"He's not very old," whispered Suzanna to her host; "and he doesn't know he must be truly thankful to you."
"Well, let him rest comfortably," said the Eagle Man, and he moved in such a way that the baby's head rested against his knee.
"There, that's better," he said to Mrs. Procter. "I didn't suppose you wanted its neck to be broken," he ended gruffly.
"You can't talk that way to mother," said Suzanna, very gently. "She's not used to it, you see, and she might think you meant it, though I know you better. Father, when he isn't thinking of his invention, speaks very kindly and sometimes he says, 'Are you tired, Little Woman?'"
Mrs. Procter attempted to speak, but again the Eagle Man stopped her—very gently, for him.
"It's all right," he said. "It's rather interesting to find someone, if only a child, who's not afraid to be absolutely sincere."
They came to a small hill where Robert stopped his horses. The breezes had gone whispering away and stillness was upon all. Soon the birds ceased their calls; over in the west the clouds were soft delicate folds of bronze; and even as one looked they broke into bars of distinct color, orange, purple, coral. An opal sunset.
"Oh, how beautiful!" cried Mrs. Procter.
"A daily incident," returned the Eagle Man, but he, too, gazed at the glowing sky.
"And now, I suppose we must return," he said at length, and so Robert turned his horses upon the homeward journey.
It was nearly dusk when, after leaving Mabel with her mother, the little cottage came into sight, and then Mrs. Procter said to the Eagle Man: "This has been one of the happiest days of my life. I thank you for helping to make it so."
"That's very kind of you to say so," the Eagle Man answered in his usual gruff voice.
They reached the gate and leaning upon it was Mr. Procter. He stared his amazement at sight of his family returning in such state.
"Father, we had a picnic," called Maizie, springing from the carriage.
"And once I drove," cried Peter, almost falling from his seat, "and scared a chicken."
"We've had the grandest day, father," finished Suzanna, running to him. "We went on a picnic and we took the lame and halt along, Mabel and the Eagle Man, and they had a good time, too."
"And twice today, father," said Maizie, taking her father's hand, "I remembered Who smiled at me."
"Who smiled at you?" asked the Eagle Man, who heard everything, it seemed.
"The Man with the halo, Jesus, you know," Maizie answered reverently. "When first I was a baby on this earth He came to smile at me and to wake me up. Suzanna told me so."
Silence. Then the Eagle Man turned to Mr. Procter. "Glad to have met your family, sir."
"Glad you've had the opportunity," said Mr. Procter.
"You sold a quantity of nails to me a few weeks ago, good nails, too; not underweight either, I noticed," said the Eagle Man at last. "Your little girl tells me you are an inventor."
"Yes, I'm working on a machine," Mr. Procter flushed. "It is nearly finished. That is, sometimes I think so; other times completion seems far away."
The Eagle Man paused. "I'd be interested in seeing your invention," he said, and stopped. Yet there was promise, too, in his voice, in his eyes.
Again the color rushed to Mr. Procter's face. He stared unbelievingly at the other, and then said: "I'll be glad any time to show my machine; to tell you all about it—" He hesitated. "There'd be a great chance for you, should you become interested in it."
"Well, if that's the case, expect me any time. Good-bye."
Suzanna spoke cordially: "You must come and see us very often," she said warmly, "only not on Tuesday nights, if you're coming to supper, because we have stew then made from the last of Sunday's roast."
"I'll remember," said the Eagle Man gravely, as he gave the signal to Robert to drive away.
The little family went down through the yard and on to the house.
"I must hurry with your supper," said Mrs. Procter. "I'm sorry you were kept waiting." She felt rested enough not to dread preparing the meal.
"Don't hurry, I found some crackers," said Mr. Procter, and added, "Why, I've not seen you look so happy in many a long day."
"Well, I really must thank Suzanna," said Mrs. Procter. "She insisted upon a picnic because the day started wrong. The house is all upset though," she finished, as they went into the kitchen.
"The house?" he returned, gazing vaguely about. "It looks all right to me. Suppose, Jane, he should really be won over to believe in the machine. Oh, I never hoped I could interest him!"
"It may be the beginning of a great day," she answered. He put his arm about her.
"What should I do without you to encourage, to help," he said.
"That's my privilege," she said softly.
Bending, he kissed her.
Mid September and school days.
"I like my new teacher, that's why I'm happy," Suzanna told her mother at the end of the first school day.
"I saw her," said Maizie, who was a pupil at public school for the second year. "She holds her arm funny."
Suzanna flushed darkly. "She's beautiful," she averred; "she's my teacher."
"But didn't you see her arm?"
"No," said Suzanna, "I did not."
Maizie cried out triumphantly: "Well, that's the first time you didn't see something I saw."
Suzanna did not answer. She could not voice her emotions.
"Well, I don't want you or anyone in the whole world even to notice Miss Smithson's arm," she flung out, and so Maizie was silenced.
Suzanna glanced through the window.
"Why there's father," cried Suzanna; "I wonder why he's coming home so early?"
Mr. Procter came hurriedly down the path, pushed open the front door, and with no word sprang up the stairs. To the attic, the children knew.
"He must have thought of something to do to The Machine," said Maizie.
"Yes," Suzanna answered; "whenever he has that still look on his face he has a new idea."
"Someone must be taking his place at the store," said Mrs. Procter. "I'm glad the baby's asleep. Be very quiet, children. Father may have a splendid thought—why there, he's coming downstairs again."
He entered the kitchen at once, his face aglow.
"Just the turn of a screw!" he exclaimed. He spoke directly to his wife. "Oh, my dear, it's coming on. Nearly ready to show to John Massey."
"Oh, I am happy for you," she cried.
He spoke to Suzanna and Maizie: "Would you chicks like to take a walk down town with me?" He fumbled in his pocket. "Here's a ticket good for ten dishes of ice cream." He held up a small card.
