Dinah
Dinah was not “all things to all men,” but she was everything to one small girl, and a good many things to other members of the family. I think I had better say a few words right here about the aforesaid small girl. She was an only child, and so far beyond mere prettiness as to be really beautiful. Quick, clever, and high spirited, the slavish idolatry of her mother had worked her ruin.Enfant terrible, she was a burden to herself, a terror to all those about her; except during the rare absence of that mother, when, oh! the pity, the shame of it! the little Marie became obedient, gracious, and charming; as sweetly angelic as she was beautiful.
To the friends of the family she was generally known as “Tyler’s vixen,” “Tyler’s malicious imp,” or that “pretty little devil of Tyler’s,” which seems to throw considerable light upon her every-day manners and behavior. Now, it’s almost needless to say that this child’s path through life had been simply clogged with toys, foreign and domestic, elaborate and simple, with a strong leaning toward the most expensive in the market. Even from that early period when she had but two desires on earth, one to drink long and deep at nature’s fountain, and the other to sleep profoundly, they had forced her to keep awake long enough to choose between a rattle of solid silver, with which she could easily have broken her own wee head, or one ofgold and silver and coral; and her anger being great, she rejected both, and clutched at a soft rubber affair with a ring handle, offered by the nurse and positively declined by the mother as too awfully common. And it was at that point I made the small Marie’s acquaintance, being led in to look at a baby that was so wise that it had selected a ring-handle rattle, because it knew it would be cutting teeth by and by and would need the ring; at least that’s what the nurse said. One can imagine, then, what a veritable army of dolls must have fallen to the share of this so cruelly spoiled child. Creatures whose waxen beauty almost broke the hearts of less favored lookers-on; wardrobes complete and exquisitely perfect—packed in real for true trunks; tiny sets of jewelry—toilet-sets—parasols—fans—charming carriages for these gorgeous beings to ride in; blond, brown, and black-haired dreams of bisque, china, and wax beauty; families—yes, whole families of tiny, Swiss dolls, China dolls—from one scant inch to ten in height! It was maddening, and Marie would, as a wee tot, push away the great, prize doll, so heavy for her little arms, and bury her weary face in the pillow and whimper for—she knew not what! Poor, little,blasébaby! Always deprived of the keen delight of wishing for a thing, of the hope and fear in waiting, of the thrill of seeing possibility become probability, and then the rapture of possession!
One day this happened in the presence of a woman, a sempstress, who was sitting by at work. She was poorin pocket, but rich in knowledge of life, and kind of heart, and she cried: “Oh, you poor, spoiled child! If you had a nice, clean rag-doll, such as any work-woman’s child may play with, you would, I warrant, get more pleasure from it than from any of these big, hard, silk-clothed ladies that you can’t baby or coddle to save your life! I’ve a good mind—” then she paused, but the weary, little face, turned from the splendid doll in dull dislike, brought her to a determination; she went on: “I’ll have to be quick, though, for her mother would never give her consent, never!” So Marie was put to sleep, and the sewing-woman left her proper occupation and worked hard and fast on something else, for this was the day of the creation of Dinah.
And I often ask myself this question: If that woman of bright intelligence and good will, acting under the influence of loving pity for an unhappy child, could yet produce such a blood-chilling nightmare as Dinah, what under the blue canopy of Heaven could that same woman produce if her hand were directed by hate or revenge? Nothing short of an eye-crossing, world-convulsing creation, I’m sure! At all events, I made a picture of Dinah, to show a friend of Mrs. Tyler, and when she looked at it, she had a congestive chill, and it was a good picture too.
Personally, I don’t approve of written descriptions of people, because they never describe. See descriptions of lost people given to detectives, where height, weight, and possible age are dwelt on with great particularity,while a large, seedy wart, mounted conspicuously on the bridge of his nose, or a drooping, partially paralyzed lid of the right eye is never mentioned. Then again, though Dinah was no beauty, I felt so much respect for her powers of endurance, her silent patience under most trying circumstances, that writing a personal description of her becomes a painful task. However, if you will go back to your earliest youth (a longish journey for some of us, yes, but one still easily made), and recall the paper-dolls of that period, dolls generally cut from the white margin of the evening paper by the purloined scissors of that member of the family who most objected to your using them, you will remember those dolls were always out in very wide paper pantalettes, modest but ugly, chaste but very inartistic—well, if you will, in your imagination, trim off the superfluous width of those pantys, so as to make legs instead, you will have before your mind’s eye an excellent ground plan of Dinah’s structure.
