New shoes! Where in the world did we get new shoes?"
Dr. Redfield was the first to rightly appreciate the grandeur of them, and he was delighted to hear how they could squeak. Land sakes! but they were wonderful. Greatly astonished he was, and so swollen with pride was the little boy that he didn't care—not so very much—even if his old friend had failed to put on his top hat.
"Are you going to do it?"
That was David's first question. He was rather anxious, because he did not believe that this big comrade of his hadcome properly attired to waylay anybody.
"Surely I am."
The Doctor was prompt, but puzzled. He didn't knowwhathe was going to do. Then, for a space, man and boy looked at each other inquiringly. They were both waiting and they were both wondering.
"Has it begun to start yet?"
There was expectancy in David's voice.
"You mean, I suppose—that is—"
"Yes, yes!Youknow!" David gravely wagged his head.
The Doctor took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
"If you were a little more definite—not quite so vague and uncertain," he hopelessly suggested.
It was then that a sudden inspirationsaved the day for him. He began to talk in a big and solemn voice.
"I perceive, sir," he said, "that you have reached the age for being waylaid. You are four years old, and by an ancient decree of all the Medes and Persians, that makes you my prisoner, to hold in hostage until that ungracious dame, your mother, shall subscribe unto me suitable and sufficient ransom."
David clapped his hands gleefully.
"Go on!" he demanded. "Go on! Now what?"
"Well, when you have all that said to you, it means that if you find a doctor skulking about within ten feet of you, it is then your perfect right to press him into your service. If you command him to give you a ride on his back, he will have to do it. It's undignified and he doesn't believe in it, but that's whereyou have him at your mercy. Hehasto obey; he has to go any place you tell him to go. If you say he must take you to a toy shop, that settles it. He has no choice in the matter. Hehasto do it. That is always the rule when a little boy is four years old."
David also learned that there is another peculiar thing about it. In circumstances like this a little boy has the right, when he arrives at the toy shop, to choose for himself the thing he wants to buy. No grown-up will interfere with his judgment; the law won't allow it. The trouble is that it is pretty hard for him to make up his mind. When there is such a great array of drums and swords and soldiers' caps and guns and bears that jump, it is not an easy thing to select the toy that will please him most of all.
Why not buy a train of cars and a track to run it on? But if he bought that, then how could he get along without a jumping-jack that threw up its arms and legs when you pulled the string? And if he took the jumping-jack, then what about an iron savings bank with a monkey on top that shook his head with thanks when you dropped the money in? Lovely things, all of them, but David put them from him. He did it with decision, but with a nervous haste which told of wavering courage.
Such things were not for him. They are only for boys who are not soldier-men. And besides, they might cost too much. If the price went higher than five cents David would be lost, for many precepts had been forced upon him in regard to the waste of money, and thevalue people put on it, and the way they have to work for it. So thus far the nickel had marked the very summit of his financial transactions.
All the same, a strange wistfulness came into David's eyes when he put aside poor jumping-jack. Such a dear of a jumping-jack he was! You could have kissed the jolly red paint of him, and the pretty toy bank was a thing to hug tight under your arm. That is why the little boy's voice was such a weak and far-away voice when he presently asked:—
"Would two five centses get him, do you think?"
"When it's your birthday," said the Doctor, "it's all right to spend three five centses."
Here, then, was David's chance. The jumping-jack was almost his, when his shoes squeaked a warning. Thussuddenly was he reminded that he was a brave little soldier-man. He now saw that such a purchase would be ridiculous. Something serviceable is what he must have, something that Mother would like and want him to keep. No silly toys for him! But, oh, if only the Doctor would insist a little on the jumping-jack!
David turned reluctantly away; he choked down the queerness in his throat and firmly laid hands on a gilt-rimmed mustache cup. His lips twitched and his eyes winked, but the look in his face was the look of a soldier-man. No intervention from the Doctor could shake his determination.
With coaxing insinuation the Doctor said, "We haven't seen all the things, you know."
Hope kindled in David's eyes.
"Maybe," he said with enthusiasm, "maybe this costs more than three five centses. Does it?"
"Wouldn't you rather have a drum?" asked the salesman.
No, indeed; David would not have a drum.
"Or a sword?" asked the Doctor.
"No, thanks," the words came with husky politeness.