"Oh, daddy, where did you get it?" cried Maizie.
"From Raymond Cunningham, leading druggist," he announced slowly. "His soda fountain was out of order and I fixed it for him. I didn't want money for a small act of kindness, so he issued this ticket to me."
The children were delighted. Mrs. Procter smiled too. In generosity of spirit, she forbore to point out to her husband the fact that Raymond Cunningham was known from one end of the town to the other as one who would "skin a gnat for its teeth."
Without doubt the man now beaming upon his little daughters had saved the druggist a bill of ten dollars for which he had issued a ticket worth sixty cents!
But she simply smiled, and going to her husband she brushed an imaginary dust speck from his coat. He caught her hand.
"Wait, Dear One, till the invention is ready," he said; "all shall give homage to my wife."
She did not answer him in words, but he seemed satisfied with the silence. Such moments of love, of high hope, were beautiful to both.
The little group started away for their trip to town.
Just as they reached the drug store, Suzanna pulled her father's sleeve. She was all excitement.
"See, daddy," she cried, "that tall lady dressedin black standing near the lamp post is Miss Smithson, my new teacher."
"Well, let's go and say a word to her," suggested Mr. Procter, easily.
"Oh, father, I don't think she talks outside of school," said Suzanna, her voice falling. She fell into prim step as they neared Miss Smithson.
Miss Smithson, seeing Suzanna, smiled.
"This is my father," said Suzanna proudly.
"I should know that at once by the close resemblance," returned Miss Smithson.
"Yes, Suzanna and I do look alike," said Mr. Procter, "and I think I've sold tacks to you." He rarely failed to speak of his work. He was so exalted a being, Suzanna thought glowingly, that he lifted his daily labor to the dignity of a fine art. People must think so too, because they always looked closer at him when he spoke of weighing nails, or wrapping wringers and washboards.
"We were going on to the drug store for some ice cream. Will you join us?" asked Mr. Procter of Miss Smithson.
Suzanna's face went white as she waited Miss Smithson's answer. Teachers, being purely ethereal she felt, never descended to the discussion of materialities. She wondered at her father's overlooking this truth.
But, "Thank you," said the teacher, very calmly.
So together they all entered the corner drug store, Suzanna still very quiet. Mr. Procter found a table large enough to accommodate them all. Suzanna sat next to Maizie.
"I'm going to have a chocolate ice cream soda," whispered Maizie.
"No, you can't, Maizie," Suzanna returned in an agony; "take lemon ice cream soda."
"But I don't like it."
"Well, that doesn't matter, Maizie. Chocolate is too dark; and besides you smear it all over your lips and it looks dreadful; pale lemon ice cream soda is sweet looking. We must do something to honor Miss Smithson, who's here just because she wouldn't hurt father's feelings."
But Maizie looked belligerent.
Suzanna's temper threatened to flame forth. With a mighty effort she controlled it. She turned to her father. "Father, don't you think Maizie had better have lemon ice cream soda?" she asked.
"Anything she wants; anything she wants," Mr. Procter answered and not lowering his voice, even in Miss Smithson's presence: "What do you think you'll have, Suzanna?"
"I'll have a lemon ice cream soda," said Suzanna primly. And she had difficulty in restraining her tears when Maizie deliberately gave her command for chocolate ice cream soda. When the orders came Suzanna scarcely touched her glass. Covertly she watched Miss Smithson; she saw, how daintily that lady ate her plain vanilla ice cream; perhaps, after all, even teachers found it necessary to find some subsistence and Miss Smithson had hit upon ice cream as the most aesthetic. At least Suzanna was forced to believe this in her endeavor to keep intact her ideal of Miss Smithson.
Then Miss Smithson said in a pleasant, every-day voice:
"I'm glad to have this opportunity, Mr. Procter, of asking you if Suzanna may take part in an Indian Drill I expect to give at school next month."
"Why, I can see no reason against her taking part," said Mr. Procter. "You would enjoy such an occasion, would you not, Suzanna?"
"She will need an outfit," Miss Smithson went on, treading delicately, since in part she guessed the state of the Procter finances and she wished to be very sure before implicating Suzanna in any embarrassing situation, "including dancing slippers, though I may be able to rent the Indiancostumes from a masquerader in the city, and then the cost will be lessened."
"That will be all right," said Mr. Procter immediately. "Just tell us the clothes she will need and her mother will get them."
"That's very nice," said Miss Smithson, though she felt still a little uneasy.
"When will the affair take place?" Mr. Procter asked.
"On the fifteenth of October. We have ample time for rehearsals."
A little later Miss Smithson shook hands with Suzanna's father, murmuring something conventional about his being fortunate in the possession of such an interesting family. Then she was gone.
The children, bidding father good-bye, hastened on home. They burst into the house, anxious to tell mother all about the meeting with Miss Smithson.
Mrs. Procter listened interestedly. "And father said I might take part in the Indian Drill," said Suzanna. "I shall have to have an outfit perhaps and dancing shoes."
"What did father say about that?" asked Mrs. Procter, an anxious little frown growing between her eyes.
"He said you would get them for me," Suzannareturned. She, too, looked a little anxiously at her mother. "But Miss Smithson said perhaps she could hire the Indian costumes."
Mrs. Procter's expression lightened.
"Well, perhaps she can," she said.
"And if she can't, mother?" Suzanna breathlessly awaited the answer.
"Well, we'll manage some way."
And Suzanna was satisfied.
A week later Mr. Procter returned home, carrying a mysterious looking parcel.
"For you, Suzanna," he said, his eyes sparkling. "But let's not open it until after supper."
Suzanna reluctantly put the package to one side. That supper would never end that evening she had a firm conviction.
