Chapter XXIII

Maida was grown up. There was no doubt about that. She could go anywhere she liked--she could do anything she chose--but it occurred to her there wasn’t any place she wanted to go--nor anything she cared to do. So she yawned.

Her sensations were most peculiar. She could recollect just how she felt when she was a little girl,--and she realized that she felt very different since the great change had taken place,--and to be perfectly frank, she wasn’t sure that she liked the new feeling. Of course, one always hates to admit one has been wrong or made a mistake. Still--when one is sure of it--why it’s lots better to come out plump and confess it at once. Try it yourself next time and see.

Well, it seemed to Maida as she sat there and tried to puzzle it out that there were two Maidas hidden away in her. One was the little girl she used to be, who always had such lots of fun and who enjoyed a good time. A little girl who liked everybody and whom everyone liked, but this little girl was hidden away down deep out of sight--bound some way so she couldn’t move. The other Maida was older and wiser, didn’t care to have a good time--that is, the _old_ kind of a good time--and was all stiff and starchy;--and really it’s terrible to have to feel dignified, and to have to do things you don’t care to do just because people expect them of you.

Of course she made a mistake in not wishing her dress to be grown up too. Still, she reflected, it wouldn’t take long to set _that_ right when once she returned home. Home--that was the thing--_how_ was she to get home?

She realized with great embarrassment--to the new Maida--that for a grown-up lady to sit about under the North Pole with a lot of strangers was a most improper proceeding. Did you ever have one of those dreams in which you found yourself out on the street in a nightie and a fur cap--or in a ballroom in a bathing-suit? And you couldn’t get away, and you couldn’t get clothes--my! it was just dreadful!--and you woke up blushing for shame?--That’s _just_ the way Maida felt.

She didn’t know where the dressmakers lived, and she had no chaperone nor any place to go and shut herself in and say “not at home” if anyone called.

Finally she decided to write a letter home asking them to send for her--so she spoke to a boy who chanced to be passing--one of the very boys, by the way, who had teased the Page to sell her.

It gave her a most unpleasant sensation to note that her voice sounded different,--oh, so different; and she also noticed that while she wanted to be kind and friendly her tone was haughty, and her attitude severe.

The old Maida, the little girl, would have smiled and asked “Say, boy, where’s the post-office?” Then the boy would have grinned, and stood first on one foot, then on the other, and mauled his cap about, blushing a bit--then he’d have told her.

That’s the way she wanted to speak. That’s what she meant to say. But _this_ is what the boy heard: “Come here, boy! Is there a post-office in this outlandish place? If there is, I wish you’d tell me where to find it.”

And she _had_ to say it that way; she couldn’t help herself.

“Decidedly,” she said to herself (that is the little girl Maida said ’way down deep), “if I had met myself grown up when I was a child--I would never have wished to be _me_.” This may seem very obscure, but if you puzzle it out you’ll see it meant just what she thought.

But the boy--well, he was rather naughty. He simply made a face at her and ran away. Just then Santa Claus bustled up to her with Billy following him. Both had recovered their clothes and thrown away the old rags--so Billy looked just as nice and Santa Claus just as jolly and rubicund as ever.

“Well,” chuckled the sprightly old fellow, “I see you’ve had your wish.”

Maida wanted to be nice--but alas--the “little girl” was hidden down so deep she just _had_ to step back and look at him coldly, saying, “Excuse me, I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

How Santa Claus did stare!

So Billy came up to her, his friendly face shining with joy. “Hello!” he said.

The child Maida was just aching to take his hand, and cling to him, but before it could happen another cold speech fell from her lips.

“If you wish to converse with me,” she observed haughtily, “please have some one give you an introduction, for, of course, you understand no grown-up young lady can speak to a total stranger.”

Think of it! To Billy, too! My goodness, but he was hurt!

“Don’t you know Santa Claus, Maida?” asked the old fellow, greatly troubled.

She looked at him coldly. “Oh, I know,” she said, “you’re that amusing old myth I met when I was a little girl, long ago.” (And it did seem long ago.)

“A myth!” gasped Santa Claus. “Me? Don’t you believe in _me_?”

“You must consider me very unsophisticated,” answered Maida. (And the big word didn’t bother her a bit now that she was a grown-up.) “You don’t exist. You couldn’t exist. You’re a figment of the imagination.”

There--it was out! She didn’t believe in Santa Claus! Yet there he stood before her. Clearly one had to lose much to be grown up.

Poor Billy made one more effort. “Why, you and I used to be such great friends,” he said, smiling sadly at Maida.

She tossed her head. “That was long ago,” she answered, “when I was a little girl. Only fancy, I used to like you very much then. So stupid of me, wasn’t it, for you’re only an apprentice, and, of course, you don’t move in our set.” How she hated herself, as she said that.

Kokomo approached her, saying something particularly nice in Eskimo, but Maida waved her aside. “I couldn’t be seen talking to a squaw--really you know,” she sniffed; then as Kokomo stepped back staring at her in open-eyed astonishment, she added, “Horrid creatures Indians, aren’t they? Such a bore----”

“Oh, little girl, hear me,” said Santa Claus, gravely, and his voice sounded, oh so serious. “Through your lost years listen to Santa Claus, the children’s friend. Was it for _this_ you gave up your childhood?”

The little Maida was just dancing away down deep inside. “I don’t know why,” she answered, “but there’s something in your voice that hurts me. You’re making me cry.” Sure enough, she was crying, and every tear was washing away a grain of the grown-up Maida.

Then the little girl Maida triumphed and bubbled over. “Save me! Save me!” she screamed; “I don’t want to be grown up. I can’t have any fun and people don’t like me. I’m afraid. Oh, somebody, please wish me a little girl.”

It was many years before Maida was a grown-up lady again.