Part 17

Of what do you suppose she was thinking? She was thinking of her mother, who had died before she could remember her, and wondering where she was; and she was picturing what her mother had looked like, and what her mother would have said to her, and how her mother’s arms would have felt about her, and her mother’s good-night kiss; and she was wondering how it would be to wake in the night, a little frightened, and turn and stretch out her arms and find her mother breathing there beside her, ready to wake her and give her an in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss and send her back to sleep again. And she thought about it all so longingly that her little heart was like nothing in the world so much as the one word “Mother.”

“It will be you,” said the Earth.

So the Earth spoke to its Shadow who was, of course, just then fastened to that same side, it being night.

“Shadow, dear,” Earth said, like a prescription, “fold closely about her and drop out a dream or two. But do not let her forget.”

So Shadow folded about her and dropped out a dream or two. And all night Earth lapped her in its silences, but they did not let her forget. And Shadow left word with Morning, telling Morning what to do, and she kissed the little girl’s eyelids so that the first thing she thought when she waked was how wonderful it would be to be kissed awake by her mother. And her little heart beat _Mother_ in her breast.

As soon as she was dressed (“Muvvers wouldn’t pinch your feet with the button-hook, or tie your ribbon too tight, or get your laxtixs short so’s they pull,” she thought), as soon as she was dressed, and had pressed her feet to Earth, Earth began to talk to her.

“Go out and find a mother,” it said to her.

“My muvver is dead,” thought the little girl.

Earth said: “I am covered with mothers and with those who ought to be mothers. Go to them. Tell them you haven’t any mother. Wouldn’t one of those be next best?”

And the Earth said so much, and the little girl’s heart so strongly beat _Mother_, that she could not help going to see.

On the street she looked very little and she felt--oh, _much_ littler than in the house with furniture. For the street seemed to be merely a world of Skirts--skirts everywhere and also the bottoms of men’s coats with impersonal Legs below. And these said nothing. Away up above were Voices, talking very fast, and to one another, and entirely leaving her out. She was out of the conversations and out of account, and it felt far more lonely than it did with just furniture. Now and then another child would pass who would look at her as if she really were there; but everyone was hanging on its mother’s hand or her Skirt, or else, if the child were alone, a Voice from ahead or behind was saying: “Hurry, dear. Mother won’t wait. Come and see what’s in _this_ window.” Littlegirl thought how wonderful that would be, to have somebody ahead looking back for her, and she waited on purpose, by a hydrant, and pretended that she was going to hear somebody saying: “_Do_ come on, dear. Mother’ll be late for her fitting.” But nobody said anything. Only an automobile stood close by the hydrant and in it was a little yellow-haired girl, and just at that moment a lady came from a shop and got in the automobile and handed the little girl a white tissue-paper parcel and said: “Sit farther over--there’s a dear. Now, that’s for you, but don’t open it till we get home.” _What_ was in the parcel, Littlegirl wondered, and stood looking after the automobile until it was lost. One little boy passed her, holding tightly to his mother’s hand, and she stooping over him and he _crying_. Littlegirl tried to think what could be bad enough to cry about when you had hold of your mother’s hand and she was bending over you. A stone in your shoe? Or a pin in your neck? Or because you’d lost your locket? But would any of those things matter enough to cry when your mother had hold of your hand? She looked up at the place beside her where her own mother would be walking and tried to see where her face would be.

And as she looked up, she saw the tops of the high buildings across the street, and below them the windows hung thick as pictures on a wall, and thicker. The shop doors were open like doors to wonderful, mysterious palaces where you went in with your mother and she picked out your dresses and said: “Wouldn’t you like this one, dear? Mother used to have one like this when _she_ was a little girl.” And Littlegirl saw, too, one of the side streets, and how it was all lined with homes, whose doors were shut, like closed lips with nothing to say to anybody save those who lived there--the children who were promised Christmas trees--and _got_ them, too. And between shops and homes was the world of Skirts and Voices, mothers whose little girls were at home, daddys who would run up the front steps at night and cry: “Come here, Puss. Did you grow any since morning?” Or, “_Where’s my son?_” (Littlegirl knew how it went--she had heard them.) Shops and homes and crowds--a City! A City for everybody but her.