And yet the end was reached, and she was opening the package, attended by the entire family. At last her eager eyes swept the contents, and her little beating heart for the moment palpitated strangely in her throat, for there lay a pair of shoes.
"Shoes," said Mr. Procter, "for you to wear in the Indian Drill. I saw them thrown out in a little booth when I went into Lane's shoe shop for a piece of leather to be made into washers. They really were marked at so ridiculously low a figurethat I thought at once we could surely afford them for Suzanna. They are, I should judge, the very thing for the Indian Drill."
To all of which Suzanna listened gravely. Her heart had gone back to its normal rhythm, but her eyes could not leave the atrocities lying before her. Truly, they were of fine leather, but with their high French heels, and flat gilt buttons, they might have been in style when Suzanna's mother was a very little girl, and, to be really candid, they would have lain under the anathema of being out of date even then. But over and beyond the painful vintage of the shoes was the fact that Miss Smithson had announced that all the girls taking part in the Indian Drill should wear the same kind of shoes. She had gone farther and told the children that the right kind of shoes could be obtained at Bryson's for a dollar and forty-eight cents a pair, a really reduced price because fourteen pairs were to be purchased. She had finished by giving the children the number to be called for, "A-14116." Suzanna knew the number well; she had repeated it mentally over and over again.
Finally Suzanna found her voice. "They're very nice, daddy," she said.
"Yes, they are very nice," he said. "See, you can turn them up. They're as soft as a kid glove."
"Well, since you've bought the shoes," said Mrs. Procter, "and probably at a very reasonable figure—" she paused, and Mr. Procter finished:
"Yes, they were only forty-eight cents, a remarkable bargain, I think."
"Remarkable," said Mrs. Procter, picking them up. "Why, I believe they're a handmade shoe! Well," she went on, "since the shoes are accounted for, I think if I have to I can quite easily manage the rest of the outfit."
Suzanna's heart sank lower. She only wondered miserably if her mother, seeing a piece of inexpensive goods of almost any shade, and finding a pattern easy to manage, would make up what she thought would do quite well for the Indian Drill costume. Then her thoughts returned to the shoes. Perhaps after all they wouldn't fit! She was enabled by that emancipating thought to turn a happier face to her father and again to thank him.
But alas, the shoes fitted perfectly.
"I think," said Suzanna desperately, "that perhaps they're a little bit too small—narrow, I mean."
"Do they hurt you?" asked her mother.
Suzanna had to confess that they didn't hurt.
"They certainly make your foot look very nice and slender," said her father.
Well, Suzanna thought miserably, she should have to wear them, and in that belief all interest in the Indian Drill left her. She simply couldn't, she felt, take her lead on the eventful day wearing those shoes. Every eye in the audience, she knew, would be fixed upon them, so different from those of the other girls, so terribly old-fashioned, as instinctively she sensed them to be.
Mrs. Procter carefully wrapped the bargains in the original tissue paper. She was happy in the thought that her little daughter was provided with a pretty and appropriate pair of dancing shoes.
But it was very perfunctorily that Suzanna went through the ensuing rehearsals at school. Her spirits were not lifted even when Miss Smithson announced that the costumes were to be obtained through a masquerader at the small cost of twenty-five cents for each pupil. But at length, the child's natural persevering force had its way, and she set her mind to studying the question of how to avoid wearing the unsuitable shoes and still preserve her father's confidence in his own good judgment. Usually she asked no help, working alone on the problems which assailed her, but suddenly the thought of her friend Drusilla came to her. She would ask Drusilla what she thought about the matter.
One afternoon immediately after school, Suzanna, taking Maizie with her, went to call on Drusilla. Twice since her first visit in July she had gone to the little home, but on both occasions Drusilla had been ill, unable to see anyone. But today the pleasant faced maid admitted the children.
"Go right up to the attic," she said. "Mrs. Bartlett is there looking over some old trunks."
In the attic, a tiny place with slanting roof and unfinished walls, the children found Mrs. Bartlett, sitting on the floor beside a huge, overflowing trunk. Old-fashioned dresses, high-heeled satin slippers, dancing programs, painted fans, were all heaped together.
"We've come to see you, Drusilla," said Suzanna at once. "I've been twice before, but you didn't know it. This is my sister, Maizie. I've got a very important question to ask you."
Drusilla rose from the floor. "I'm glad to see you both. I've often thought of you, Suzanna.Close the lid of that trunk and sit on it and your little sister Maizie can sit in that old easy chair in the corner. That is, if you want to stay up here in the attic."
Suzanna looked about her. The attic was rather sad-looking, she thought, not full of its own importance as the one at home, but still, very interesting. Old portraits hung on the slanting walls. In corners were piles of old furniture looking strangely lifelike in the shadows.
"We'd rather stay up here, Drusilla," she said. "And we'll stay a long time with you, if you like."
"Very good," said Drusilla. She drew forth a low rocker and seated herself.
Suzanna suddenly remembered her manners. "Perhaps we shouldn't have come today anyway," she said. "You were busy with your trunk when we came up."
"I was just looking over some old dresses and relics I've kept for many years," said Drusilla. "There's a dress in there," she said, "that I wore when as a young girl I lived with my parents way back across the ocean."
"A big city?" asked Maizie. "Not like Anchorville?"
"A big city," returned Drusilla. "You see that glass case in the corner? Go and look at it."
Suzanna and Maizie sprang up and went to the dusky corner. On a table stood the glass case, and under it was an apple, a pear, a bunch of grapes, and a banana, all made of wax.
"That came from the city across the water," said Drusilla. "It was given to my grandmother by our old herb woman."
The children left the wax fruit and went and stood quite close to Drusilla. "What's an old herb woman?" asked Maizie, interestedly.