The linen being doubled, and Dinah being all in one piece, it followed that she had great strength of limb, and never, even during the stress and strain of her hardest years, did she lose either leg or arm. Yet, whenever the spoiled Marie lost her temper, the bisque, wax, and china beauties surely lost legs or arms or eyes, Mrs. Tyler lost her head, and poor Mr. Tyler parted with his hopes of heaven, while Dinah remained whole and still in one piece. When her figure was complete, she was about three hands high and withoutany sign of blood or race about her. One side of the head having been selected for the back, because it had puckered a little in the sewing, it was carefully but lavishly inked, a plain solid coat of ink behind, while about the brow and temples the ink formed those precise scollops, gracefully termed by the French “water-waves.” Then followed the eyebrows, still of ink, and of fearful and wonderful drawing, and below them—eyes?—oh, yes! eyes of course; what else could there be beneath eyebrows but eyes? But they certainly were peculiar eyes; there was no wearying monotony about them, but rather a pleasing variety. One was, I remember, quite nice and round, and looked to the front in an honest, kindly way, while the other was square enough to have corners, and it looked downward and inward, right into that spot where, if she had had any features, her nose would have been. As to the mouth—I suppose I have to mention it—there was so much of it, but I wish I could be silent; you see, the linen was roughly woven, and here and there a coarse, heavy thread appeared, and when the penful of red ink was applied it touched a coarse thread, which soaked up the ink like a sponge and led straight across her entire countenance. Of course the red ink could not be removed, and the situation and the mouth had to be accepted, though it seemed the more remarkable because of the infinitesimal mouths always given to the dolls of commerce.
As to her taste in dress, only words of praise can begiven to Dinah. Never, never did I see her decked out in silk, satin, or velvet, and only once, in the middle of an oldest inhabitant’s coldest winter, did I see her in merino.
She usually wore print or gingham, while her undergarments, numerous and beautifully made, were of a material so coarse and strong as to cause surprise to strangers, but to those who had the misfortune to know the little vixen, Marie, these coarse skirts, pantalettes and chemises, stoutly stitched with about thirty-six cotton, were luminous with meaning, suggesting as they did the dread possibility oftantrumson the part of said vixen, Marie.
Dinah was complete save for her shoes, which were already cut from a pair of old kid gloves, and her name. I remember her creator wished to call her Lillian, but with all the wisdom of my five full-fledged years well to the fore, I suggested that it would be well for all of us to leave the christening to Miss Marie, herself. And she of thirty-five years bent her head to my five, and the name of Lillian floated back to the limbo from which it had been so briefly called. As the second shoe was taken up, Marie showed signs of waking, and the newly created one was thrust into my hands, and I was told to go and give it to the little tot. But deep down in my soul I said, “Nay! Nay!” for mark you, I was a canny child, and ten years of life’s experiences had been crowded into my five of actual time, and hell and bitter punishments took prominent places in thereligion thus far made known to me. I said to myself therefore: “This childiswicked, for all she is so pretty, she’sawful, and if for her punishment she is to be frightened to death by the sight of this nameless thing, I don’t intend to be the instrument used in her undoing!” So, swiftly I crept to the great crib-bed, and in a moment crept away again, leaving across her stomach, like a hideous nightmare, that “deed without a name,” and then I fled to the hall and waited for things, behind the partly open door; wondering which of the little cups and glasses on a stand by the bed, holding cooling drinks, would strike the door first. I waited and watched. Marie’s eyes opened, a scowl instantly darkened her face; in a querulous tone she asked, “Is my mamma, home, now?”
The voice of the sempstress answered gently, “No, dear,” and a light like sunshine came into her brilliant eyes; she smiled sweetly and asked, “Where’s my Cawie?” her name for me, and as near as she could get to Carrie, and then she felt the weight across her, and the moment had come!
She lifted the thing, and they were face to face. The child’s eyes opened wider and wider, the pupils dilated, the lids flickered nervously, then came a faint, long-drawn “Oh—h—h!” another pause, broken at last by the announcement, calmly and gravely made, “She eyes, don’t fit each other!”
Marie had trouble with her personal pronouns, as well as with her relatives.
Next moment she rolled over and began to scramble into a sitting posture, during which she all unconsciously pressed the doll tightly against her little chest. (Oh, for us, happy accident!) for the next instant, with a shout of surprise and joy, she cried, “Oh, she cuddles, she cuddles!”
Two words which were to become familiar to every member of the family, in the time to come, “She cuddles, and she is Dinah, my peshous! Dinah, always!”
And she who had thought of Lillian rashly exclaimed, “But why on earth, Dinah?”
And received for answer, “Caus’, I say so, and caus’ my mamma jess hates the Dinah song.” A so-called “comic,” named “Wilkins and Dinah” that Mrs. Tyler raged at when her young brother used to sing it within her hearing.
So it was pure malice that prompted “Tyler’s little vixen” to name her new treasure “Dinah”! Then following that rule of action familiar to all small girls with dolls since before the building of the temple, she turned Dinah upside down, that she might know quantity, quality, and condition of her undergarments, and when she found that Dinah possessed that final charm, that very crown of happy dolldom, the ability to have her clothes put on and off, to be dressed and undressed at will, the measure was full, her joy complete.
She turned her Dinah right side up again and kissedher fondly. At that sight my short legs basely betrayed me, and I sat down with unnecessary emphasis the deaf might have heard. Instantly the cry arose: “You, Cawie, Cawie, come here and see my ‘peshous Dinah’!”
I rose and obeyed. Shortly after, when the “peshous one” had been properly shod, and Marie was dressed for tea, we went forth to walk Dinah; but Marie, recalling the three handsome dolls sitting bolt upright in the parlor, suddenly commanded me to return and make faces at them, “real bad faces, too, for being so stiff and big they couldn’t cuddle.”
