Ann and Her Mother. O. Douglas
that I provoked pity in the hearts of kindly people. One dear old lady said to me, 'My dear, have you cut your wisdom teeth yet?' … In September Mark was born. It was prayer-meeting night, and Maggie Ann carelessly let the cat eat my canary. They didn't tell me about it until I asked why I wasn't hearing him singing. Mark was a tiny, delicate baby, but he was perfect in our eyes. We looked with distaste at large fat children, who made poor little Mark look so puny and fragile, and told each other that they were 'coarse,' and that we were glad our baby wasn't like that. When I was able to travel we set off with our precious new possession to Etterick. Agatha had been with us most of the summer, but my mother didn't come; she liked to stay in her own house and welcome us there."
"A most detached woman, my grandmother," said Ann.
"You are rather like her, Ann," said Mrs. Douglas.
"Yes, I have the same aversion to staying in other people's houses, and I share her dislike to the casual kissing that so many people indulge in—people who are mere acquaintances. You should only kiss really great friends at really serious times, and then it means something."
Mrs. Douglas laughed. "Nobody ever took a liberty with your grandmother. My father was utterly different, the most approachable of men. People were always asking favours from him; he liked them to. He didn't care how much he went out of his way to help anyone, and his hand was never out of his pocket."
"You must be exactly like grandfather. I think you are one of the very few people left living in the world who do take trouble about their fellow-mortals. The rest of us are too selfish to bother."
"I like to be kind," said Mrs. Douglas, "but I don't take any credit for being kind. It's just my nature to want to give. The people who hate to give and yet make themselves do it are the ones who ought to be commended. It has always been my great desire to add a little to the happiness of the world, and I would never forgive myself if I thought I had added by one jot or tittle to the pain."
"I am very sure you haven't done that," Ann assured her. "You are the very kindest of funny little bodies, and when I call you 'Ella Wheeler Wilcox' I don't really mean it. But you must admit that it is often very vicarious kindness, and the burden of it falls on your family. Oh, the deplorable people who have come to us 'for a stop' because you thought they were lonely and neglected! Of course, they were, but it was because it almost killed people to entertain them; there's a reason for everything in this world. But what a shame to laugh at your efforts! Never mind. There are those
'Who, passing through Baca's vale,
Therein do dig up wells,'
and you are one of them. But to go on with your Life. Didn't you leave Inchkeld quite soon after Mark was born? I know Robbie and Jim and I thought it very hard lines that he should have been born in a lovely old historic city, while the rest of us had to see the light first amid coalpits and linoleum factories. Mark never let us forget it, either."
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