"Why, she was our doctor in those days. She had an old shop buried away in a part of the town that we reached by crossing a canal. Many is the time my grandmother took me to that old shop with its rows of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling; with its old worn corners, and its barrel of white cocoanut oil standing near the door. Oh, I loved that place. I loved the smell of the herbs and I loved the little old woman who could brew teas from her herbs that would cure any ailment in the world, I thought. And then right next to the old herb shop was a pawn shop with three tarnished golden balls above the door."
"A pawn shop?" The children wanted to know the meaning of that kind of shop.
"A shop," said Drusilla, warming to her keen audience, "to which you could bring anything,from a worn out dress to a piece of jewelry, and get money for it and a ticket. And if you wanted the dress or the jewelry back again, then you brought the ticket and the money and a little interest.
"The old pawn shop was a landmark. It had stood next to the herb shop, my grandmother told me, for a hundred years; during all these years owned by the same family. When I was a little girl a woman kept the shop. She was very tall, very thin, with quantities of black hair braided and wound round and round her head. She wore always a Paisley shawl of faded colors, and her hair coiled as it was made me think always of a crown.
"The shop was long and narrow and full of wonderful rare, old curios—old violins, cameos, and uncut stones. I was allowed to go all over the shop; to open quaint cases, to go upstairs and out upon an old gallery and to lift from their drawers silken crapes, and to find, buried away, whispering sea-shells and crystal bottles, and irregular pieces of blue-veined marble and alabaster. Oh, the happy, thrilling hours I spent in that place! My grandmother told me that scholars came from every part of the country to see this tucked-away, historic old pawn shop."
Drusilla paused, but in a moment to the children's relief she went on: "Then on a quite busy street, back this side of the canal, the side we lived on, was a large place called an ovenry. And there we sent our bread to be baked."
The children's eyes widened.
"Yes," went on Drusilla, "we put our dough to rise at home, made it into little loaves, pricked our initial—or some other distinguishing mark—on top when it lay in its pans, and then a big red-faced man with a wagon drawn by a donkey called for our bread. Once my grandmother let me ride with him, and I stayed all afternoon in his ovenry, though the fire from the big ovens made it uncomfortably hot. I watched him and his helpers put the pans of bread on big shovels and heave them into yawning caves of flames. When they were finished, another red-faced man delivered them baked brown, and smoking, to the customers. We paid a penny a loaf for having our bread baked."
"Oh, and that saved you buying so much coal, didn't it?" asked Maizie. "I wish we had an ovenry in Anchorville."
"Yes," said Drusilla, "I think, myself, some of these old-fashioned ideas were economical."
"There isn't a pawn shop anywhere near, isthere?" asked Suzanna. She was thinking about the shoes and what a blessing it would be to dispose of them.
"I don't believe so," Drusilla answered. "Anyway, there couldn't be another like that wonderful shop of my youth."
There ensued a silence. Suddenly leaning forward, Suzanna began very earnestly:
"Drusilla, I have a very important question to ask you. Which would you rather do, be honest or suffer?"
"Be honest or suffer?" repeated Drusilla. "I don't quite understand."
"Well, you see, it's this way," said Suzanna. "Now, Maizie, I see you're listening with your eyes wide open, and I want to tell you now that you mustn't say anything to father of what I'm going to tell Drusilla." Having delivered this ultimatum, she went on and told of the Indian Drill and of the costumes, and then of her father's recent purchase of the shoes. "I can't tell daddy that the shoes would be different from everybody's else," she said, "because it will hurt his feelings. But, oh, Drusilla! My heart jumps into my throat when I think of wearing those shoes so different from everyone else's."
"The shoes cost forty-eight cents," elaboratedMaizie, "and so you can see Suzanna has to wear them whether she likes them or not."
"Yes," said Suzanna, "forty-eight cents is very near to half a dollar and we can't afford to lose that. I thought, Drusilla, that you could give me some advice. That's all I want, just that you tell me which is best, to be honest or to suffer. You told me once about the little silver chain and that has helped me a lot."
Drusilla looked puzzled. "The silver chain?" she asked.
"Yes, don't you remember that day you were queen and told me about the chain?" asked Suzanna.
In a second a remarkable change came over the old lady. She rose to her feet. Then she turned to Suzanna, her shoulders straight and her head held high.
"My crown," she demanded. "Is that to be lifted from me in these the full years of my queenhood?"
"I've never seen you with a crown on," said Suzanna.
"Enough, serf!" cried the queen haughtily. "Procure me my crown." Suzanna looked about her. An old dried-up Christmas wreath hanging on a rafter attracted her attention. Quickly sheprocured it and held it out to Drusilla. "Here is your crown, Queen," she said. And then, her voice changing, she said: "You'd better let me put it on, Drusilla, it's liable to crumble if you're not careful. Lower your head, please."
The old lady did so and Suzanna placed the crown upon the silver hair.
"Now," said the old lady, "if you have sought me to gain advice, repeat your question, that I may answer in a manner worthy my exalted station."
"Well," said Suzanna for the third time, "I want to know whether it's best to be honest or to suffer?"
"What shall be your course if you are honest?" asked the queen.
Suzanna pondered. "I think I'll tell daddy, perhaps tonight," she said at last, "that to wear the shoes will hurt my feelings dreadfully; that I tremble when I think of being the only girl in the drill without low shoes with two straps. Something like moccasins. If I tell daddy this, then I'll be honest."
"And if you decide to suffer?"
"Then I'll wear the shoes at the drill and from the time I put them on till the drill is over, I'll be full of pain. I'll know that everybody will be justlooking at my feet, and I'll not enjoy the dance one bit."
The queen knit her brows. Then her answer came: "Be not honest in the way you describe, neither suffer."
"But, Drusilla," Suzanna objected, "I don't understand."