But I suggested that she should wait till the gas was burning, and then let the dolls see Dinah, and with malicious joy she waited. And so began the fellowship between those two. Straight into her warm and tender, little heart the vixen took her “peshous Dinah” and gave her a love that could not be shaken by a mother’s angry tears, a father’s bribery, or the contemptuous sneers of friends and neighbors—a love that lasted so long as Dinah’s self. The effect she produced on people at first sight was remarkable. There was Mr. Tyler, for instance; a good-looking man, very quiet, very gentle and very kind. He never drank, yet the first time he saw Dinah he thought he did, and he was afraid to kiss his wife, lest she should think so, too; and I saw him secretly touch Dinah once or twice, to make sure she was real.
Marie’s young uncle, too, he was preparing for college,and though he was gay and full of fun, his conduct was excellent, and he was very strict about Sunday observances, but when he met Dinah he exclaimed: “Well, I’ll be d—d!” Perhaps that was not Dinah’s fault. He might have been thinking of his future state, and had just arrived at that conclusion.
Perhaps the most disagreeable occurrence was when the minister, Presbyterian, called, and not having his glasses on, sat himself down heavily upon Dinah. He instantly sprang up to remove the foreign substance he felt beneath him, and meeting the malevolent eye of the “peshous one,” he exclaimed, in a startled tone: “God bless my soul!—er—er—I should say—what on earth?”
But with a bound, the vixen, Marie, was at his side, crying: “How dare you, you too fat, bad old man; you sat on my Dinah and swor’d, you did!”
With a crimson face he answered: “Oh, no; oh, no! my dear little child, you are mistaken. I——”
But Marie stamped her foot at him and cried: “You swor’d! you swor’d!” upon which tableau entered Mrs. Tyler.
Gradually, however, Dinah came to be accepted by the family, and it was surprising to see how useful she became to its various members. Mr. Tyler, who did a good deal of office work at home, used her almost continuously as a pen-wiper. Instead of having to pick up a tiny round of cloth and carefully fit the pen to a narrow fold, Dinah allowed a largeness and freedom ofmovement very pleasant to him. Just a swipe at her in almost any direction, and the pen was clean.
The young uncle, who delighted in the comfort of a rocking-chair, yet detested its movement, used Dinah as a sort of brake, placing her under the back of a rocker at just the right angle to prevent action, while many a time the somewhat flighty housemaid, having forgotten to dust the “what-not” (indispensable adjunct of the parlor of that date), would snatch up Dinah and dust all the shelves and their contents with her, fitting her arm or her leg into the depths of “To a Good Girl,” or “From Chelsia,” or “Friendship’s Offering”—these cups and mugs, with their roses and posies and fine gold lettering, being veritable dust traps, as were the sea shells, with the Lord’s Prayer cut on their surface, and the parian-marble Rebeccas standing by salt-cellar-like wells, and of such was the bric-a-brac of that day, you know—the day of wax things under glass shades.
The entire family used the back of Dinah’s head as a pin cushion, while again and again I have seen her act as an iron-holder, when a sash ribbon or bit of lace had to be pressed just there in the sitting-room.
But it was as a weapon of defence that she got in her really fine work. Grasped firmly by the legs and directed by impassioned energy toward a wisely selected point, Dinah was capable of giving a blow as surprising to witness as it was stunning to feel. Practice makes perfect, and so it came about that that vixen,Marie’s, aim was so quick, so steady and so true, that she landed with Dinah right on the intended spot every time. She paid no attention to rules about the belt line, striking below it with as much vigor as above it. There was never any clinching, because no one would come near enough for that, but I have known her to strike a blow with Dinah hard enough to rupture Mrs. Tyler’s agreement with the cook.
Some months after Dinah’s arrival I became recognized as a sort of family lightning-rod, since I had the power of deflecting the fluid wrath and deviltry of Marie’s temper and leading it to comparatively harmless points.
She was very fond of me, partly because I was older than she was, and partly because I found so many new things for her to play. Everything I saw away from home was served up at once as a play for Marie. Oh, that was a great occasion when I saw a lady faint in a store! Dinah had to faint so many times in one day that she was wet clear through her whole body, from her many revivings, and was in such a disgraceful condition from the brandy we gave her that, being utterly unable to stand, she had to hang on the clothes-line several hours before she could be endured in a warm room, and I remember Marie asked me if the lady had smelled like that.
Mr. Tyler was not a very strong man, not sickly—what a hateful word—but rather delicate; in fact, though he neversaidso, he had nerves, and it musthave tried them severely when he came to breakfast and had to face Dinah, sitting in the middle of the table, with her back against the big family castor, and her one straight eye fixed upon his shrinking countenance. The skeleton at the banquet never made half the effect the “peshous ’un” made, for in the first place the skeleton was crowned with roses, and there were bright lights and a small river of wine to help the guests forget the presence of their ghastly companion; but no skull that was ever bleached had a smile to compare with Dinah’s, which crossed her entire face and would have gone on and met at the back of her head had it not been stopped by her side seams, where her front and her back were sewed together. There were no roses on Dinah and no wine to dim her effect, and poor Mr. Tyler chipped his egg and crumbled his roll, but, with that eye upon him, got no further, and merely taking his coffee, he fled. The rest of us got a side or back view, so we did not suffer so much. This went on until dyspepsia developed. I have said before, I was very fond of Mr. Tyler, and I began to look for some way to help him. One day, at table, the uncle had nearly betrayed a surprise that was being prepared for the little Marie, and Mrs. Tyler reached out her foot and pushed him to enforce silence, a movement at once discovered by that acute young person, who thereupon made a scene, and thereafter passed much of her time, at meals, hanging head downward from her chair, trying to see under the table that she might (in herown language), “see who kicked who,” a habit which caused many upsettings of things and much discomfort, but one to which she clung until I made a suggestion which found favor in her eyes.