The cup was the thing for him; it would please Mother. She would be so glad about the cup!
Here, again, was disappointment. She didn't seem pleased with it—not nearly so pleased as she should have been. But never mind, little boy; every generous heart is quick to forget the unselfish kindness that is in it, and you yourself will not be slow to forget this foolish sacrifice you have made for loveof one who has made many a sacrifice for you. She has made them, little boy, in love, and forgotten them in love, and that, David, is the beautiful thing in loving.
When David is an early bird it is great fun to show Mother what a sluggard she is. He calls to her to let her know it is getting-up time, and then she issoamazed! She cannot understand how it is possible for her little boy to get awake almost as soon as the robins do. Sometimes she asks if he is sure he is awake, and he tells her he is sure of it, and then she believes him.
Only this morning she did not ask that, and this morning there was no smile in her eyes. A strange intentness had taken all the summer look out of her face, and there were no kisses onher lips; for he had troubled her with that repeated demand of his to be supplied with a father.
"Whose boy," she asked hesitatingly, "whose boy are you?"
David returned her steadfast gaze with a queer, impish wisdom. He sat up in bed and fixed his eyes upon her.
"Whose boy?" he slowly repeated. "Why, I'm fav-ver's boy."
"Have you a father?" asked the woman.
"If you get one for me I have."
"David," she said, more serious than was usual with her, "if you had one I should want him to look like you.... Here, little boy, here, in your face I see your father."
The woman had moulded her cool hands to David's smooth, soft cheeks, and was looking wistfully into the eyesof her little boy. But abruptly he struggled free from her; he slipped to the floor, mounted on a chair in front of the chiffonier and peeped excitedly into the mirror. A long time he looked at the tousle-headed reflection that looked earnestly back at him. He frowned, and the boy in the glass frowned, too. He was a great disappointment, that boy; he wasn't the teeniest bit like any father that ever was. He was only a child in a white nighty.
David faced about; he got down off the chair, and he turned his accusing eyes upon Mother. She had fooled her little boy; she had told him a wrong story, and it was woful disillusionment.
"You cannot see him, David," she said, "because you have no picture of him in your heart."
Well, then, did Mother have such apicture? If she did, why could she not show him that picture? And please, Mother, where did she keep that heart where the picture was?
Yes, to be sure, she had such a picture, but it was not of David's father; it was of someone else, for she had never seen David's father. In her heart was still another picture: it was a memory which had to do with the sad nativity of her little boy. So sad an event it was that she had left off being a head nurse at the hospital, in order to become a mother by proxy.
David might some day come to know that there was a fogyish, bachelor doctor who was almost a father in the same sort of way—almost, but not quite, for the child had been left not to him, but to her. A home, likewise, was her inheritance, a very pretty little home andall else that had once belonged to the real mother of the little boy.
A brave death she had died, that kinless widow at the hospital. And how could it have been otherwise, when so large a faith was hers in the nurse whose arm had gone lovingly around her, and whose voice, many and many a time, had given comfort and had known finally how to smooth the way to death?
But it was the Doctor's hand, not the hand of the nurse, that had gently closed the mother's eyes upon her last long sleep; and it was he, not the nurse, who had turned wofully away, and stared and stared and stared out of the window.
Grave pictures were these that Mother kept in her heart, and David was not to know how much he troubled her when he fell to questioning; and that is why, in the midst of his endless inquiries, hewas wont to encounter the Great Never Mind.
Do you know what that is? It is a condition of soul common to all mothers who have little boys that want to know things.
The worst of it is that one is expected to understand when he is never to mind and when heisto mind. They are not the same thing; they are twins, and they are so hard to tell apart, and so disagreeable, and act so much alike that only an expert can tell which is which.
But Mother was an expert. She knew when you must and when you mustn't; she had a talent for it. She also had a gift for telling David that she would see. If he wanted to go swimming with Mitch Horrigan in the creek near town, she said she would see about it, but somehow she never did get it seen about.
That was one great difference between her and Dr. Redfield. He did not say he would see; if given half a chance he alwaysdidsee, and there was something so magical about him that one felt he was good for a miracle most any time. For all that, it was hard to ask him for anything, for when in his presence one always felt so queer and bashful and overpowered with the strange medicine smells which were such a big part of him. Yet David now felt that no boy has any right to hope for a father if he hasn't spirit enough to ask for one. So firmly convinced of this was the little boy that early in the morning he made up his mind as to what he would do. It was something very daring and very naughty. He was going to run away.