"And can you not be brave?" asked the queen with a note of scorn in her voice. "Is it left to one who feels the time approaching when she will be deposed from her throne and all she holds dear, alone to have courage?" She looked straight into Suzanna's dark eyes. "Your father knows joy in thinking he has given you your heart's desire. Why, then, hurt him by telling him that the shoes are not your desire? Why not, with head held high, lead the dance you speak of, and forget shoes, and remember only the movement of the dance, the lilt of the music?"
"Is that bravery?" asked Suzanna.
"The greatest bravery," returned the queen, "will be to say to yourself, 'Am I so poor a maid that I cannot by the very beauty of my dancing keep the eyes of the watchers lifted clear above my shoes? For shoes, what are shoes? Leather and wood. Inanimate, unthinkingstuff!They are not worth one heart pang, one moment ofmisery to me or mine. ButI, I am alive. I can see and think and understand. I can go so joyously through the mazes of the dance that the watchers may forget their sordid cares.'"
Suzanna, listening, was carried away. She cried with eager response: "Why the night of the Indian Drill I can believe I am a fairy, dancing over snow-topped mountains, and singing, flying clear up into the clouds!"
"You might fall, Suzanna," said Maizie, "you know you haven't wings."
But on this occasion Suzanna was not to be recalled to earth, and besides in her queen's interested, understanding face, she felt a quick fellowship to the spirit that dwelt within her.
And then breaking harshly into the wonder of this moment came the tinkle, tinkle of the electric bell.
"Oh," cried Maizie, "someone is coming."
"I shall brook no intruders," cried the queen.
"No matter who it is?" asked Suzanna.
"No matter who it is. I desire to be alone with my court. However, you can peep over the banisters and see who dares come thus upon us."
Suzanna went to the top of the stairs. The maid was ushering in a lady and a boy.
"Go right upstairs," Suzanna heard the maidsay. "Mrs. Bartlett's in the attic with two of the Procter children."
The visitors appeared at the top of the stairs and paused to glance in.
The lady was beautifully dressed, quite exquisitely, from the dainty little toque upon her haughty head to her small gray cloth shoes. Her eyes, flashing from pansy shades to lightest blue, were cold. Her white skin seemed to hold no possibility of color. Yet, even as she stood, the milk of it turned to rose when Drusilla gazed at her with no warmth of recognition in her glance.
The boy, about twelve, Suzanna surmised correctly, stood forward. There was some of his mother's haughtiness in his bearing, a great deal of her beauty. But added to both, a rare, high look as though always he were seeking what lay beyond his grasp, and perhaps his comprehension. He seemed altogether like a child whose emotional values did not stand clear. He gazed half prayerfully at his grandmother, as though asking and bestowing at the same time.
Breaking into the embarrassing silence, Suzanna spoke:
"Drusilla has her crown on," she said. "You see, she's a queen now, and she's been answering some questions of mine."
The lady in the doorway looked at Suzanna meditatively. Then she spoke directly to Drusilla.
"May I come in, mother?" she asked. "You see I've brought Graham."
Drusilla began: "Court was in session. However, I shall be glad to have you remain." The boy, who had remained quiet, now spoke.
"Oh, bully, mother; grandmother's playing again. I want to stay."
But his mother put out a detaining hand as he attempted to enter the attic.
"No—we can't stay now—" She spoke directly again to Drusilla. "We'll come again—when you are more—yourself."
In a moment she was gone down the stairs, leaving after her a soft fragrance. The boy obediently followed her. In the hall below she encountered the maid. She whispered a few hurried words before taking her departure.
The maid went up immediately into the attic.
Drusilla was again talking eloquently while Suzanna and Maizie stood listening spellbound.
"I think," said the maid, breaking in quietly but firmly, "that you little girls had better go home now. Mrs. Bartlett is tired and I want her to lie down."
She approached the queen. "Come, Mrs. Bartlett," she said, "you must rest now." She raised her hand as though to remove the crown of faded leaves.
"What means this sacrilege?" cried the queen, stepping backward.
"She likes to wear her crown when she's a queen," said Suzanna, much distressed.
"But she can't lie down in her crown, you know, little girl, it will hurt her."
"Well, that's true, Drusilla," Suzanna conceded. "Will you put your head down and I'll take the crown off very carefully and we'll put it away for another day."
The queen obediently lowered her silver head to Suzanna. Suzanna very carefully removed the wreath and hung it on its old nail.
"Iamtired," said the old lady, now in a voice that trembled a little. "But you'll come again soon, won't you?" she asked, appealing to Suzanna.
"Yes, just as soon as I can," said Suzanna. "Come, Maizie. Good-bye, Drusilla, and thank you very much for helping me."
Drusilla brightened. "That's nice, to know that I can still help someone," she said.
The great house stood on a hilltop quite two miles from the station, and cut into the immense iron door standing guard to the grounds was the name "Bartlett Villa."
Here for a small part of the year the Graham Woods Bartletts lived. The family consisted of mother, father, and son, named for his father. In the city another house as large and more palatial received the family when they tired of the country home.
Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett held large interests in the Massey Steel Mills. That he might be on the ground part of the time he had built Bartlett Villa. In his heart he loved the small town. It was like a retreat to him to come back to its quiet after feverish hours spent in the crowded city. Here he seemed to recall in part a few of his vanished dreams—those dreams so bright, so well-nigh impossible of fulfillment, which as a young man fresh from college he had cherished. While young, he met and loved thegirl he married. That she had visions he perfectly believed. That her visions were unworthy no power then could have made him believe. She came from an impecunious family whose lineage was older and greater than his. How she could have thought the high-browed, sensitive-faced young man the one who could fulfill her grasping desires is not to be fathomed. She had believed so, and he did bring to pass all her aspirations. That in doing so he killed his finest ideals mattered not.