“Ah!” said I, “if Dinah belonged to me I’d make her do something lovely!” “Oh, what?” cried the little vixen, and after much coaxing I spoke, with the blessed result that for over two weeks, at breakfast, dinner and tea, Dinah, the dreadful, was carefully placedunderthe table to watch “who kicked who.” “Ah!” cried Marie, “yer can’t wink yer eyes at each other, ’cause I is looking at yer all! Yer can’t kick each other, ’cause Dinah’s looking at yer hard, and if yer spell things, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll just hold my breff and die! so now, I’ll have to know everyfing!”
But Mr. Tyler ate his egg and toast, and smilingly drank asecondcup of coffee mornings, and he patted my shoulder and gave me a big, red Canadian penny, which Marie, being jealous, took from me and threw down the well, while the young uncle started the lightning-rod idea, saying “that I had diverted Marie’s deviltry from the top of the table to the bottom, where it was harmless.”
I will mention one episode in Dinah’s life, and that will serve to indicate pretty fairly what the others were like. I always call it the hail-stone episode. Late one afternoon a violent storm had come on. We were all frightened, and poor, little, spoiled Marie was quivering from head to foot with nervous terror. Presentlythe rain turned to hail, great lumps of ice came dashing against the windows, and “crack!” went a big window-pane, and in fell the pieces of glass. Again came the rushing rain, and the water falling on a table covered with books, the housemaid caught upsomethingand thrust it into the opening in the broken window. Alas, and alas! that “something” was Dinah! The “peshous un”! Dinah the beloved! There she was, her cross-eyes looking at us from between her glove-shod feet, like a contortionist at a circus, while her doubled body was thrust out into the hail and rain outside. And there, all unknown to us, she remained for a long, long time, and the thunder rolled and the house shook till the spoons rattled and tinkled in their holder. And suddenly Marie lifted up a marble-white, little face, and putting out her hand to my mother, said, faintly, “Aunty? (courtesy title only) tell God, please stop! I’m frightened!”
The awful dazzle of lightning followed her words, and again she buried her face, laying her tiny hands over her ears, to keep out the terrifying sounds. A lamp was lighted, and they began to undress her and prepare her for bed, simply to divert her attention from the storm. She was very silent, but she shook violently, and her eyes were strained and wild-looking. Suddenly the heavens seemed to flame! The crash that followed left the ears ringing! We all cried out, but the vixen gave a bound and stood in the middle of the room; her eyes fairly blazed; she raised them to theceiling, and in a shrill voice she cried, “Stop! stop, I tell you! I’m frightened!”
Again a dazzle of lightning, again a roar of thunder, and in an instant that little bundle of nerves had darted to the hall, and with both hands succeeded in turning the knob (the wind did the rest), and to our unutterable horror, we saw her little, white-robed figure dart down the steps, and standing on the bit of rain-soaked lawn, mad with rage, she lifted her challenging face to the black sky, and stamping her bare, little foot, she cried, against the wind, “How dare you, God? I’m little Marie Tyler, and I told you I was afraid! How dare you? a great big God like you, frighten a little girl like me?” and then she was in her mother’s arms, and was carried into the house dripping as from a river, and spitting and hissing like an enraged cat.
The storm ceased at last, at least theouterstorm; there was another coming, for where was my “peshous Dinah”?
Everyone looked, looked high and low, looked until we got to the place, where we stood and looked stupidly at one another, and then there came, in a strained whisper, from Marie: “What’s that?”
She pointed at a dripping bundle sticking in the broken window-pane. Mrs. Tyler screamed outright! Those cross-eyes looking at her from between those stubby feet. There was a wildabandonin the attitude that shocked her! But her scream was as nothing compared to the succession of shrieks that broke fromthe throat of “Tyler’s pretty little devil”! “Who? a—a—ah! Who? a—a—ah! Who? a—a—ah!” she screamed after each “Who?”
At last she finished, “Whoput my ‘peshous Dinah’ in that hole? She shall be killed, all dead! and put in a hole, her own-self! She shall!! She shall!!!” She caught up a glass from the table and dashed it on the floor, breaking it in pieces. “Hurry! or I’ll break everything, I will!!” And when Dinah was pulled out and straightened, words of mine fail to describe her appearance!
Marie held loving little arms out to receive the dripping stop-gap, saying: “We’ll go to bed, right now, my ‘peshous Dinah’! Never mind your nighty, you’ll get cold! Come, and we’ll cuddle up, until you are all dry again!” And then the storm broke! It was simply impossible that Marie should be allowed to go to bed with that dripping bundle pressed in her arms, and it was equally impossible to make her obey or listen to reason. It was a wretched scene. The mother knelt to the child she had ruined, calling her, “her angel, her star, her flower,” and Marie gave her a kick or a push at each word, and swore oaths that a mule-driver would hesitate before ejecting in a row. Where had she learned them? Who knows? Who ever knows how a beloved child learns evil? But on and on went this battle, until at last, worn out with the past fright and the present rage, the little vixen fainted.
