NEIGHBOR EDITH.
The north-west wind, driving feathery flakes of snow before it, heaps up gray masses of cloud over the sunny afternoon, and then, as if bent on subduing what cheeriness remains among the shadows it has brought, howls dismally down the chimneys, moans at the casements dismally. The Lieutenant throws himself down on the lounge, and draws a long sigh. Kate slips quietly out of the room, catches up her shawl and hat from the rack in the hall, and her brother, hearing her go down the steps into the street, wonders where she is bound for, and why she didn’t say something about it, and then falls back into his gloomy reverie.
“It may be ‘sweet for one’s country to die’; but to live on, a shattered, helpless wreck”—and, at the thought, he gripes the curving frame of the lounge with his one hand, and his firm-set lips quiver; when, suddenly, without the faintest footfall to indicate the approach of any one, two little arms creep about his neck, and between silvery peals of laughter a shower of kisses falls over forehead and sightless eyes, oneither cheek, on nose, mouth and chin. “There!” cries a childish, laughing voice, “I surpized you, didn’t I? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Ha, ha!” echoes the Lieutenant, coming directly from a horizontal to a sitting posture, his arm around the wee mite, “so you did ‘surpize’ me, midget. And where did you come from? Did you drop out of the sky?”
“Out of the sky!” repeats the little maiden, with a great deal of scorn and emphasis. “Why, I comed right from our house! Katy comed after me, and we went round to the back door, so you wouldn’t hear, and then Katy took off my shoes, and I comed up on tiptoe in my stocking-feet. Ha, ha! I surpized you, didn’t I? I’m go’n to ’gin!” and away she rushes across the room and back against him, pell-mell, arms about his neck, and kisses raining all over his face. “There! how do you like it?” and the room rings with her musical laughter—in which the Lieutenant once more joins, with—
“My dear young lady, I must confess that I haven’t the least objection to the proceeding.”
“Young—la-day!” is the slow and scornful rejoinder; “youngla-dy! Why, I’m a little girl!”
“Why, so she is, just a mere baby.”
“Aba-by! (the italics are to mark the emphasis) I’mfour-years-old big!I’m noba-by! Willie’s the baby. He’s got a new tooth! That makes three—six—five! He’s got five teeth!”
“You don’t say! And what is this Edith has in her hands—a doll?”
“Yes, it’s my dolly.”
“What curly hair she has. And this ruffled affair—is it an apron?”
“Ana-pron! It’s an over-skirt!”
“Oh, I beg pardon! an ‘over-skirt,’ is it? So she’s a fashionable doll. What might be her name?”
“Guess.”
“Keturah?”
“No.”
“Jerusha?”
“No.”
“Mary Ann, Sacharissa, Sophia, Clarissa, Joan, Melissa, Eloise, Elizabeth, Jane—”
“No-o-o-o-o!”
“Victoria, Eugenia, Augusta, Paulina, Virginia, Aurelia, Geraldine, Mollie—”
“Yes! Mollie! that’s what it is; but none of your other old—elephants. There, you’re laughing! You knowed what it was all the time; you was only pertendin’. You’ve seen my dolly before.”
“Where’s Katy?”
“She stayed down-stairs to pop some corn for me and you.”
“Shall we go down and see her do it?”
“Yes.”
“Very well.” And the Lieutenant, rising, manages to shift little dot up to his shoulder. “There, now, you’re a feather on top of a barn-door.”
“You’renota barn-door!”
“What am I, then?”
“You’re my brave captain boy.” (That was in a whisper.)
“Shall I tell you whatyouare? You’re my little angel.” And, holding her carefully, he goes down the stairs, feeling his way, now and then, with the remnant of an arm in his dangling right sleeve.
“I’m almost through,” cries Kate, from the kitchen, her face all aglow with the heat. And Edith, from her lofty perch, watches the few yellow kernels that are nearly lost sight of in the bottom of the wire corn-popper, after a shake or two over the hot coals, suddenly—“Snap, snap, snap!” and look! it is full to the brim with something white and savory, which, seasoned with salt and the least bit of butter, she deals out (with great fairness and impartiality) to herself and her “captain boy,” after they have gone up-stairs again. By and by a thought strikes her.
“Katy, my doll hasn’t got any apron.”