Young Graham, too, was always glad when the time came for a stay at Bartlett Villa in Anchorville. He loved the big upstanding elms; loved the many gardens, and the flaunting flowers. He loved the two people who belonged properly in the environs of Bartlett Villa—old Nancy, who had been his mother's nurse and his own, and David, the gardener, with his little daughter Daphne.
Nancy, old, with hard rosy cheeks, was still so real. She worked and sang, loved and sometimes resented on behalf of those whom she served. Often, when quite a little boy, Graham would seek her in the old nursery of the city home and climb into her lap, rest his curly head against her loving breast, and sometimes contentedly fall asleep.
He never so cuddled with his mother, no matter how fervent the longings that filled his heart. She was always finely dressed; and her eyes were never for him alone. They were fixed on some distant and glittering goal, quite beyond the boy's understanding.
Then there was David, big of stature, big of mind. David, given over to many long, silent periods, because David had lost a loved and cherished one.
There were times when David would take Graham with him on long rambles, and then he would talk. He knew everything about the birds, their habits, their peculiarities, their fears, and their courage. He put into Graham a great love for the little creatures. Often together near a nest they would stand, and, scarce breathing, watch the first lesson given by a mother bird to a frightened young one.
"She's greater, that mother, than some humans," David said once, when they were on their way home.
"Why?" asked Graham, interestedly.
"Well," said David, slowly, "we most of us hold on too long when it's time for those we love to try their wings."
"You wouldn't hold on, would you, David?"asked Graham, his boyish eyes upturned in perfect faith to his friend.
"I might, Graham; human nature is weak and wants always its own."
Upon reaching home Graham would ask: "Will you have time to go riding this afternoon, David?"
And David would answer: "Perhaps, my lad, if there's not too much work in the gardens."
Once Graham asked: "Why do you do such work, David? You could be in the city making lots of money." Thus Graham, who through heritage had been innoculated with that thought, that money meant everything.
And David had turned with a swift gesture: "Why should I mistreat my spirit, kill my brightest self trying for money, young Graham? Here among my flowers, working in the soil, I find time to think."
Graham looked strangely at David. Time to think! On what? Well he knew that David would tell him some day, and then he would weigh in his own mind the question of whether it were wise to work hard at something that took all your time in order to make lots of money; or to work at something that while you worked gave you time to think and grow.
David had an uncanny way of knowing another's thoughts. "It's not altogether what you work at, lad," he said, "it's what your ideals of life are." And turning, he left Graham to ponder.
On the day that he and his mother had paid the visit to his grandmother in the attic, the boy's mind was deeply concerned with the scene he had witnessed in his grandmother's attic. He envied the Procter children, since there grew in his imagination the treasure a grandmother could be. She probably knew "bully" stories of long-ago days. Certainly as she stood, crowned, she seemed the best sort of a playfellow, since she could pretend as well as any child.
His mother drove him home and then went to pay a call in a near town. He had gone directly to his own room. A telegrapher's outfit, in which he was then greatly interested, needed his attention. He was anxious to resume work on it; still his undermind, even as he drew forth the machine and began to work, was busy.
Suddenly he remembered the time last year when his mother had made elaborate preparations for an extended sojourn in the South. They were then in their city home. He had ardently wished that she would decide to take him with her, butthe thought evidently did not occur to her. He had said good-bye to her with a strange, empty feeling at his heart.
And then quite unexpectedly she had returned, her contemplated stay cut enchantingly short. She had talked with him, taken long walks with him, even accompanied him to several ball games.
For a month she had been a friend, a good friend interested in boyish sports, in active games, and once in an open moment she had asked him if he had ever been lonely.
He answered, not wishing to hurt her: "Sometimes, when you stayed for months in Italy. But I was only a very small boy then. Father had to be away most of the time too, and the tutor you got for me wouldn't allow me to talk with other children until he knew all about where their fathers and mothers came from and how much money they had."
She was touched. She meant then to see that her boy should have more of the normal boy life of fun and roughness.
But gradually her old desire for social leadership pressed in on her. And it took all her time and energy to dress, to entertain, to outdo her social rivals. And Graham went his own way again, only wishing that it was not necessary forboth father and mother to be so occupied with outside interests that they had little time for their one child.
After a time he left his machine to look out of the window, and as he stood, he saw his mother. She had left her small runabout, and David was leading the horse to the stables.
He saw her enter the house. In a moment he heard her talking in her sweet voice to one of the servants before she mounted the stairs to her own room. She would then, Graham knew, be in the hands of her maid for a long time, since she was giving a formal dinner party that evening.
When the shadows were lengthening Graham left his room and wandered aimlessly around the house. Finally he reached the kitchen, where he sat for a time, watching the imported French chef's noble efforts for the coming dinner, efforts that must result in the wide proclamation of Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett as an original hostess. But in the kitchen it was made manifest that Graham's presence was not welcome. At last, feeling this truth, he left.
The maid, coming from his mother's room and meeting him in the hall, told him that his dinner was to be served at six in his own room. "Your mother thought you'd like that," she finished.
Graham nodded without speaking and went on once more to his own room. He felt lonely, dispirited. Old Nancy, to whom he might have turned, had gone to her old home to visit some grandchildren. David, he knew, would be very busy.
At six the boy's dinner was brought, and with the hearty appetite of boyhood he ate. Afterwards he read a little, and then, feeling tired, he concluded to retire. But he did not go to sleep at once. Occasionally he heard interesting sounds from below, music from a string orchestra, laughter of women, and the bass voices of men.
At nine o'clock he was still lying awake when he heard a little running step outside his door. Out of an impulse he called softly, "Mother."
Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett, on her way to her private safe for a piece of jade she wished to show one of her guests, paused at the call. Then she pushed open Graham's door, which was slightly ajar, and went in. Graham sat up. By the glow of a small electric light near his bed he could plainly see his mother. She was a beautiful vision in her soft white gown, quite untouched by any color, her hair piled high upon her small, finely shaped head.