He did it, too, and the awfulness of it got into his throat; for the Doctor livesfarther away from David's house than China is. It is almost at the end of things, and the little boy did not know whether he could find it. What was even worse, he presently did not know whether he could get back home again. He had crept through the fence and run and run, and then walked and walked, and now he had decided that he didn't care much about going on. Some other time would do as well; to-morrow would be all right. This did not feel like a lucky day; some other day would be luckier.
David felt very virtuous. It seemed to him that he had not meant to run away at all. He was not a bad little boy; he was a good little boy, but he soon began to feel annoyed; for the way home didn't have any straightness to it; the way home began to get more and more crooked, and the houses began to seemstrange and unfriendly; they stared at him rudely, and none of them looked either like home or like the Doctor's house.
The sad thing was that he had only one way to tell which was the Doctor's house, and that was a wrong way. He was looking for a yellow dog that scratched his head with his toenails and knocked his elbow on the board-walk when he did it. Such a dog once lay in front of the Doctor's house. So now, as David kept going and going on, he was looking out for a yellow dog that should knock with his elbow when he scratched his head with his toenails. Once a black dog did it, but that was stupid of him; he needn't try to fool David.
After a long, long while a great tiredness came upon the little boy, and there was such a grinding ache in him that heknew hungry-time had come. He passed a bakeshop that breathed out a warm, steamy fragrance, and in the window there was a great pan of red-brown doughnuts dusted over with powdered sugar. As the smell was like the smell of the bakeshop near home, and as the doughnuts looked the same, David instantly plucked up courage. He hurried on, confident that he would soon be climbing up into Mother's lap. It was some time, though, before he found a house with a white paling, and he was distrustful of the house; it had no curtains, and it scowled so. He decided to experiment first with the fence-post. Maybe the house would look more reasonable, and maybe things would feel different if he were to climb up on the fence-post. So presently, when he was perched above the gate, he closed hiseyes and began kicking his heels as he did when at home.
This was another experiment; for every boy knows that you cannot hope to see any fairies or any fairy godmothers unless you take them by surprise. David, for his part, frequently gave them to understand that he wasn't looking. He would shut his eyes tight and kick his feet to prove that he was minding his own business. If they saw him like that, maybe they wouldn't care if he was so close to them. After convincing them that his intentions were honorable, he would suddenly pop open his eyes to catch them at their tricks.
Once he almost saw them. The tulip bed had seemed to dance in the sunlight like a whirlpool of scarlet and yellow fire; then it stopped abruptly, but the blossoms still nodded and stirred, evenafter the wild dance was done. He was confident that he had come very near to seeing the fairies, but now he did not want to see them. They had done something to the house where Mother lived, and he wanted them to undo it. He would not look. They would please understand that this time he did not mean to deceive them.
"Cross my heart," he murmured very solemnly, and gave the pledge.
But it did no good. They would not undo the queer things they had done to the house. They were spiteful and mean, and not to be trusted. The house remained without trees and vines, a scowling, ugly thing. The garden had no shrubs; the seeded grass was matted down and yellow, like hay, and there were bald places where the gray ground was showing through.
They did not know, those foolish fairy folk, of the courage and the faith that may be in the heart of a little boy. They might be stubborn if they chose; they might keep him waiting, but in the end they would not abuse his patience. All would come right. Only it did take such a long, long while for it to get that way! Hungry-time is very hard on little boys when they are waiting for things to come right, and it was so hard on David that twice he called aloud for Mother. A wooden echo, sent back from barns and sheds, dolefully repeated the last syllable of his cry. It was sad mockery, but David held doggedly to his belief that finally things would come right. His hands closed rigidly upon the sides of the fence-post, and from beneath the tight-shut eyelids slow tear-drops were squeezing out.
It was so that Dr. Redfield found him. With medicine-case in hand, the physician had come down the walk from the desolate, scowling house. As he seized the child in his arms, and as he felt the small arms of David go about his neck, the word that greeted him was "Fav-ver!"