“Why, so she hasn’t. We’ll have to make her one, won’t we?” And a box of ribbons and laces and pieces of silk is produced from somewhere, and the two sit down on the floor near the Lieutenant’s chair, talking all the time and planning out this wonderful apron.
“Now which of all these colors does Edie like best?” asks Kate.
“Well, I think the red’s the nicest.”
So an apron (with pockets, observe!) is soon manufactured out of a bit of a broad scarlet sash, and braided, too, with white silk braid; and straightway on it goes, in feverish haste (one is anxious to study the effect, you know), over the stylish (but serene) Mademoiselle’s black satin gown. (The effect isn’t bad.)
After due admiration from Edith, some other diversion is in order, and a book of engravings is brought for inspection. As the leaves are turned for her she glances for an instant at one picture after another, giving the word to proceed; but they finally come to something over which she pores a long while—so long that Kate is passing to the next without waiting for the “Go on” from little Miss, when the latter immediately takes the book into her own hands, returns to this picture, and continues to gaze at it. “What does it mean?” at length she asks.
“Had I better tell her?” Kate, in an under-tone, questions of her brother. “It’s Gustave Doré’s ‘The Deluge’—people and wild beasts huddled together upon a rock rising out of the waste of water, and the great, lashing waves reaching up for them greedily, like wide-mouthed monsters. Odd, isn’t it, that she should notice it so, among so many more attractive prints? She wouldn’t be likely to comprehend if I were to explain, would she? Good, there goes the tea-bell!” And Kate closes the book, glad of an excuse to escape telling the story of the flood to this blithesome little being, whom, she has a dim notion, it might give bad dreams.
Seated at the supper-table, and elevated to the common level by aid of three sofa-cushions, Edith for a few moments bestows particular attentions upon a sauce-plate of canned peaches, to the utter disregard of more substantial food. After which she sits back in her chair, and, inclining her head toward her hostess, whispers—
“Some of the cake, if you please.”
“But you haven’t eaten your bread and butter yet; eat that first, and then you shall have some cake.”
“I want it now,” responds the small person, with much firmness, and is directly supplied with the desired article—a measure which might meet with protestif Edith’s mamma were present. No, it wouldn’t, either, come to think of it, for Edith’s mamma knows what are Kate’s ideas concerning sweetmeats. Has she not, on a similar occasion, heard her express herself after this manner?—
“If unfeeling peoplewill persistin denying dainties to the wee folks, they may just keep the stuff out of sight. Set it right where the poor little things can watch it with wistful eyes, and then pass it around to the favored few, but for them—‘No,youcan’t have any. It isn’t healthy for you!’ If grown-up people can’t deny themselves such things, they haven’t any right to expect the children to. To require children to show more strength of character than they have themselves!—oh, it’s a downright shame! And then, leaving open the places where the forbidden fruit is kept, and when the midgets climb up the closet-shelves and take a bite, on the sly, finding fault with them! Leading them into temptation (and isn’t that what responsible people evenprayto be delivered from?) and then, when the poor little things fall into the very trap they have set, finding fault with them, and lecturing them, and all that nonsense! Oh, it’s a cruel shame!”
The speaker, you see, is the children’s zealous advocate; and, little people, if ever there is anything you especially covet, or if ever you get into trouble, just goto her. She will plead your cause with burning cheeks, and flashing eyes, and such withering eloquence that the stern household judges will not fail to relent.
But it is after dark, and the snow is falling heavily, and mamma will want her little Edith home. So Kate sets forth with her small charge, well wrapped and protected from the cold—although they have but a few steps to go, as Edith lives in the next house.
When Kate returns, her brother’s voice greets her from the parlor with—
“Sukie, heard of the last new poem?”
“No. What is it?”
“Oh, it’s an epic!—a grand affair—second only to the Iliad!”
“Strange I haven’t heard of it, isn’t it?”
“No, not so very; it hasn’t come out yet.”
“How did you hear of it? Some one been in while I was gone?”
“Yes.”
“Do tell me, what is it about, and who is it by?”
“It’s about a child, I believe—but modesty forbids my mentioning the name of the author.”
“Ah, you old rogue, I see what you’re driving at!—you’ve been having a call from the Muse.”
“Rather from some poor vagabond tricked out in her cast-off mantle, you mean.”