"Did you call me, Graham?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, "I wanted to see you all dressed."
She went quickly and sat on the edge of the bed. "Did they serve you a nice dinner, Graham?" she asked.
He nodded. "Very nice," he answered.
"I thought you'd be asleep long ago," she said. "Otherwise I should have looked in on you."
"I couldn't sleep," he answered. Then impulsively: "Mother, I know you have to go downstairs again soon, but I've been thinking so much of grandmother. Wouldn't it be possible to have her come to live here with us? We've got such a big house, and she must be very lonely."
She drew herself a little away from him. "Perhaps I haven't explained to you, Graham," she said, "that your grandmother is given to periods of hallucinations. That is, she has peculiar fancies, one of them being that she thinks herself a queen."
"Well, does it hurt if she does think she's a queen?" asked the boy.
"In this way it does. It's not pleasant to have in close proximity one who isn't what is called just normal. I think she is much better cared for as she is and in her own home. You'll admit it would be very unpleasant if she lived here, andappeared before guests in one of her unnatural moods."
"But she is lonely," persisted the boy, sticking to the one line of thought that had remained with him all afternoon, and had aroused his mind to dwell insistently upon his grandmother. "You don't mind, mother, do you, then since she can't come here, if I go to see her often?" He hesitated before continuing: "Father told me he wished I would, as he hasn't the time to do so."
"Of course, you may go to see her, Graham, if you like. I didn't know you cared so much."
She rose from the bed and walked away to the window, looking through its leaded panes to where she knew lay the broad road leading out into the country with farm houses and plowed fields. After a moment she turned to gaze at the little lad who still sat up in his bed; who still regarded her with wide eyes very much like her own, but holding a depth and a promise that hers did not seem to hold.
"Perhaps it's not the proper time to tell you now, Graham," she said, "but I think I might as well do so. I'm making arrangements to leave for Italy some time soon."
"To be gone long, mother?" asked the boy.
"Well, for three months anyway. I met someinteresting people there on my last trip and they have invited me to pay them a prolonged visit," she said.
Graham did not answer at first. Then: "I suppose you'd better go downstairs now, mother," he said.
His mother left the window. Passing the bed she once more paused and looked down at him.
"Well, little son," she said at last, "good night. I've been up here an outrageous time." She put her arms around his small shoulders and drew him to her.
But for the first time in his short life she felt no response in her child. Indeed, she recognized his withdrawal from her, more poignant in its effect upon her because it was unconscious on his part. In that one moment the instinct of motherhood leapt full within her, a sudden bewildering emotion, totally new to her in its aliveness, its vividness. And then cold truth swept in on her that by some act she had wiped from his young heart in one moment his ideal of her.
She sank on her knees beside his bed, realizing dimly how great a crown his love had been. After an appreciable length of time, his hand crept out and rested a second lightly on her arm, and at the touch she raised her head. "I've disappointed you, Graham," she said. He did not answer. She waited, and then as he was still silent she rose. She shook her unwonted mood from her and her face hardened into its habitual brilliance.
"Good night, Graham," she said and went away.
Miss Smithson had had years of experience with children. She knew their sensitiveness, their capacity for suffering through those incidents which adults term trifles.
She had questioned Suzanna with much adroit delicacy concerning the shoes, and had elicited the story of the father's purchase. Though she read correctly the child's real shrinking from the thought of being the cynosure of many amused eyes, she felt herself helpless.
That one odd pair of shoes in the company of participating children! In imagination Miss Smithson visualized the unsuccessful efforts of their owner to hide them, to find her place in the background. The kind-hearted teacher really suffered in her anticipation of Suzanna's pain.
So when the great night arrived and the music sounded the approach of the Indian maidens, Miss Smithson, sitting in the front row beside Suzanna's parents, kept her eyes steadfastly lowered. At length, not hearing the expected tittersfrom children in the audience, she found her courage and looked up. Her eyes were immediately drawn to Suzanna's face and rested there.
For pictured there in place of depression, self-pity, troubling self-consciousness, she found sparkle and joy. Miss Smithson gasped in astonishment and relief. With perfect abandon Suzanna moved through the dance; she seemed as one quite set apart from her companions; and so she was.
All that Drusilla had told her lived with her, inspiring her, lifting her beyond mere mortals. She might have been frolicing upon a cloud in her little bare feet, so far away from her consciousness was the thought of the shoes.
The dance ended, and with flushed cheeks and heart beating happily, Suzanna took her seat. The applause lasted a long time.
Then came a recitation and a piano solo given by a greatly embarrassed boy, though certainly a greatly talented one. Suzanna recognizing his anguish felt very sorry for him. She wished he had had a Drusilla to advise him, to make him see that he was for the time greater than his audience. That he had music in his soul. She understood now that the greatest gift was to forget yourself and love your art so much that it reigned supreme.
Then looking out at the people seated before her, she recognized that they werekind. That they had come not to criticize, but to enjoy and to acclaim. She felt growing within her heart a great love for all humanity.
Her eyes sought out her father's. Just in front he sat, looking up at her, his eyes filled with pride. She had made him happy. Her heart was very full.
Her eyes after a time went again over the audience. And behind her father sat a boy, the one she had seen at Drusilla's. His eyes seemed to be searching her face. She smiled at him and he smiled in return.
The evening was over. Suzanna was down in the audience. "Did you like the dance, daddy?" she asked.
"It was beautiful," he answered with gratifying response. "I was very proud of my little girl—and the shoes—I was so glad you could have them—they were the prettiest in the drill."
"I think they were, too," Suzanna answered, with real truth.
Out in the street she saw the boy. He was standing near the gate of the school yard, by his side a tall, dark young man.
"How do you do?" said Suzanna.
He snatched his hat from his head. "Oh, I liked your dance," he said. "This is my tutor," he finished.