The magic that is in the touch of a little boy! There is nothing like it to drive out the weariness from a heart that knows it must not grow too tired. So now, when Dr. Redfield left the house where he had been, it meant much to him that there should be such a welcome awaiting him at the gate. It was a gray and worn smile, but still a smile that answered the child's unexpected greeting, and as the wee arms went tight about the man's neck he asked no questions; he merely said:—
"I wish I were, little boy—I wish I were your father. We would have a rest,wouldn't we? We would take time to know each other."
As he said this there came into the Doctor's face the same look which he had just seen in the eyes of the father and mother who were trusting to him to save their little boy. Many times other fathers and other mothers had made that mute appeal to him, and he had done what he could for them. He had done all that could be done. He was doing it to-day, and he had been doing it every day these past eight weeks that had been as twenty years to him.
For a scourge had come, and the city was trembling in the fear of it. Again Duck Town was responsible. Duck Town always was responsible. Every spring when the floods came, and Mud Creek spread itself out over the prairie, only the ducks of Duck Town weresecure. Then, when the waters subsided, there came malaria, or perhaps something worse, from the musty cellars that could not be drained. The settlement lay in the bottoms, where the wretched dwellings of the poor stood huddled together as if in whispered conspiracy about some black contagion of a deadlier malice than any that had yet struck terror to the hearts of men.
Several years ago it was typhoid fever that had helped many people to move out of Duck Town. A very badly behaved disease it was. It came right up into the city and went stalking brazenly into the most stately homes along the wooded avenues and beautiful boulevards.
Next after the ravages of typhoid came diphtheria in its most malignant form, and this time—Heaven helpus!—this time scarlet fever had come. And this time, as before, there were competent physicians to receive the plague; there were specialists and careful nurses with snowy aprons and pretty caps.
But not in Duck Town. Down there the people knew a man whom they called the Old Doctor. He was not old, not really; it was merely that he had the manner of a veteran. He browbeat them shamefully, as was perfectly proper for an old doctor; he bullied them a great deal, and scolded, and called names, and worked for them, and did not know how to sleep. That made them fear and respect him, but goodness knows what made them love him. They did, though—feared, respected, and loved the man.
Only he could not teach them to be sanitary. He knew their names, their silly Russian names and their silly Polishnames; he knew their Slavic and their Bohemian names, but their language he did not know, and all the hygiene they could learn was to call for him when sickness and trouble came to them.
"Keep clean," he would say. "Drain your cellars; air out and keep clean; do try to keep clean!"
But how could they do that? Four big families in one small house do not help much to keep one small house both clean and sanitary. Dr. Redfield knew that, and he swore at Duck Town for a vile and filthy hole. So did the people swear at Duck Town, and many of them suddenly stopped living there. For, despite the strength and courage of their champion; despite the potency of drugs; despite the sleepless nights and days spent in fighting disease, the deadly contagion grew and spread.
Dr. Redfield had gone through epidemics before, but never one like this, and now his energy was gone. For the first time in his life the impulse had come upon him to own defeat and surrender. Other men, younger doctors than he, should take up the fight. As for him, he could not battle against such odds. He would give it up; he would go away. He would take this little boy with him and begin to live.
"I'll do it," he said, pressing David's face against his hollow and unshaven cheek. "I'll do it, little boy; I will be your father."
Then David asked encouragingly:
"Is it your picture that Mother keeps in her heart?"
"No, David; not mine, I'm afraid."
This was a sad blow to the little boy. A very solemn look came into his face.
"You won't do," he said, "unless you can get your picture into Mother's heart."
For a second time Dr. Redfield smiled, and then he asked:
"How did you get here?"
David did not answer the question; perhaps he did not hear what was said to him. A thoughtful look had come into his face, and presently he was asking, with great earnestness in his voice:
"Why have I got curls for? Why don't I have trouvers? Why don't I have warts on me?"
Dr. Redfield was walking hand in hand with the little boy at his side. They were going toward the place where the horse and buggy stood waiting, and as they strode along the little boy kept falling over his chubby legs. It was hard for him to go so fast, for he was very tired,and besides, he was looking up into the man's face.
"Warts aren't nice for little boys," said Dr. Redfield. "You and I don't want them onus, do we?"
"Don't I, please?" said David, very earnestly. Then he wanted to know if he could not be born in Indiana. That is where Mitch Horrigan had been born, and he was always bragging about it. But the Doctor didn't seem to be in a conversational humor. He made no reply to David's request, and that vexed the little boy. He suddenly let go of the man's hand and stood still. Then the Doctor stopped, too, and asked what was wrong. It was now that David closed his fist upon his thumbs and frowned savagely.