Mrs. Tyler sent for the doctor, and while waitinghis coming, and after Marie’s recovery of consciousness, she said to me: “Carrie, can’t you think of some way to keep that awful doll away from my darling to-night? Try, child, try!”
I thought hard enough to turn my hair gray, it seemed to me, before I was gladdened by an idea. I went to the door and beckoned Mrs. Tyler, and asked her, in a whisper, two or three questions about an article she had been reading aloud when the storm arose—an article about the water-cure, then the very newest fad. She gave me the desired information, and thus armed, I stole to Marie’s side, and with great seeming secrecy, told her I had a lovely new play, if only her mother would allow us (poor Mrs. Tyler!) to play it.
Rather languidly, she answered: “To-morrow, Cawie!”
But I said: “To-morrow would be too late, because Dinah had to be awful wet to play this game.”
At once she was all eagerness, and commanded me to explain. And so it came about, that the “peshous un” was stripped under loving eyes and rolled in a wet dinner-napkin, and then “packed” in wet sheets, all according to “Hoyle,” or the water-cure doctors. And I engaged to give her several drinks of water during the night, and assured Marie that she would find her “peshous Dinah” all right in the morning, and Marie laughed and talked, while I did the packing. And the doctor found her with a high pulse and red cheeks, but the wet doll was not in her arms. She refused to showher tongue, because she said the last time she put out her tongue at him, he was mad about it, which was very true.
He gave her a powder, she went to sleep, and the rest of us humbly thanked our Creator.
Dinah was snatched out of her “pack” and put in the warm oven to dry, while the other members of the family slept the sleep of the weary and the worn.
Three entire years passed in alternate peace and strife. Acting in the interest of decency and cleanliness, Mrs. Tyler had covered Dinah with fresh linen several times. Little Marie had grown taller, more beautiful, and more impish; while Dinah still reigned supreme, though almost every bureau in the house had in its bottom drawer a wax doll or two, rolled up in towels.
For some time before the great disaster, we had been tormented by cats. Why our garden should have been selected for their mass-meetings, I can’t imagine. We lived in a fashionable quarter; there was an air of eternal Sabbath brooding over our heavily shaded street; a few lap-dogs resided thereon, but no one stooped to cats. Yet night and cats descended upon us together.
Mrs. Tyler raised many herbs for kitchen use, but after the arrival of the cats the herbs entered the kitchen no more. The back garden was destroyed.
They were a musical as well as warlike race, and their head notes, chest notes, and stomach notes, werepoured forth with passionate ardor, but I never, never learned to distinguish the tenderest love song from the wail of complete despair, though I was quick to recognize the gage of battle. I also learned that the bitterness and ferocity of an engagement was not to be measured so surely by the loss of blood as by the loss of fur.
But let me stop right here, and not weary the reader with what I know about cats—tribal, nomadic, domestic; their habits, laws, and superstitions; their sign-language, being the very same that was taught to the tail-chasing, sacred kittens of Cheops and the first Pharaoh—and only state that in the study of feline folklore, I have known of a student becoming so absorbed that he forgot everything on earth, even the “lore,” in his mad pursuit of a feline.
Now, one evening, Mr. Tyler brought home an old friend, whom he asked to dine and pass the night. The old friend had with him a small dog, who also dined and passed the night. The gentleman was a bachelor then, and if he is alive and sane, I have the biggest and ugliest silver dollar in the world to bet against a crooked hair-pin, that he is a bachelor now. The dog was small, and it had hair—lots of hair—and judging by sight alone, that was all he had. His master claimed that he could see a difference between fore and aft, between head and tail. Well, perhaps he could when the dog was awake, but ’twas base boasting to make any such claim when he was sleeping. He was named “Bolivar,”not after the military gentleman, but in memory of his youthful and almost fatal attempt to swallow whole one of those very large, hard, round candies boys call “Bolivars.”
This four-legged guest had made that thing adored of men, “a record,” and it was for killing rats. Now you show me a dog with a record for killing rats, and I’ll show you a dog who has broken the record killing cats. It’s perfectly natural; he has to kill the cats or there would not be rats enough to make a record with.
Bolivar was graciously received by Marie, who knew but little of dogs, and who asked “why he bit his own back when everybody’s legs were in his reach,” adding, “If I was a dog I’d bite somebody else every time;” which was pure and unadulterated truth, I’m sure.
In the forenoon of that day, “Tyler’s pretty devil” had favored us with one of her wildest tantrums. The servant, Norah, had spilled a little hot tea over Dinah’s foot, and Marie had gone into a very frenzy of rage. Seizing Dinah by the legs, she had thrashed the girl out of the room and the house; had with one sweep of Dinah’s body cleared a small table of every article it held; had cut her own hand; had held her breath until she was blue; had indeed furnished her whole family with healthy but rather unpleasant exercise for both mind and body, and when she had so stirred her monkeys up that we each chattered our teeth while we swang madly from our own particular pole, she hadsuddenly calmed down and requested me to bandage Dinah’s scalded foot, and proceed with her to the garden, there to play “sick lady in the country.”