"How do you do," said Suzanna politely to the young man. She wondered what a tutor was. Then to the boy: "Drusilla's your grandmother, isn't she?"
"Yes; do you live in this town?"
"Yes, right down that road. Your big house was closed for three years, wasn't it—since I was a little girl of five. That's why we haven't seen one another, I suppose." Then: "How did you think of coming to the Indian Drill?"
"Why, one of the school trustees had to see my father on business and he spoke about the entertainment. I thought I'd like to see it."
"Well, I'm glad you came. Good-bye."
A carriage drew up. The boy and his companion stepped into it and were driven off.
"That's young Graham Woods Bartlett," said Mrs. Procter as they started home. "They live in the big house on the top of the hill. This is the first time it's been open for some years."
"And Drusilla's his grandmother," said Suzanna. "He's an awful nice boy."
"His father and old John Massey are business associates," put in Mr. Procter.
"Such a fine big house to be occupied only a few months of the year, and then not every year," put in Mrs. Procter. "And they rarely stay so late in the season as they're staying this year—way into October."
"I'll take Maizie and Peter and go and see him tomorrow," said Suzanna.
"Oh, Suzanna, I don't believe—" began Mrs. Procter. Then sensing immediately that her small daughter would be totally unable to understand social distinctions, she did not finish her sentence.
So it was that the next afternoon right after school, Suzanna, who never lost time in carrying out a resolve, prepared for her visit.
"I wonder where Peter is?" Mrs. Procter asked.
As if in answer to his mother's question, Peter opened the kitchen door. He wore primarily a guilty expression. His hat was on one side of his head, the suit which two seasons before he had outgrown, was short in the legs, tight as to chest, and there was a very symphony of entreaty in his eyes. By a frayed string he held a stray dog, the fourth one since spring.
Mrs. Procter looked at him sternly. As mothers do, she took in with one glance Peter's prayerful attitude and the appealing one of the shrinking animal.
"You take that dog right away and lose it!" she commanded.
"Oh, mother," began the small boy entering the kitchen, the dog perforce entering also. "He followed me all the way home and we're awful good friends already. Can't he stay?"
"Not one minute," returned Mrs. Procter. She regarded the animal scornfully. "He's not anybody's dog," she said. "He's simply a stray, and I'm tired of feeding every stray dog that comes into the neighborhood."
Peter turned reluctantly away. "He'll be awful lonely out there," he said, "and he's hungry, too. No lady ever thinks a dog eats. Can't I give him a bone or something before I turn him loose?"
"Take him out on the back porch and give him that soup bone left from supper last night. And then I don't want to see him again. Now, Peter, this time I mean it."
Peter made one last effort. "He's a fine breed, his roof is black," he said. "He'd make an awful good watch dog."
"Well, we really don't need a watch dog," his mother answered, and half smiled.
Maizie, advancing from the dining-room, stared at the intruder on his way out.
"Oh, but this dog has hair, mother," she cried. "You remember one of the others hadn't."
"Hair, or no hair," Mrs. Procter returned determinedly, "that dog is not going to stay in this house. I've had enough of stray animals to last me for quite awhile."
Peter stood holding the rope and still looking at his mother. But his hopeful expression, brought on by Maizie's words, was fast ebbing.
"Hurry up," said Mrs. Procter. "Take him away."
"Can't he stay for one night, mother?"
Suzanna, silent during the colloquy, now spoke.
"Maybe we can find another home for him, Peter. We were just going over to Graham Bartlett's, and perhaps he'd keep the dog. We'll ask his mother," she said.
Peter brightened a trifle at that. He really wanted more than anything in the world to keep that friendly dog. But if he was not to be allowed to do so, finding a good home for it was the next best thing.
So away the children started. It was a long walk, but the October day was cool and exhilarating. The children kicked the fallen leaves before them, and once Peter gave chase to his dog. Maizie sang little tunes, and Suzanna felt new wonderments rising within her at the beauty of the world.
They came at last to the Bartlett home, but no one was about, only several carriages stood in the road. Suzanna swung the big gate wide and with the children following her, and the dog held in Peter's firm grasp, she came to the house, mounted the steps and seeing the carved front door wide open, they all walked in. In the empty hall with the high ceilings they stood a moment embarrassed.
From a side room came sounds of laughter and soft voices. Suzanna turned. Heavy Persian rugs hung at the entrance to this room and Suzanna hesitated one moment. She wished someone were about to direct her. But alas, at this critical moment the hallman had escaped kitchenward. It was Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett's at-home day, and the function in full blast, and as his services might not be required for perhaps half an hour he had flown, believing discovery could not fall upon him.
So Suzanna, Maizie, Peter and the dog stepped within the gorgeous room.
Soft music came enchantingly from a hiddenorchestra, ladies beautifully gowned and bejeweled stood about in graceful postures. Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett attired in a flame-colored velvet gown with a wonderful satin-lined train hanging straight from her shoulders, stood near a table at which two very pretty girls were serving little cups of tea and dainty cakes.
Suzanna, Maizie, and Peter holding tight the frayed rope with the hungry-looking dog on one end, gazed awe stricken at the fairylike scene. At length Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett turned and beheld her late guests.
The children stood irresolute; some expression in Mrs. Bartlett's face halted their advance. That look made Suzanna strangely self-conscious. Maizie was undeniably shy, and Peter with dread at his heart for fear Jerry (a quickly bestowed name that the dog had learned immediately to answer to) might not act in a gentlemanly fashion when he should pass the tea table. With all these different emotions in their hearts, the children finally started across the beautiful room. The ladies fell back from the dog lest in his passage he might touch their gowns, and all gazed in wonder at the small cavalcade. When at last the children stood before Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett, Suzanna spoke, broke into the deadsilence of the room, for even the orchestra had stopped its music.