eyes as Walker set out the rareold-fashioned dishes. There was a fat little silver sugar-bowl with abutterfly perched on each side to form the handles, and there was aslim, graceful cream-pitcher shaped like a lily.

  "They belonged to your great-great-grandmother," said the Colonel, "andthey're going to be yours some day if you grow up and have a house ofyour own."

  The expression on her beaming face was worth a fortune to the Colonel.

  When Walker pushed her chair up to the table, she turned to hergrandfather with shining eyes.

  "Oh, it's just like a pink story," she cried, clapping her hands. "Theshades on the can'les, the icin' on the cake, an' the posies in thebowl,--why, even the jelly is that colah, too. Oh, my darlin' littleteacup! It's jus' like a pink rosebud. I'm so glad I came!"

  The Colonel smiled at the success of his plan. In the depths of hissatisfaction he even had a plate of quail and toast set down on thehearth for Fritz.

  "This is the nicest pahty I evah was at," remarked the Little Colonel,as Walker helped her to jam the third time.

  Her grandfather chuckled.

  "Blackberry jam always makes me think of Tom," he said. "Did you everhear what your Uncle Tom did when he was a little fellow in dresses?"

  She shook her head gravely.

  "Well, the children were all playing hide-and-seek one day. They huntedhigh and they hunted low after everybody else had been caught, but theycouldn't find Tom. At last they began to call, 'Home free! You can comehome free!' but he did not come. When he had been hidden so long theywere frightened about him, they went to their mother and told her hewasn't to be found anywhere. She looked down the well and behind thefire-boards in the fireplaces. They called and called till they were outof breath. Finally she thought of looking in the big dark pantry whereshe kept her fruit. There stood Mister Tom. He had opened a jar ofblackberry jam, and was just going for it with both hands. The jam wasall over his face and hair and little gingham apron, and even up hiswrists. He was the funniest sight I ever saw."

  The Little Colonel laughed heartily at his description, and begged formore stories. Before he knew it he was back in the past with his littleTom and Elizabeth.

  Nothing could have entertained the child more than these scenes herecalled of her mother's childhood.

  "All her old playthings are up in the garret," he said, as they rosefrom the table. "I'll have them brought down to-morrow. There's a dollI brought her from New Orleans once when she was about your size. Notelling what it looks like now, but it was a beauty when it was new."

  Lloyd clapped her hands and spun around the room like a top.

  "Oh, I'm so glad I came!" she exclaimed for the third time. "What didshe call the doll, gran'fathah, do you remembah?"

  "I never paid much attention to such things," he answered, "but Ido remember the name of this one, because she named it for hermother,--Amanthis."

  "Amanthis," repeated the child, dreamily, as she leaned against hisknee. "I think that is a lovely name, gran'fathah. I wish they hadcalled me that." She repeated it softly several times. "It sounds likethe wind a-blowin' through white clovah, doesn't it?"

  "It is a beautiful name to me, my child," answered the old man, layinghis hand tenderly on her soft hair, "but not so beautiful as the womanwho bore it. She was the fairest flower of all Kentucky. There never wasanother lived as sweet and gentle as your Grandmother Amanthis."

  He stroked her hair absently, and gazed into the fire. He scarcelynoticed when she slipped away from him.

  She buried her face a moment in the bowl of pink roses. Then she wentto the window and drew back the curtain. Leaning her head against thewindow-sill, she began stringing on the thread of a tune the things thatjust then thrilled her with a sense of their beauty.

  "Oh, the locus'-trees a-blowin'," she sang, softly. "An' the moona-shinin' through them. An' the starlight an' pink roses; an'Amanthis--an' Amanthis!"

  She hummed it over and over until Walker had finished carrying thedishes away.

  It was a strange thing that the Colonel's unfrequent moods of tendernesswere like those warm days that they call weather-breeders.

  They were sure to be followed by a change of atmosphere. This time asthe fierce rheumatic pain came back he stormed at Walker, and scoldedhim for everything he did and everything he left undone.

  When Maria came up to put Lloyd to bed, Fritz was tearing around theroom barking at his shadow.

  "Put that dog out, M'ria!" roared the Colonel, almost crazy with itsantics. "Take it down-stairs, and put it out of the house, I say! Nobodybut a heathen would let a dog sleep in the house, anyway."

  The homesick feeling began to creep over Lloyd again. She had expectedto keep Fritz in her room at night for company. But for the touch of thelittle glove in her pocket, she would have said something ugly to hergrandfather when he spoke so harshly.

  His own ill humour was reflected in her scowl as she followed Maria downthe stairs to drive Fritz out into the dark. They stood a moment in theopen door, after Maria had slapped him with her apron to make him go offthe porch.

  "Oh, look at the new moon!" cried Lloyd, pointing to the
slendercrescent in the autumn sky.

  "I'se feared to, honey," answered Maria, "less I should see it throughthe trees. That 'ud bring me bad luck for a month, suah. I'll go out onthe lawn where it's open, an' look at it ovah my right shouldah."

  While they were walking backward down the path, intent on reaching aplace where they could have an uninterrupted view of the moon, Fritzsneaked around to the other end of the porch.

  No one was watching. He slipped into the house as noiselessly as hisfour soft feet could carry him.

  Maria, going through the dark upper hall, with a candle held high aboveher head and Lloyd clinging to her skirts, did not see a tasselled tailswinging along in front of her. It disappeared under the big bed whenshe led Lloyd into the room next the old Colonel's.

  The child felt very sober while she was being put to bed.

  The furniture was heavy and dark. An ugly portrait of a cross old man ina wig frowned at her from over the mantel. The dancing firelight madehis eyes frightfully lifelike.

  The bed was so high she had to climb on a chair to get in. She heardMaria's heavy feet go shuffling down the stairs. A door banged. Then itwas so still she could hear the clock tick in the next room.

  It was the first time in all her life that her mother had not come tokiss her good night. Her lips quivered, and a big tear rolled down onthe pillow.

  She reached out to the chair beside her bed, where her clothes werehanging, and felt in her apron pocket for the little glove. She sat upin bed, and looked at it in the dim firelight. Then she held it againsther face. "Oh, I want my mothah! I want my mothah!" she sobbed, in aheart-broken whisper.

  Laying her head on her knees, she began to cry quietly, but with greatsobs that nearly choked her.

  There was a rustling under the bed. She lifted her wet face in alarm.Then she smiled through her tears, for there was Fritz, her own deardog, and not an unknown horror waiting to grab her.

  He stood on his hind legs, eagerly trying to lap away her tears with hisfriendly red tongue.

  She clasped him in her arms with an ecstatic hug. "Oh, you're such acomfort!" she whispered. "I can go to sleep now."

  She spread her apron on the bed, and motioned him to jump. With onespring he was beside her.

  It was nearly midnight when the door from the Colonel's room wasnoiselessly opened.

  The old man stirred the fire gently until it burst into a bright flame.Then he turned to the bed. "You rascal!" he whispered, looking at Fritz,who raised his head quickly with a threatening look in his wicked eyes.

  Lloyd lay with one hand stretched out, holding the dog's protecting paw.The other held something against her tear-stained cheek.

  "What under the sun!" he thought, as he drew it gently from her fingers.The little glove lay across his hand, slim and aristocratic-looking. Heknew instinctively whose it was. "Poor little thing's been crying," hethought. "She wants Elizabeth. And so do I! And so do I!" his heartcried out with bitter longing. "It's never been like home since sheleft."

  He laid the glove back on her pillow, and went to his room.

  "If Jack Sherman should die," he said to himself many times that night,"then she would come home again. Oh, little daughter, little daughter!why did you ever leave me?"