When the Earth--who all this time was listening--heard her think that, it made to flow up into her little heart the longing to belong to somebody. And Littlegirl ran straight up to a lady in blue linen, who was passing.

“Are you somebody’s muvver?” she asked.

The lady looked down in the little face and stood still.

“No,” she said soberly.

Littlegirl slipped her hand in her white glove.

“I aren’t anybody’s little girl,” she said. “Let’s trade each other.”

And the Earth, who was listening, made to flow in the lady’s heart an old longing.

“Let’s go in here, at any rate,” said the Lady, “and talk it over.”

So they went in a wonderful place, all made of mirrors, and jars of bonbons, and long trays, as big as doll cradles, and filled with bonbons too. And they sat at a cool table, under a whirry fan, and had before them thick, foamy, frozen chocolate. And the Blue Linen Lady said:--

“But whose little girl are you, really?”

“I’m _my_ little girl, I think,” said Littlegirl. “I don’t know who else’s.”

“With whom do you live?” asked the Lady.

“Some peoples,” said Littlegirl, “that’s other people’s muvvers. Don’t let’s say about them.”

“What shall we say about?” asked the Lady, smiling.

“Let’s pretend you was my muvver,” said Littlegirl.

The lady looked startled, but she nodded slowly.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll play that. How do you play it?”

Littlegirl hesitated and looked down in her chocolate.

“I don’t know berry well,” she said soberly. “_You_ say how.”

“Well,” said the Lady, “if you were my little girl, I should probably be saying to you, ‘Do you like this, dear? Don’t eat it fast. And take little bits of bites.’ And you would say, ‘Yes, mother.’ And then what?”

Littlegirl looked deep down her chocolate. She was making a cave in one side of it, with the foamy part on top for snow. And while she looked the snow suddenly seemed to melt and brim over, and she looked at the lady mutely.

“I don’t know how,” she said; “I don’t know how!”

“Never mind!” said the Lady, very quickly and a little unsteadily, “I’ll tell you a story instead--shall I?”

So the Blue Linen Lady told her a really wonderful story. It was about a dwarf who was made of gold, all but his heart, and about what a terrible time he had trying to pretend that he was a truly, flesh and blood person. It made him so unhappy to have to pretend all the time that he got _scandalous_ cross to everybody, and nothing could please him. His gold kept getting harder and harder till he could move only with the greatest difficulty, and it looked as if his heart were going golden too. And if it did, of course he would die. But one night, just as the soft outside edges of his heart began to take on a shining tinge, a little boy ran out in the road where the dwarf was passing, and in the dark mistook him for his father, and jumped up and threw his arms about the dwarf’s neck and hugged him. And of a sudden the dwarf’s heart began to beat, and when he got in the house, he saw that he wasn’t gold any more, and he wasn’t a dwarf--but he was straight and strong and real. “And so,” the Lady ended it, “you must love every grown-up you can, because maybe their hearts are turning into gold and you can stop it that way.”

“An’ must _you_ love every children?” asked Littlegirl, very low.

“Yes,” said the Lady, “I must.”

“An’ will you love me an’ be my muvver?” asked Littlegirl.

The Blue Linen Lady sighed.

“You dear little thing,” she said, “I’d love it--I’d love it. But I truly haven’t any place for you to live--or any time to give you. Come now--I’m going to get you some candy and take you back where you belong--_in an automobile_. Won’t that be fun?”

But when she turned for the candy, Littlegirl slipped out the door and ran and ran as fast as she could. (She had thanked the lady, first thing, for the thick, frozen, foamy chocolate, so _that_ part was all right.) And Littlegirl went round a corner and lost herself in a crowd--in which it is far easier to lose yourself than in the woods. And there she was again, worse off than before, because she had felt how it would feel to feel that she had a mother.