By some chance there had sprung up, at the very foot of the garden, a large weed, a most uncommon growth amid such surroundings; a great, big, coarse-leafed, pinkish-topped thing, a sort of pretty tramp from the woods or fields; I think it’s called milk-weed, though to Dinah it was usually an orange orchard, while only occasionally it became a pine forest in which we lost ourselves and endured great hardships.
I remember it was an orange orchard that day, and after a long play, when Marie was called to dress for dinner, she advised Dinah to remain where she was, saying, “When dinner is over I’ll bring you some dessert.”
So I gave Dinah a book to read, and we left her. We both looked back, Marie many times, and always kissing her hand. And so I most often see her in my memory, the “peshous one,” I mean, sitting stiffly against the trunk of her orange tree, one foot bandaged (without the formality of first removing her boot), an open almanac on her lap, whose piteous, gray, old jokes were to entertain her during our absence, her water-waves trim and neat, her round eye mild and pleasant, her smile almost meeting behind—so I saw her that last day.
The dinner was over; it had not been what you might call an hilarious affair. There seems to besomething in the blood of wives at enmity withuninvitedguests, and Mrs. Tyler was cold as ice and as bitter as a black frost.
When dinner was nearly ready, Bolivar sneaked out to the kitchen, where the cook had given him a large, square meal, feeding him from her own hand, as she told me afterward in confidence, until “he was that full his eyes bulged, Miss!” And in that dreadful state he waddled back to the dining-room, and when dinner was over, sat on end by his master and laid beseeching, hypocritical paws on his knee, and was fed again, after which he was in a condition bordering on apoplexy, and quite unfit to play “soldier,” or “dead-dog,” or do anything in fact, save retire to the flyless shadows under the piano and there sleep, audibly. Marie was so interested in Bolivar and so busy flirting with his master (she was a coquette at one year), that she actually forgot Dinah, who still sat in the orange orchard.
The bare idea of a dog sleeping in her house filled Mrs. Tyler with such indignation that other arrangements had to be hastily made for Bolivar’s accommodation.
Some former tenants had left a kennel behind them. It was brought from the wood-house, a bit of old carpet put into it, and the sleepy Bolivar was hitched to it with a piece of cord. After two or three strangling efforts to follow his master, kennel and all, into the house, he finally settled himself, and we all separated for the night.
We were all asleep—and then we were all awake again! No, it was not the “crack of doom” we heard, but if you were to break one boiler factory into a foundling asylum and beat them together, you might get an idea of the kind of noise that aroused us. I murmured “Cats,” and tried to slip back into the sweet land of “Nod,” but there came a new noise. It had a wooden sound. What was it? My mother said “Is the wood-pile falling down?” But it sounded to me as though the shed was jumping up and down. Suddenly we gasped, “The dog! The kennel!”
Next instant the cord broke and with an ear piercing “ky—i, ky—i!” Bolivar set out to build up another record. It was fearful! The carnage was great, but the noise was maddening. Our nearest neighbor came to his window and made very,verypersonal remarks about people who would keep a dog where they knew cats came. This gentleman’s head was like a large, china egg, for baldness, and I think the extreme hairiness of Bolivar added bitterness to his words.
Had Bolivar been satisfied to kill his cats once only, his record would have been bigger, but he had a habit of killing his victims several times, going back to them and shaking and tossing them and crunching their spines with his front teeth, and while this habit had the advantage of making his cats and rats very dead indeed, it lost him a good deal of time.
I slipped out of bed and went to the window andlooked out, just as the triumphant Bolivar tore around the house, dragging his prey and kicking up the grave as he ran. Just beneath me he paused to re-kill his victim, shaking it viciously, tossing it over his head, and with a goatlike spring catching it again. Then, taking it at the head, he, with savage growls, began nipping it down its back. At that moment I heard the stairs creak, and some one softly opened the front door, and then Mr. Tyler’s friend came into view.
He was dressed, or—that is to say—er—er, well, he wasn’t undressed, quite. His feet were thrust into a pair of heelless slippers, and I experienced a feeling of some surprise at the number of strings I could see dangling from him. There were two broad, white ones hanging down behind from the waist-line, and at least four pieces of white tape trailed along behind his bare heels, which looked in the moonlight like a pair of fine onions—moonlight always has that strange, transforming power.
Yes, though his dress was careless and simple to a degree, still it answered quite nicely for two o’clock in the morning, though ten hours later it would have landed him in the fine, new insane asylum waiting for gentlemen dressed that way.
He conversed with Bolivar a few moments, and his gestures, while a trifle angular, were really very impressive and expressive. What he said seemed to fill Bolivar with utter amazement, and finally with shame and vexation. I am positive that, had he had a tail, itwould have been but a wagless sagging down, and vanity of vanities. As it was, he could only bow his head and meekly follow his master, carefully stepping on all four of the trailing tapes, whenever he could, and making a snap now and then at the broad, white things dangling from the waist-line.
Once more was he put into the kennel and tied, this time with a clothes-line, which might have tried the strength of the best steer in the cattle market. Once more peace descended upon us. Bolivar had earned fresh laurels to rest upon. The live cats had gone away, and the dead cats kept perfectly quiet, which was all one had the right to expect of them.
It was yet very early morning when I heard Norah at Mrs. Tyler’s door, knocking, and crying in a tearful voice for her to “get up fur huvvens sake!”
