The Very Small Person. Donnell Annie Hamilton
you s’pose it would feel that way if ’twas you?”
“Think o’ kissin’ your mother good-night an’ it’s not bein’ your mother?”
“Say, Rhody Sharp – all o’ you – look here! Do you suppose that’s why her mother – I mean she that isn’t– dresses her in checked aperns? That’s what orphans – ”
The shorn head dug deeper. A soft groan escaped Margaret’s lips. This very minute, now while she crouched in the grass, – oh, if she put out her hands and felt she would feel the checks! She had been to an orph – to a place once with Moth – with Her and seen the aprons herself. They were all – all checked.
At home, folded in a beautiful pile, there were all the others. There was the pink-checked one and the brown-checked one and the prettiest one of all, the one with teenty little white checks marked off with buff. The one she should feel if she put out her hand was a blue-checked.
Margaret drove her hands deep into the matted grass; she would not put them out. It was – it was terrible! Now she understood it all. She remembered – things. They crowded – with capital T’s, Things, – up to her and pointed their fingers at her, and smiled dreadful smiles at her, and whispered to one another about her. They sat down on her and jounced up and down, till she gasped for breath.
The teacher’s bell rang crisply and the voices changed to scampering feet. But Margaret crouched on in the sweet, moist grass behind the wall. She stayed there a week – a month – a year, – or was it only till the night chill stole into her bones and she crept away home?
She and Nell – she and the Enemy – had been so proud to have aprons just alike and cut by the same dainty pattern. But now if she knew – if the Enemy knew! How ashamed it would make her to have on one like – like an adopted’s! How she’d wish hers was stripes! Perhaps – oh, perhaps she would think it was fortunate that she was an enemy now.
But the worst Things that crowded up and scoffed and gibed were not Things that had to do with enemies. The worst-of-all Things had to do with a little, tender woman with glasses on – whose hair didn’t curl. Those Things broke Margaret’s heart.
“Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it’s wrinkly,” gibed one Thing.
“And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings,” another Thing.
“She doesn’t make me do the biggest ones!” flashed Margaret, hotly, but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.
“Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes – ”
“And won’t let you eat two pieces of pie – ”
“Or one piece o’ fruit-cake – ”
“Maybe you remember now the times she’s said, ‘This is no little daughter of mine’?”
Margaret turned sharply. “That was only because I was naughty,” she pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn’t “only because.” She knew it was because. The terror within her was growing more terrible every moment.
Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been lurking in the background waiting its turn, – it was its turn now. Margaret stood quite still, ashamed. She could not name the strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs. Streeter’s and the minister’s and the Enemy’s! – oh, most of all past the Enemy’s! – for fear they’d look out of the window and say, “There goes an adopted!” Perhaps they’d point their fingers. – Margaret closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter’s plump one and the minister’s lean one and the Enemy’s short brown one, all pointing. She could feel something burning her on her forehead, – it was “Adopted,” branded there.
The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she got to the Enemy’s house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.
Moth – She That had Been – would be wondering why Margaret was late. If she looked sober out of her eyes and said, “This can’t be my little girl, can it?” then Margaret would know for certain. That would be the final proof.
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