Chapter 5

"I'M going to invite him to visit us next winter," Mary said.

This was at the end of the summer, and the prospect of saying good-by to Johnny for almost a year was more than she could bear.

"My dear!" her husband protested, "if you got him under your own roof you wouldn't be able to hold on to yourself! I could, but you couldn't. You'd tell him."

"I wouldn't! Why, I _couldn't_. Of course he can never know. . . . But I'm going to see--that woman, and tell her that I shall have him visit us."

"She'll not permit it."

"'Permit'!" Mary said. "Upon my word! My own child not '_permitted_'!"

"It's hard," Carl said, briefly.

"You want him, too," she said, eagerly; "I can see you do! Think of having him with us for a week! I could go into his room and--and pick up his clothes when he drops them round on the floor, the way boys do." She was breathless at the thought of such happiness. "I'll tell her I'm going to have him come in the Christmas vacation. Oh, Carl"--her black, heavy eyes suddenly glittered with tears--"I want my baby," she said.

The words stabbed him; for a moment he felt that there was no price too great to pay for comfort for her. "We'll try it," he said, "but we'll have to handle Miss Lydia just right to get her to consent to it."

"'Consent'?" she said, fiercely. "Carl, I just hate her!" The long-smothered instinct of maternity leaped up and scorched her like a flame; she put her dimpled hands over her face and cried.

He tried to tell her that she wasn't just. "After all, dear, we disowned him. Naturally, she feels that he belongs to her."

But she could not be just: "He belongs to us! And she prejudices him against us. I know she does. I said to him yesterday that her clothes weren't very fashionable. I just said it for fun; and he said, 'You shut up!'"

"_What!_" Johnny's father said, amused and horrified.

"I believe she likes him to be rude to me," Mary said.

Her jealousy of Miss Lydia had taken the form of suspicion; if Johnny was impertinent, if that shabby Miss Lydia meant more to him than she did--the rich, beneficent, adoring Mrs. Robertson!--it must be because Miss Lydia "influenced" him. It was to counteract that influence that she planned the Christmas visit; if she could have him to herself, even for a week, with all the enjoyments she would give him, she was sure she could rout "that woman" from her place in his heart!

"I sha'n't ask for what is my own," she told Carl; "I'll just say I'm going to take him for the Christmas holidays. She won't dare to say he can't come!"

Yet when she went to tell Miss Lydia that Johnny was coming, her certainty that the shabby woman wouldn't "dare," faded.

Miss Lydia was in the kitchen, making cookies for her boy, and she could not instantly leave her rolling-pin when his mother knocked at the front door. Mary had not been at that door since the September night when she had crouched, sobbing, on the steps. And now again it was September, and again the evening primroses were opening in the dusk. . . . As she knocked, a breath of their subtle perfume brought back that other dusk, and for an instant she was engulfed in a surge of memory. She felt faint and leaned against the door, waiting for Miss Lydia's little running step in the hall. She could hardly speak when the door opened. "Good--good evening," she said, in a whisper.

Miss Lydia, her frightened eyes peering at her caller from under that black frizette, could hardly speak herself. Mary was the one to get herself in hand first. "May I come in, Miss Sampson?"

"Why, yes--" said Miss Lydia, doubtfully, and dusted her floury hands together.

"I came to say," Mary began, following her back to the kitchen, "I came--"

"I'm making cookies for Johnny," Miss Lydia said, briskly, and Mary's soft hands clenched. Why shouldn't _she_ be making cookies for Johnny!

"I've got a pan in the oven," said Miss Lydia, "and I've got to watch 'em."

Mary was silent; she sat down by the table, her breath catching in her throat. Miss Lydia did not, apparently, notice the agitation; she bustled about and brought her a cooky on a cracked plate--and watched her.

"I want--" Mary said, in a trembling voice, and crumbling the cooky with nervous fingers--"I mean, I am going to have Johnny visit me this winter."

"Oh," said Miss Lydia, and sat down.

"I'll have him during the holidays."

"No."

"Why not?" Mary said, angrily.

"He'd guess."

"You needn't be afraid of _that_!"

Miss Lydia silently shook her head; instantly Mary's anger turned to fright.