The Earth--who would have shaken its head if it could without disarranging everything on it--said things instead to its Shadow--who was by now on the other side of the world from the City.

“Shadow, dear,” said the Earth, “what _do_ you think of that?”

“The very Uttermost Spaces are ashamed for her,” said the Shadow.

But of course the Blue Linen Lady had no idea that the Earth and its Shadow and the Uttermost Spaces had been watching to see what she did.

Littlegirl ran on, many a weary block, and though she met mother-looking women she dared speak to none of them for fear they would offer to take her back in an automobile, with some candy, to the people with whom she lived-without-belonging. And of late, these people had said things in her presence about the many mouths to feed, and she had heard, and had understood, and it had made her heart beat _Mother_, as it had when she wakened that day.

At last, when she was most particularly tired, she came to the park where it was large and cool and woodsy and wonderful. But in the park the un-motherness of things was worse than ever. To be sure, there were no mothers there, only nurse-maids. But the nurse-maids and the children and the covers-to-baby-carriages were all so ruffly or lacy or embroidery or starchy and so white that _mother_ was written all over them. Nobody else could have cared to have them like that. How wonderful it would be, Littlegirl thought, to be paid attention to as if you were a really person and not just hanging on the edges. Even the squirrels were coaxed and beckoned. She sat down on the edge of a bench on which an old gentleman was feeding peanuts to a squirrel perched on his knee, and she thought it would be next best to having a Christmas tree to be a squirrel and have somebody taking pains like that to keep her near by.

“Where’s your nurse, my dear?” the old gentleman asked her finally, and she ran away so that he should not guess that she was her own little girl and nobody else’s.

Wherever she saw a policeman, she lingered beside a group of children so that he would think that she belonged to them. And once, for a long way, she trotted behind two nurses and five children, pretending that she belonged. Once a thin, stooped youth in spectacles called her and gave her an orange. He was sitting alone on a bench with his chin in his chest, and he looked ill and unhappy. Littlegirl wondered if this was because he didn’t have any mother either, and she longed to ask him; but she was afraid he would not want to own to not having any, in a world where nearly everyone seemed to have one. So she played through the long hours of the morning. So, having lunched on the orange, she played through the long hours of the afternoon. And then Dusk began to come--and Dusk meant that Earth’s Shadow had run round again, and was coming on the side where the City lay.

And when the Shadow reached the park, there, on a knoll beside a barberry bush, he found Littlegirl lying fast asleep.

In a great flutter he questioned the Earth.

“Listen,” said Shadow, “what _are_ you thinking of? Here is the child who was to work the miracle and make the City turn into a woman. And she is lying alone in the park. And I’m coming on and I’ll have to make it all dark and frighten her. What does this mean?”

But the Earth, who is closer to people than is its Shadow, merely said:--

“Wait, Shadow. I am listening. I can hear the speeding of many feet. And I think that the miracle has begun.”

It was true that all through the City there was the speeding of many feet, and on one errand. Wires and messengers were busy, automobiles were busy, blue-coated men were busy, and all of them were doing the same thing: Looking for Littlegirl. Busiest of all was the Blue Linen Lady, who felt herself and nobody else responsible for Littlegirl’s loss.

“It is too dreadful,” she kept saying over and over, “I had her with me. She gave me my chance, and I didn’t take it. If anything has happened to her, I shall never forgive myself.”

“That’s the way people always talk _afterward_,” said the Earth’s Shadow. “Why don’t they ever talk that way before? I’d ask the Uttermost Spaces, but I know they don’t know.”

But the wise Earth only listened and made to flow to the Blue Linen Lady’s heart an old longing. And when they had traced Littlegirl as far as the park--for it seemed that many of the busy Skirts and Coats and Voices had noticed her, only they were so very busy--the Blue Linen Lady herself went into the park, and it was the light of her automobile that flashed white on the glimmering frock of Littlegirl.