Kate goes and stands behind the high-backed arm-chair, and toys with her brother’s jetty locks. (Are they not her pride and consolation—those clustering curls? Not all the flying bullets, and slashing sabres, and ruthless cannon-balls could rob him of those—no, nor the weary, wasting sickness that followed the privations and exposure, and left him—blind.) “Come, now, Wallie, stop joking, and let me have the verses, won’t you?”
And so this is what “Wallie” says about
“NEIGHBOR EDITH.”Alas! I cannot see what hue her eyes are,Nor yet the color of her silken hair;Tho’—thought consoling!—if I could, I fear meShe’d be less lavish with her kisses rare.I know her lips are dewy as the rose-budWhen first it wakes, the flush of dawn to greet;Her breath it fans my face like early zephyrUp from the Southland roving, warm and sweet.Her bird-like voice in simple, childish chatter,No better music need you care to hear—Unless it be the music of her laughter,Like rillet, gurgling now, now tinkling clear.And when, in short-lived moods of thoughtful silence,You feel her tiny form against you lean,Or when anon her dainty, dimpled fingersCome creeping trustfully your own between,Somehow there’s soothing in the touch, you fancy,A secret charm for sending grief astray:I half believe she is a born magician—This wee, wee elf the wind could blow away.And that is Edith, that is neighbor Edith,Our winsome friend the other side the stile.When we’re sad-hearted and the days are dreary,We go and borrow her a little while.
“NEIGHBOR EDITH.”Alas! I cannot see what hue her eyes are,Nor yet the color of her silken hair;Tho’—thought consoling!—if I could, I fear meShe’d be less lavish with her kisses rare.I know her lips are dewy as the rose-budWhen first it wakes, the flush of dawn to greet;Her breath it fans my face like early zephyrUp from the Southland roving, warm and sweet.Her bird-like voice in simple, childish chatter,No better music need you care to hear—Unless it be the music of her laughter,Like rillet, gurgling now, now tinkling clear.And when, in short-lived moods of thoughtful silence,You feel her tiny form against you lean,Or when anon her dainty, dimpled fingersCome creeping trustfully your own between,Somehow there’s soothing in the touch, you fancy,A secret charm for sending grief astray:I half believe she is a born magician—This wee, wee elf the wind could blow away.And that is Edith, that is neighbor Edith,Our winsome friend the other side the stile.When we’re sad-hearted and the days are dreary,We go and borrow her a little while.
“NEIGHBOR EDITH.”
Alas! I cannot see what hue her eyes are,Nor yet the color of her silken hair;Tho’—thought consoling!—if I could, I fear meShe’d be less lavish with her kisses rare.
Alas! I cannot see what hue her eyes are,
Nor yet the color of her silken hair;
Tho’—thought consoling!—if I could, I fear me
She’d be less lavish with her kisses rare.
I know her lips are dewy as the rose-budWhen first it wakes, the flush of dawn to greet;Her breath it fans my face like early zephyrUp from the Southland roving, warm and sweet.
I know her lips are dewy as the rose-bud
When first it wakes, the flush of dawn to greet;
Her breath it fans my face like early zephyr
Up from the Southland roving, warm and sweet.
Her bird-like voice in simple, childish chatter,No better music need you care to hear—Unless it be the music of her laughter,Like rillet, gurgling now, now tinkling clear.
Her bird-like voice in simple, childish chatter,
No better music need you care to hear—
Unless it be the music of her laughter,
Like rillet, gurgling now, now tinkling clear.
And when, in short-lived moods of thoughtful silence,You feel her tiny form against you lean,Or when anon her dainty, dimpled fingersCome creeping trustfully your own between,
And when, in short-lived moods of thoughtful silence,
You feel her tiny form against you lean,
Or when anon her dainty, dimpled fingers
Come creeping trustfully your own between,
Somehow there’s soothing in the touch, you fancy,A secret charm for sending grief astray:I half believe she is a born magician—This wee, wee elf the wind could blow away.
Somehow there’s soothing in the touch, you fancy,
A secret charm for sending grief astray:
I half believe she is a born magician—
This wee, wee elf the wind could blow away.
And that is Edith, that is neighbor Edith,Our winsome friend the other side the stile.When we’re sad-hearted and the days are dreary,We go and borrow her a little while.
And that is Edith, that is neighbor Edith,
Our winsome friend the other side the stile.
When we’re sad-hearted and the days are dreary,
We go and borrow her a little while.