"I am not," he declared; "I am not neither a girl, am I?"
The reply of his big friend was consoling, but not satisfying, and it was some time before the man again felt the little, soft fist in his hand and saw the little boy looking wistfully up into his face.
"If only I had a few of them, Fav-ver Doctor," said David, "only just a few little warts!"
Proud business for David! Sitting on the edge of the seat of the buggy, he was holding the reins very tight. One must always do that if he does not want the horse to kick and run away. Not knowing that the horse was tied to the hitching-post, David was fulfilling his mission with ceremony, and when Dr. Redfield appeared from the door of a drug shop across the way, the little boy called to him gayly:—
"He didn't run away, did he? I held him all right, didn't I?"
Dr. Redfield had been absent long enough to use the telephone in notifyingMiss Eastman, whom David knew only by the sweeter name of Mother, that her little boy had been waylaid and would probably not be home to luncheon. She was not permitted to know that the pretty rogue had run away, but the man himself strongly suspected the truth. For some time, though, he charitably refrained from speaking of the matter. In fact, three important events in David's life took place before the painful subject was broached.
To eat at the Doctor's table, and wholly without the assistance of a high chair—that was one of the events; another was a hair-cut, and the third—Everybody, salute! David is in trouvers!
He and his big friend both admired them immensely, and it was in the little shabby, out-at-the-elbow doctor's office that David had been helped to put themon. After he had strutted for a while his Fav-ver said to him:—
"What fun, David; what fun you must have had in running away!"
"Oh," the little boy replied, "I didn't go far. I got scart and hurried back to Mother."
The Doctor looked wryly at his guest. He knew David had not gone home after running away.
"Did you see Mother after you went back?" he asked.
"No, I didn't see her."
"But you are sure you went back?"
"It didn'tfeelback," said David.
"You couldn't have been mistaken about going back?"
"No."
"In what part of town were you when I found you on the fence-post?"
"Home," said David.
"Why were you crying?"
"I was feeling bad."
"And why was that?"
"I was scart."
"Of what?"
"Everything was so mixed up."
"You ran away, though, didn't you? And you did not see Mother after you went back?"
David nodded, and the Doctor got to his feet with a suddenness that knocked over his chair.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch. "It's been four hours since you saw Mother, and she may think something has happened to you. She may think you have been run over by horses—that you have been hurt and can never come home to her any more."
What was to be done about it? Dr. Redfield wanted to know that; Davidwanted to know that. The man crinkled up his forehead: he rose and began to walk the floor, and David's eyes did not leave his face.
"What are we to do?" the Doctor asked, and by and by he added, "If you see a policeman I hope you will tell him you are not lost and that you did not think of making so much trouble when you ran away. But what about Mother? Maybe she, too, has been looking everywhere for you."
The Doctor sat down and wiped his face, and then got up and began to walk about once more. You could see that he was very much distressed, but not more distressed than David. In sad perplexity they stared at each other. After everything had grown very still in the room, the little boy suddenly exclaimed in an awed voice:—
"Let's go home!"
"Well said!" the Doctor called out, and David flew for his hat; they started for the stairs, the little boy clinging desperately to the man's hand.
"Wait!" the Doctor exclaimed. They had stopped abruptly before reaching the steps. "Why don't we telephone? If we do that, it won't keep Mother waiting so long."
It was now that David's eyes began to gleam. He clapped his hands; he laughed and he danced. He was going to put Mother's heart at rest about him. She would not be troubled any more. She would know he was safe.
After the message had gone, it was easy to see in David's face that he was glad he had not run away very far. Fav-ver Doctor had not blamed him, but Fav-ver Doctor had made him understandhow much trouble it makes when little boys run away.
"That's what it was all about," said David.
"You mean, I suppose—"
"Fairies don't like it if I run off. That's why they changed things around so. I hardly knew the house; it was fixed so queer."
"Yes," the Doctor assented, "it looked shocking queer. How did you ever know the place?"
"They didn't change the fence much," said David, and the man now recognized the one point of similitude between that desolate home down in Duck Town and the House of Joy where David lived.