She also called upon such a very large number of Saints to come to her help that I am sure the house could not have held them had they laid aside their symbols and things and answered to her call. I suppose they felt that everybody’s business was nobody’s business, so none of them responded.
Mrs. Tyler was unmistakably vexed as she opened the door, and Norah was unmistakably startled, for Mrs. Tyler not only kept her teeth in a cup of water over night, but, to make it wave, she plaited her front hair in many, many tight, little braids (that was before crimping-pins), which looked like nothing so much as a bunch of nicely cleaned and neatly tied rats’ tails.
“What is the meaning of all this to-do?” asked the lady.
“Oh, Mu’m, its all that divil’s own dog’s doin’s! Him that I fed with me own two hands, last night, till his shape was gone intirely! And now she’s tored to pieces! The Saints be good to us!”
“Do you know,” cried Mrs. Tyler, “what you are saying!”
“I do the same!” replied Norah. “I’m a’saying that that dog ‘Bullinger’ has tored her to pieces, and she’s as dead as any mack’rel!”
“Who is dead, Norah?”
“Why, Miss Dinah, poor thing!”
“What!” Mrs. Tyler stepped outside and quickly closed the door behind her. She took Norah by the wrist, gave her a shake, and asked in a low tone: “What’s that about Dinah?”
With a burst of excited tears, Norah repeated: “She’s dead, M’um, as dead as any of them nasty cats down there! And I thought I’d come and tell you, M’um, and if you please, M’um, before the young lady finds it out, I’ll just be leavin’ me place! No M’um, you needn’t give me no character! I’ll just be goin’ peaceable-like, without any character at all!”
And long and earnest were Mrs. Tyler’s entreaties, and many were the promises she made of protection from the wrath to come, ere Norah could be induced to light the kitchen fire, her first unwilling step toward getting breakfast ready.
Then, white and trembling, Mrs. Tyler called my mother. They went forth and saw Norah had told the truth. They returned and held a consultation. Mrs. Tyler was for mad haste and another Dinah! Mother was positive the deception could not be carried out on such short notice, and a discovered attempt would add fury to the storm.
But Mrs. Tyler insisted, and together the two women worked wildly, in the hope of recreating Dinah. With dripping brows and trembling fingers they were fastening on her boots, when shrill and clear came the cry of “Dinah! Where’s my peshous Dinah? I want her!”
Truly we all wanted her at that moment!
I was scrambling into my clothes as fast as I could, when through the open door I caught a glimpse of little Marie; the next instant there was a cry of indignation, followed by the words: “What’s that? What ugly fool thing’s that—dressed up just like my Dinah? Who’s been here already?”
And Mrs. Tyler tremulously cooed that “No one has been here, darling—it is not even time for breakfast yet.”
Marie, with curled-up, contemptuous lips, held the intended deceiver out at arm’s length and slowly and derisively put out her spiteful, red tongue at her—then suddenly caught her by the heels and hurled her out of the window, remarking: “You nasty, little, ugly beast! I hope the ’hoppers and the ants’ll getall over you, and fleas in your stockin-legs, too! And who ever brought you here shall be pinched, all black! So there! Now, where’s Dinah?”
A pretended search followed, till suddenly Marie remembered she had left Dinah out in the garden. “Oh, Cawie! Cawie!” she cried, “I forgotted her, my own, peshous Dinah, and she’s been reading all night, without her dinner! Oh, Dinah! Dinah!” and away she started to the porch, on her way to rescue her beloved. And then the old struggle, between mother and child was renewed. In her foolish endeavor to deceive Marie a little longer, Mrs. Tyler told falsehood after falsehood. Now it was a curious thing about the vixen, that she was utterly truthful, for her mother was a prolific, though inconsequential liar—her lies so utterly lacking cohesive power that they never were known to sustain one another, and Marie often berated her mother for her wrong-doing.
Now nearly distracted, the child suddenly turned to me, asking: “Cawie, Cawie, has my Dinah fallen down the well?”
I shook my head, and answered, “No, Marie, dear,” while in the same moment Mrs. Tyler quickly exclaimed: “Yes, my sweet, she is in the well, but the man will get her out, and to-morrow you shall have her in all new things!”
Marie glared at her a few seconds, then stamping her foot, cried, “How dare you, you so wicked mamma! Stop, now! Stop, I say; you make lies every day, youdo. Go do your hair up right, and sit in the parlor and make lies, and let me find my dear Dinah. Cawie, will help me!” and as she got through the door and into the dew-wet garden, Mrs. Tyler cried out: “She’s all right, she is in—in—the oven getting dry. You can have her soon, only my angel, come and get dressed now!”
But, with a cry of delight, her angel tore out of her hands and darted into the kitchen, and before Mrs. Tyler could signal, much less speak to Norah, Marie cried: “Norah, what’s in the oven?” and that honest bond-maiden answered, “Nothin’, Miss, its not hot enough for biscuit, see!” and she threw open the door, and into its black maw disappeared the child’s bright hopes. She stood quite still, and looked first at one and then at another. I was crying quietly, but I watched her and saw her face growing paler and paler. At last she took a fold of my mother’s dress in her hand and said: “Auntie, is my Dinah dead?”
Before she could lift her bent head to answer, Norah, with a mighty roar, burst forth: “She is, Miss, she’s dead and killed, and all tored up, and there’s nothing left of her!”