"Oh, Miss Lydia--please! I promise you he shall never have the dimmest idea--why, he _couldn't_ have! It wouldn't do, you know. But I want him just to--to look at."

Miss Lydia was pale. She may have been a born gambler, but never had she taken such a chance as this--to give Johnny back, even for a week, to the people who once had thrown him away, but who now were ready to do everything for him, give him anything he wanted!--and a boy wants so many things! "No," she said, "no."

Mary gave a starved cry, then dropped on her knees, clutched at the small, rough, floury hand and tried to kiss it.

"A mother has a claim," she said, passionately.

Miss Lydia, pulling her hand away, nodded. "Yes, a mother has."

"Then let him come. Oh, let him come!"

"_Are you his mother?_"

Mary fell back, half sitting on the floor, half kneeling at Miss Lydia's feet. "What do you mean? You know--"

"Sometimes," said Miss Lydia, "I think _I'm_ his mother."

Mary started. "She's crazy!" she thought, scared.

"He is mine," Miss Lydia said, proudly; "some foolish people have even thought he was mine in--in your way."

"Absurd!" Mary said, with a gasp.

"You have never understood love, Mary," Miss Lydia said; "never, from the very beginning." And even as Johnny's mother recoiled at that sword-thrust, she added, her face very white: "But I'll chance it. Yes, if he wants to visit you I'll let him. But I hope you won't hurt him."

"Hurt him? Hurt my own child? He shall have everything!"

"That's what I mean. It may hurt him. He may get to be like you," Miss Lydia said. . . . "Oh, my cookies! They are burning!" She pushed Johnny's mother aside--she wanted to push her over! to trample on her! to tear her! But she only pressed her gently aside and ran and opened the oven door, and then said, "Oh _my_!" and raised a window to let the smoke out. . . . "I'll let him go," she said. But when Mary tried to put her arms around her, and say brokenly how grateful she was, Miss Lydia shrank away and said, harshly, "_Don't!_"

"I couldn't bear to have her touch me," she told herself afterward; "she didn't love him when he was a baby."

However, it was arranged, and the visit was made. It was a great experience for Johnny! The stage to Mercer, the railroad journey across the mountains, the handsome house, the good times every minute of every day! Barnum's! Candy shops! New clothes (and old ones dropped about on the floor for Mrs. Robertson to pick up!) And five five-dollar bills to carry back to Old Chester! Then the week ended. . . . Mrs. Robertson, running to bring him his hat and make sure he had a clean handkerchief, and patting the collar of his coat with plump fingers, cried when she said good-by; and Johnny sighed, and said he had a stomach ache, and he hated to go home. His mother glanced triumphantly at his father.

"(Do you hear that?) Do you love me, Johnny?" she demanded.

"Yes'm," Johnny said, scowling.

"As much as Miss Lydia?"

Johnny stared at her. "Course not."

"She doesn't give you so many presents as I do."

"_Mary!_" Johnny's father protested.

But Johnny was equal to the occasion.

"I'd just as leaves," said he, "give you one of my five dollars to pay for 'em"--which made even his mother laugh. "Goo'-by," said Johnny. "I guess I've eaten too much. I've had a fine time. Much obliged. No, I do' want any more candy. O-o-o-h!" said Johnny, "I wish I hadn't eaten so much! I hate going home."

But he went--bearing his sheaves with him, his presents and his five five-dollar bills and his stomach ache. And he said he wished he could go right straight back to Philadelphia!

"Do you?" said Miss Lydia, faintly.

"But she's--funny, Aunt Lydia."

"How 'funny'?"

"Well," said Johnny, scrubbing the back of his hand across his cheeks, "she's always kissing me and talking about my liking her. Oh--I don't really mind her, much. She's nice enough. But I _don't_ like kissing ladies. But I like visiting her," he added, candidly; "she takes me to lots of places and gives me things. I like presents," said Johnny. "I hope she'll gimme a gun." . . .

That night, the kissing lady, pacing up and down like a caged creature in her handsome parlor, which seemed so empty and orderly now, said suddenly to her husband, "Why don't we adopt him?"

"H-s-s-h!" he cautioned her; then, in a low voice, "I've thought of that."

At which she instantly retreated. "It is out of the question! People would--think."