The Very Small Person. Donnell Annie Hamilton
for Anne, at the end of the first week she would have gone out to meet him. Dear, dear, but for Miss Salome, Anne would have gone!
The Little Blue Overalls confided his troubles to Miss Salome. He told her how hard it was to be the only boy, – how impossible, of course, it was to play girly plays, and how he had longed to find a congenial spirit. Mysteriously enough, he appeared confident that he had found the congenial spirit at last. Miss Salome’s petticoats seemed no obstacle. He showed her his pocketful of treasures. He taught her to whittle, and how to bear it when she “bleeded.” He taught her to whistle – very softly, on account of Anne. (He taught Anne, too – softly, on account of Miss Salome.) He let her make sails for his boats, and sew on his buttons, – those that Anne didn’t sew on.
“Dear John,” wrote Miss Salome, “the raspberries are ripe. When you were a very small person – say seven – did you ever mash them between raspberry leaves, with ‘sugar in,’ and call them pies, – and eat them? They are really palatable. Of course it is a little risky on account of possible bugs. I don’t remember that you were a remarkable little boy. Were you? Did you ever play you were a highwayman, or an elephant, or anything of that sort? Queer I can’t remember.
“Anne is delighted with her southern exposure, but she has never said so. That is why I know she is. I am delighted with the roses and the closets and the horse-chestnut – especially the horst-chestnut. That is where we play – I mean it is most pleasant there, hot afternoons. Did you use to dote on horse-chestnuts? Queer boys should. But I rather like them myself, in a way, – out of the way! We have picked up a hundred and seventeen.” Miss Salome dropped into the plural number innocently, and Elizabeth laughed over John’s shoulder. Elizabeth did the reading between the lines. John was only a man.
One day Little Blue Overalls was late. He came from the direction of the stable that adjoined Miss Salome’s house. He was excited and breathless. A fur rug was draped around his shoulders and trailed uncomfortably behind him.
“Come on!” he cried, eagerly. “It’s a circus! I’m the grizzled bear. There’s a four-legged girl – Chessie, you know, with stockin’s on her hands, – and a Manx rooster (’thout any tail), and, oh, my! the splendidest livin’ skeleton you ever saw! I want you to be man’ger – come on! It’s easy enough. You poke us with a stick, an’ we perform. I dance, an’ the four-legged girl walks, an’ the rooster crows, an’ the skeleton skel – Oh, well, you needn’t poke the skeleton.”
The Little Blue Overalls paused for breath. Miss Salome laid aside her work. Where was Anne? – but the stable could be reached without passing the kitchen windows. Saturdays Anne was very busy, anyway.
“I’m ready,” laughed Miss Salome. She had never been a circus-manager, but she could learn. It was easier than whittling. Together they hurried away to the stable. At the door Miss Salome came to an abrupt stop. An astonished exclamation escaped her.
The living skeleton sat on an empty barrel, lean and grave and patient. The living skeleton also uttered an exclamation. She and the circus-manager gazed at each other in a remarkable way, as if under a spell.
“Come on!” shouted the grizzled bear.
After that, Miss Salome and Anne were not so reserved. What was the use? And it was much easier, after all, to be found out. Things ran along smoothly and pleasantly after that.
Late in the autumn, Elizabeth, looking over John’s shoulder one day, laughed, then cried out, sharply. “Oh!” she said; “oh, I am sorry!” And John echoed her an instant later.
“Dear John,” the letter said, “when you were little were you ever very sick, and did you die? Oh, I see, but don’t laugh. I think I am a little out of my head to-day. One is when one is anxious. And Little Blue Overalls is very sick. I found Anne crying a little while ago, and just now she came in and found me. She didn’t mind; I don’t.
“He did not come yesterday or the day before. Yesterday I went to see why. Anne was just coming away from the door. ‘He’s sick,’ she said, in her crisp, sharp way, – you know it, John, – but she was white in the face. The little mother came to the door. Queer I had never seen her before, – Little Blue Overalls has her blue eyes.
“There were two or three small persons clinging to her, and the very smallest one I ever saw was in her arms. She looked fright – ” The letter broke off abruptly here. Another slip was enclosed that began as abruptly. “Anne says it is scarlet-fever. The doctor has been there just now. I am going to have him brought over here – you know I don’t mean the doctor. And you would not smile, either of you – not Elizabeth, anyway, for she will think of her own babies – ”
“Yes, yes,” Elizabeth cried, “I am thinking!”
“ – That is why he must not stay over there. There are so many babies. I am going over there now.”
The letter that followed this one was a week delayed.
“Dear John,” it said, – “you must be looking out for another place. If anything should – he is very sick, John! And I could not stay here without him. Nor Anne. John, would you ever think that Anne was born a nurse? Well, the Lord made her one. I have found it out. Not with a little dainty white cap on, and a nurse’s apron, – not that kind, but with light, cool fingers and a great, tender heart. That is the Lord’s kind, and it’s Anne. She is taking beautiful care of our Little Blue Overalls. The little mother and I appreciate Anne. But he is very very sick, John.
“I could not stay here. Why, there isn’t a spot that wouldn’t remind me! There’s a faint little path worn in the grass beside the stone-wall where he has been ‘sentry.’ There’s a bare spot under the horse-chestnut where he played blacksmith and ‘shoe-ed’ the saw-horse. And he used to pounce out on me from behind the old elm and demand my money or my life, – he was a highwayman the first time I saw him. I’ve bought rose-pies and horse-chestnut apples of him on the front door-steps. We’ve played circus in the barn. We’ve been Indians and gypsies and Rough Riders all over the place. You must look round for another one, John. I can’t stay here.
“Here’s Anne. She says he is asleep now. Before he went he sent word to me that he was a wounded soldier, and he wished I’d make a red cross and sew it on Anne’s sleeve. I must go and make it. Good-bye. The letter will not smell good because I shall fumigate it, on account of Elizabeth’s babies. You need not be afraid.”
There was no letter at all the next week, early or late, and they were afraid Little Blue Overalls was dead. Elizabeth hugged her babies close and cried softly over their little, bright heads. Then shortly afterwards the telegram came, and she laughed – and cried – over that. It was as welcome as it was guiltless of punctuation:
“Thank the Lord John Little Blue Overalls is going to get well.”
Chapter II
The Boy
The trail of the Boy was always entirely distinct, but on this especial morning it lay over house, porch, barn – everything. The Mother followed it up, stooping to gather the miscellany of boyish belongings into her apron. She had a delightful scheme in her mind for clearing everything up. She wanted to see how it would seem, for once, not to have any litter of whittlings, of strings and marbles and tops! No litter of beloved birds’ eggs, snake-skins, turtle-shells! No trail of the Boy anywhere.
It had taken the whole family to get the Boy off, but now he was gone. Even yet the haze of dust the stage-coach had stirred up from the dry roadway lingered like a faint blur on the landscape. It could not be ten minutes since they had bidden the Boy his first good-bye. The Mother smiled softly.
“But I did it!” she murmured. “Of course, – I had to. The idea of letting your Boy go off without kissing him good-bye! Mary,” she suddenly spoke aloud, addressing the Patient Aunt, who was following the trail too, picking up the siftings from the other’s apron – “Mary, did you kiss him? There was really no need, you know, because you are not his mother. And it would have saved his feelings not to.”
The Patient Aunt laughed. She was very young