Littlegirl was wakened, as never before within her memory she had been wakened, by tender arms about her, lifting her, and soft lips kissing her, many and many a time. And waking so, in the strange, great Dark, with the new shapes of trees above her and tenderness wrapping her round, and an in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss on her lips, Littlegirl could think of but one thing that had happened:--

“Oh, I’m _glad_ I died--I’m _glad_ I died!” she said.

“You haven’t died, you little thing!” cried the Blue Linen Lady. “You’re alive--and if they’ll let you stay, you’re never going to leave me. I’ve made up my mind to _that_. Come--come, dear.”

Littlegirl lay quite still, too happy to speak or think. For somebody had said “dear,” had even said “Come, dear.” And it didn’t mean a little girl away ahead, or away back, or in an automobile. _It meant her._

The Earth’s Shadow brooded over the two and helped them to be very near.

“It’s worth keeping up with you all this time,” Shadow said to the Earth, “to see things like this. Even the Uttermost Spaces are touched.”

But the Earth was silent, listening. For the City, the beautiful, green-robed City lying in her glorious night jewels, knew what was happening too. And when the Lady lifted Littlegirl, to carry her away, it was as if something had happened which had touched the life of the City herself. She listened, as the Earth was listening, and the soft crooning which men thought was the roar of her traffic was really her song about what she heard. For the story of Littlegirl spread and echoed, and other children’s stories like hers were in the song, and it was one of the times when the heart of the City was stirred to a great, new measure. At last the City understood the homelessness of children, and their labour, and their suffering, and the waste of them; and she brooded above them like a mother.... And suddenly she knew herself, that she _was_ the mother of all little children, and that she must care for them like a mother _if she was to keep herself alive_. And if they were to grow up to be her Family, and not just her pretend family, with nobody looking out for anybody else--as no true family would do.

“Is it well?” asked the Shadow, softly, of the Earth.

“It is well,” said the Earth, in deep content. “Don’t you hear the human voices beginning to sing with her? Don’t you see the other Cities watching? Oh, it is well indeed.”

“I’ll go and mention it to the Uttermost Spaces,” said the Shadow.

And, in time, so he did.

XX

THREE TO MAKE READY

Red mosquito-netting, preferably from peach baskets, was best for bottles of pink water. You soaked the netting for a time depending in length on the shade of pink you desired--light, deep, or plain. A very little red ink produced a beautiful red water, likewise of a superior tint. Violet ink, diluted, remained true to type. Cold coffee gave the browns and yellows. Green tissue paper dissolved into somewhat dull emerald. Pure blue and orange, however, had been almost impossible to obtain save by recourse to our paint boxes, too choice to be used in this fashion, or to a chance artificial flower on an accessible hat--of which we were not at all too choice, but whose utilization might be followed, not to say attended, by consequences.

That August afternoon we were at work on a grand scale. At the Rodmans, who lived on the top of the hill overlooking the town and the peaceful westward-lying valley of the river, we had chosen to set up a great Soda Fountain, the like of which had never been.

“It’s the kind of a fountain,” Margaret Amelia Rodman explained, “that knights used to drink at. That kind.”

We classified it instantly.

“Now,” she went on, “us damsels are getting this thing up for the knights that are tourmeying. If the king knew it, he wouldn’t leave us do it, because he’d think it’s beneath our dignity. But he don’t know it. He’s off. He’s to the chase. But all the king’s household is inside the palace, and us damsels have to be secret, getting up our preparations. Now we must divide up the--er--responsibility.”

I listened, spellbound.

“I thought you and Betty didn’t like to play Pretend,” I was surprised into saying.

“Why, we’ll pretend if there’s anything to pretend _about_ that’s real,” said Margaret Amelia, haughtily.

They told us where in the palace the various ingredients were likely to be found. Red mosquito-netting, perhaps, in the cellar--at this time of day fairly safe. Red and violet ink in the library--very dangerous indeed at this hour. Cold coffee--almost unobtainable. Green tissue paper, to be taken from the flower-pots in the dining-room--exceedingly dangerous. Blue and orange, if discoverable at all, then in the Christmas tree box in the trunk room--attended by few perils as to meetings en route, but in respect to appropriating what was desired, by the greatest perils of all.