Poor, little soul! Both hands clasped convulsively. That curious quiver came to her eyelids, and the movement in her slender throat showed that she swallowed dryly at something—sorrow is always so hard to swallow! Then she flung out her arms, and giving a cry that pierced like a knife, she flung herself out ofthe kitchen, and, of all, places in the house, made straight for the dark store-room, off the dining-room; she who feared but two things, lightning and utter darkness, now sought the latter, and closed the door behind her, where we heard her little hands feeling for some catch or bolt to fasten it, but luckily, there was none. Mrs. Tyler was nearly wild; the pantry was very small, utterly dark, and nearly airless. In it were kept barrels of flour and sugar, boxes of tea and bags of coffee, and closed, it was black as night. She prayed, pleaded, flattered, promised, and to each prayer came a kick at the door, and the threat, “If you touch the door, I’ll make me dead! I will! I will!”
Everyone stood helpless before this small child’s power to harm herself. Mrs. Tyler denounced Norah for telling. Other members of the family begged at the door to speak to Marie a moment, just a moment, in vain; yet her voice was distinctly weaker, and all were frightened.
“I must bring her out by force!” declared Mr. Tyler.
And then, for the last time, I was called upon to play “lightning-rod.” The uncle said, “Let Carrie try,” and then all hands were on my shoulder, pushing me forward, and before I knew it I was alone. I on one side of the door, stupid and idealess, and Marie on the other side, heartbroken and relentless. I was quite a big girl then, but I’m afraid I had my finger in my mouth.
I tried to think, but I didn’t; on the contrary, I discovered a little nail-hole in the door that had been filled up with putty, and then, faint and low, almost in a whisper, I heard, “Oh, Cawie, Cawie! Oh, my Dinah!”
And I sprang to the door, opened it, and went in, and the next instant I was sitting on a bag of salt, and poor Marie was across my knees, sobbing as though her heart would break. I had left the door part way open, and as I heard some one cautiously approaching, I wildly waved my half-laced boots at them to keep away. I had not said a word; I only sat smoothing her silky, auburn hair, while she cried, and cried, and cried, and every now and then gasped, “She’s gone, all gone, every bit of her! Oh, my Dinah!”
But when she once added, “and I can’t do anything for her in the world,” my idea at last arrived, hurried, out of breath and belated, but still an idea, and I eagerly said, “Oh, Marie, dear, there’s a little of her left, enough to make a beautiful funeral!”
She shook her head, saying, “Got to have their bodies to make funerals.”
“But,” I went on, “don’t you remember the poor men your papa saw all blowed up by the engine? There wasn’t much left of them, but they had funerals, every one of them.”
She turned her tear-wet face toward me, and asked, dully, “How much was left?”
“Oh,” I replied, with an airy assumption of knowledgeworthy of my elders, “bits of skin, and little bones like teeth, you know, and broken ‘spenders.’”
“But,” objected Marie, “Dinah’s teef hadn’tgrowedyet, and she didn’twearspenders,” and her sobs broke forth anew.
I reassured her by telling her there was quite a large piece of Dinah’s flannel petticoat left, and over half of her face (including all of her indestructible smile), and perhaps we might find some more bits if we looked, and we could put them all in a little, white sheet, in a true box (a wooden box), and truly bury her just like any other person.
The poor, little vixen sat up and put her hair from her eyes and listened—she began to be interested—then the tears slipping down her wan cheeks, she stole her arm about my neck and whispered: “Cawie, where has theinsideDinah gone?—the—the now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep Dinah?”
I was silent; and I could feel the trembling of her body increase as she waited for an answer. Then she wailed: “Oh, Cawie! tell me! tell me!”
Poor baby! who wanted her doll to be immortal as herself! I dared not say she was in Heaven, so without an idea of what Paradise meant, I calmly told her that “Dinah was in dolls’ Paradise”—and that was the only time I ever knew her to be called a doll.
“What’s that?” asked Marie, eagerly.
“Why,” I answered, “it’s a lovely, clean, sweetplace, where dead dolls wait till their owners get dead too, and call for them on their way to Heaven.”
May I be forgiven—but I certainly had a fine, able-bodied imagination in my youth.
“Oh,” cried Marie, and she put her little lips to mine and kissed me sweetly, “Oh, Cawie! I’se glad, and I do hope she won’t get out and get lost—she gets lost very easy, you know—before I get dead and go for her,” and she took my hand and we came forth from the store-closet, and at sunset, in a deal-box with brass hinges and lock (from the young uncle), in a white, silk handkerchief (from Papa), Dinah’s scrappy remains were buried at the foot of the orange tree—buried with flowers from every one, and passionate tears from Marie, and many promises, as she kissed the box, not to forget to stop at Paradise for her.
She had not allowed any “grown-ups” to do anything except look on; she and I did all. The mother, wishing to please her, said: “Should we move from here, dear one, we will take up Dinah and keep her with us.”
But Marie, with frowning brows, rejected this offer. “No!” she said, “if her now-I-lay-me part got lost out of Paradise, she could come right here and find her old self in her home. If the box was moved, she would be lost everywhere!”
And she went back alone, and I looked and saw her pat the grave gently, and heard her say: “My peshous Dinah!”