So grim was the contrast that the Doctor winked uneasily, for it brought him back to a problem he had thoughtsettled. He had really meant to take a vacation. He was so tired; no one knew quite, how very tired he was, and he had thought that for a brief while he was justified in leaving the fight to some one else. He only wanted a week or so—a little chance to live, to play with this little boy, and perhaps be happy! Yet, after all, dared he leave those people to other hands when they were counting so on him, and had so little else to count upon? What, he asked, would she, the Gone-Away Lady, have counseled him to do?
Rather nervously he sought the eyes of a miniature on top of his desk, and as he looked into the eyes of that sweet-faced woman, the old comfort he always used to see in them when he had stood most in need of strength, was no longer there. "In the face of so much misery,"they seemed to say, "how can you think of forsaking the field?"
It was not a picture of David's mother; no, it was a likeness that had ever kept the Doctor's heart alive to gracious thoughts and gentle ways; it was the portrait of her who had not lived to be his wife, and a habit had come to him of fancying in the eyes of his patients something of the same beautiful look that was in the miniature. Particularly he had done so when David's mother was struggling hard not to go away from her little boy, and often, since then, the Doctor had compared the face of the picture with that of the child; and to-day, as he was wont to do, he took the dainty bit of porcelain in his hand to see if he could not trace, feature by feature, the likeness he so loved to imagine.
The way of this was very interestingto David. He stood by the Doctor's chair and leaned his elbows on the knees of his friend, with his plump chin in the wee, white hands.
"Is it your mother?" he questioned.
The Doctor smiled.
"No, David, but she would have been a good mother."
"Who is it?"
"It is some one," the Doctor slowly replied, "who would have loved you very, very much."
"Where is she now?"
"She went away, little boy; years ago, David, she went away from me."
"Inever saw her," said the child.
"No, David, we cannot see her, but if we keep our hearts open and our lives all sweet and clean, we can be sure she is not far away."
The little boy had listened attentively,but he could not understand, and after careful examination of the picture, he presently asked:
"When is she coming back again?"
Dr. Redfield had nothing further to tell. He crossed the room, and hastily replaced the miniature upon the top of the high desk.
It is not pleasant to be a criminal; it hurts. David knew he was one, and although he did not know what crime he had committed, he imagined that he was now being punished for it. The idea came to him on account of the way the Doctor was acting. The man had gently replaced the miniature upon the top of the desk, and afterward he stood motionless, sunk deep in revery. The little boy was trying to guess what he had done. It must be very, very wrong, or else Fav-ver Doctor wouldn't be standing there like that. He would talk and take notice. Davidknew this was so, but, try as he might, he could not think what sin he was guilty of. It was a great puzzle, and, in truth, David was frequently puzzled in the same way. For the laws which grown-ups have for little boys are so much like any other kind of laws that it is hard to get any justice out of them.
Without knowing what it was, David keenly felt his disgrace. The glory of being in the Doctor's house; the glory of sitting at table in an ordinary chair; the glory of a hair-cut, and even the glory of trouvers—each of these mighty events was now shorn of its charm. Everything had grown sadly commonplace; for there can be no satisfaction in achieving greatness, if one is so soon to be forgotten. So now, with the passing of every instant, things were growing more and more solemn.
Doubtless the chair on which David was sitting was partly to blame. It was such a slippery seat that if one didn't hold on tight he would be sure to slide right off. There were stickery things in it, too, for the hair-cloth was getting all worn out.
The little boy sat politely on the stickery things and waited. If he waited long enough, maybe Fav-ver Doctor would smile at him as Mother always did. At the present time, though, one could hardly believe that there were ever any smiles in Fav-ver Doctor's face—he was looking so hard and so long at nothing at all.
Everything in the room was feeling lonesome and guilty and bad; and worst of all was the clock. It was a big, upright, colonial clock, and its counting of time was done with deep and statelydeliberation. If he would only strike the hour, that would help. David remembered with what dignity the clock could strike. The brazen reverberations of each stroke always lingered awhile before the next one came, and then, when all of them had been struck, and the last ringing beat had throbbed and swooned into a whisper, and died, one always felt that other strokes would follow. One looked for them, and waited for them, but they did not come. To-day nothing seemed to come but the regular, echoing, church-like tick-tock, and to-day there was no diversion of any kind; there was only a large, dark, depressing awesomeness.