This last adventure the Rodmans themselves heroically undertook. It was also conceded that, on their return from their quest--provided they ever did return alive--it would be theirs to procure the necessary cold coffee. The other adventures were distributed, and Mary Elizabeth and I were told off together to penetrate the cellar in search of red mosquito-netting. The bottles had already been collected, and these little Harold Rodman was left to guard and luxuriously to fill with water and luxuriously to empty.

There was an outside cellar door, and it was closed. This invited Mary Elizabeth and me to an expedition or two before we even entered. We slid from the top to the bottom, sitting, standing, and backward. Then, since Harold was beginning to observe us with some attention, we lifted the ring--_the ring_--in the door and descended.

“Aladdin immediately beheld bags of inexhaustible riches,” said Mary Elizabeth, almost reverently.

First, there was a long, narrow passage lined with ash barrels, a derelict coal scuttle, starch boxes, mummies of brooms, and the like. But at this point if we had chanced on the red mosquito-netting, we should have felt distinctly cheated of some right. A little farther on, however, the passage branched, and we stood in delighted uncertainty. If the giant lived one way and the gorgon the other, which was our way?

The way that we did choose led into a small round cellar, lighted by a narrow, dusty window, now closed. Formless things stood everywhere--crates, tubs, shelves whose ghostly contents were shrouded by newspapers. It occurred to me that I had never yet told Mary Elizabeth about our cellar. I decided to do so then and there. She backed up against the wall to listen, manifestly so that there should be nothing over her shoulder.

Our cellar was a round, bricked-in place under the dining-room. Sometimes I had been down there while they had been selecting preserves by candle-light. And I had long ago settled that the curved walls were set with little sealed doors behind each of which _He_ sat. These _He’s_ were not in the least unfriendly--they merely sat there close to the wall, square shouldered and very still, looking neither to right nor left, waiting. Probably, I thought, it might happen some day--whatever they waited for; and then they would all go away. Meanwhile, there they were; and they evidently knew that I knew they were there, but they evidently did not expect me to mention it; for once, when I did so, they all stopped doing nothing and looked at me, all together, as if something used their eyes for them at a signal. It was to Mary Gilbraith that I had spoken, while she was at our house-cleaning, and the moment I had chosen was when she was down in the cellar without a candle and I was lying flat on the floor above her, peering down the trap doorway.

“Mary,” I said, “they’s a big row of _He’s_ sitting close together inside the wall. They’ve got big foreheads. Bang on the wall and see if they’ll answer--” for I had always longed to bang and had never quite dared.

“Oh, my great Scotland!” said Mary Gilbraith, and was up the ladder in a second. That was when they looked at me, and then I knew that I should not have spoken to her about them, and I began to see that there are some things that must not be said. And I felt a kind of shame, too, when Mary turned on me. “You little Miss,” she said wrathfully, “with your big eyes. An’ myself bitin’ on my own nerves for fear of picking up a lizard for a potato. Go play.”

“I _was_ playing,” I tried to explain.

“Play playthings, then, and not ha’nts,” said Mary.

So I never said anything more to her, save about plates and fritters and such things.

To this recital Mary Elizabeth listened sympathetically.

“There’s just one great big one lives down in our cellar,” she confided in turn. “Not in the wall--but out loose. When the apples and stuff go down there, I always think how glad he is.”

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked.

“Afraid!” Mary Elizabeth repeated. “Why, no. Once, when I was down there, I tried to pretend there wasn’t anything lived there--and _then_ it was frightening and I was scared.”

I understood. It would indeed be a great, lonely, terrifying world if these little friendly folk did not live in cellars, walls, attics, stair-closets and the like. Of course they were friendly. Why should they be otherwise?

“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-t,” something went, close by Mary Elizabeth’s head.

We looked up. The dimness of the ceiling was miles deep. We could not see a ceiling.

“St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t,” it went again. And this time it did not stop, and it began to be accompanied by a rumbling sound as from the very cave inside the world.