It is very scareful for a little boy when he feels himself grown to be such a criminal. Immense periods of time seem to be slipping away, but he doesn'tknow at all whether he is getting to be really and truly a man, or whether he is getting littler and littler. There is always the fear of diminishing, because one would so like to be grown up, and when one is such a bad little boy, how can he expect ever to be grown up? David felt himself slipping and slipping. He was slipping back into three-years-old. From that he would go into two-years-old, and before very long he would be only one. He knew it was coming on. There was a tingling flush going down his back, a cold current, like ants with frozen feet. Maybe it was only perspiration, but how was a little boy to know that? He was gasping with excitement when he suddenly called out: "Here I am!"
The idea was that the Doctor should instantly seize him and save him frombeing dissolved into empty air. But no sooner had David called than he was overcome with shame. At first he was astonished that his voice should really behisvoice. There was no change in it—not the slightest—and he now saw that he had only fooled himself. That is why he was ashamed. He was so ashamed that he began to cry.
That would not do at all. Fav-ver Doctor said it wouldn't, and he was so distressed about it that he offered David the rare privilege of wearing his watch. At any other time the little boy would have been mightily set up over the honor, but at such a time as this no distinction of any sort was for him. He did not deserve it. He had disgraced himself too much for that, and he pushed the watch from him. He kicked his feet against the chair and rudely exclaimed:
"Don't want your watch!"
In some ways Dr. Redfield was not different from most of us. So many years had passed since he was a little boy that he had forgotten that what appears to be only sullenness may in reality be something quite different. Perhaps if he had been more like his normal self instead of being a very tired and a very irritable doctor he would not have considered it necessary to regard David with the eye of stern discipline. But however that may be, the man pivoted suddenly upon his heel and marched out of the room, leaving the little boy alone to brood at his leisure upon the sad impropriety of being rude.
David wanted to go with the Doctor, but the man would have nothing to do with any little boy who cries without any reason for crying and is saucybesides. David could not go. David must sit still on that chair and must not get up.
"I don't like you," the child called out.
Then, as soon as the door was shut upon him, he became a very angry little boy. He pounced from his seat and began to walk heavily up and down the room. He stamped his feet; he shut his teeth together and he kicked the chair where he had been sitting. He had not been fairly dealt with, and now, as Mitch Horrigan would say, he was going to be just as rotten bad as ever he could.
But it was useless to stamp so loud and clench his fists. There was no one to hear him and there was no one to see him. Neither was there any satisfaction in knocking over a chair. The outlook was utterly hopeless. Theredidn't seem to be any good way of being bad.
Presently, though, David had an inspiration. He would get hold of the picture the Doctor had talked about so foolishly. David would get it and have a look at it. Surely that would be very naughty indeed. David was confident of that, for the Doctor had been so extremely nice in handling the little miniature.
Only there was one great difficulty which stood in the way of this famous campaign of badness. David encountered this difficulty when he had dragged a chair in front of the high desk. Even by standing on the chair he was not tall enough to reach the picture; even by standing tippy-toe he could not reach it. There was left but the one alternative—he must jump for it, but when hedid that he knocked it off. It fell with a loud clack to the floor and broke in two.
Then terror seized the heart of David. He did not mean to break the lady; honestly he did not, and now—oh, oh!—what was to be done? The little boy did not have much time to think about it. He heard a heavy tread on the stairs and knew the Doctor was coming.
Perhaps it would do to say that the picture had fallen off itself and got broken, or maybe it would be better to say that the fairies had done it, or maybe—
Now, at last, David knew the thing to do, and did it. When the Doctor came into the room the little boy was sweetly but not serenely in his place. He was sitting upright in his chair, as though he had not stirred a hair's breadth duringthe man's absence, but in the eyes of David was a feverish lustre, and the little body of him was all of a tremble.
"I didn't understand about the crying," Dr. Redfield announced, and he was very humble. It did not seem odd to him that he should come to confessional before this little boy. He believed that he had judged too hastily, and he was come to make it right. "Maybe you were lonesome," he said. "Maybe you wanted Mother."
David said nothing, and the Doctor went on with that wistful tenderness which comes to us when we feel we have not been just with those we love.
"Youdolike me, don't you, David?"
But the little boy could not answer; he was crying so.