The Very Small Person. Donnell Annie Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ But a little way farther down Lonesome Road waited something a great deal worse. It was waiting for Margaret behind the schoolhouse stone-wall. The very next day it jumped out upon her.

      Usually at recess Nell – the Enemy – and Margaret had gone wandering away together with their arms around each other’s waist, as happy as anything. But for a week of recesses now they had gone wandering in opposite directions – the Enemy marching due east, Margaret due west. The stone-wall stretched away to the west. She had found a nice lonesome little place to huddle in, behind the wall, out of sight. It was just the place to be miserable in.

      “I know something!” from one of a little group of gossipers on the outside of the wall. “She needn’t stick her chin out an’ not come an’ play with us. She’s nothing but an adopted!”

      “Oh! – a what?” in awestruck chorus from the listeners. “Say it again, Rhody Sharp.”

      “An adopted – that’s all she is. I guess nobody but an adopted need to go trampin’ past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we’re good as she is an’ better, too, so there!”

      Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she breathed with difficulty. If – supposing they meant —

      “Rhody Sharp, you’re fibbing! I don’t believe a single word you say!” sprang forth a champion valiantly. “She’s dreadfully fond of her mother – just dreadfully!”

      “She doesn’t know it,” promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice stabbing poor Margaret’s ear like a sharp little sword. “They’re keeping it from her. My gran’mother doesn’t believe they’d ought to. She says – ”

      But nobody cared what Rhody Sharp’s gran’mother said. A clatter of shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with them – an’ she’d stuck her chin out!

      “Why! Why, then she’s a – orphan!” one voice exclaimed. “Really an’ honest she is – an’ she doesn’t know it!”

      “Oh my, isn’t it awful!” another voice. “Shouldn’t you think she’d hide her head – I mean, if she knew?”

      It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist grass – a little heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on.

      “It’s just like a disgrace, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you s’pose it would feel that way if ’twas you?”

      “Think o’ kissin’ your mother good-night an’ it’s not bein’ your mother?”

      “Say, Rhody Sharp – all o’ you – look here! Do you suppose that’s why her mother – I mean she that isn’t– dresses her in checked aperns? That’s what orphans – ”

      The shorn head dug deeper. A soft groan escaped Margaret’s lips. This very minute, now while she crouched in the grass, – oh, if she put out her hands and felt she would feel the checks! She had been to an orph – to a place once with Moth – with Her and seen the aprons herself. They were all – all checked.

      At home, folded in a beautiful pile, there were all the others. There was the pink-checked one and the brown-checked one and the prettiest one of all, the one with teenty little white checks marked off with buff. The one she should feel if she put out her hand was a blue-checked.

      Margaret drove her hands deep into the matted grass; she would not put them out. It was – it was terrible! Now she understood it all. She remembered – things. They crowded – with capital T’s, Things, – up to her and pointed their fingers at her, and smiled dreadful smiles at her, and whispered to one another about her. They sat down on her and jounced up and down, till she gasped for breath.

      The teacher’s bell rang crisply and the voices changed to scampering feet. But Margaret crouched on in the sweet, moist grass behind the wall. She stayed there a week – a month – a year, – or was it only till the night chill stole into her bones and she crept away home?

      She and Nell – she and the Enemy – had been so proud to have aprons just alike and cut by the same dainty pattern. But now if she knew – if the Enemy knew! How ashamed it would make her to have on one like – like an adopted’s! How she’d wish hers was stripes! Perhaps – oh, perhaps she would think it was fortunate that she was an enemy now.

      But the worst Things that crowded up and scoffed and gibed were not Things that had to do with enemies. The worst-of-all Things had to do with a little, tender woman with glasses on – whose hair didn’t curl. Those Things broke Margaret’s heart.

      “Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it’s wrinkly,” gibed one Thing.

      “And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings,” another Thing.

      “She doesn’t make me do the biggest ones!” flashed Margaret, hotly, but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.

      “Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes – ”

      “And won’t let you eat two pieces of pie – ”

      “Or one piece o’ fruit-cake – ”

      “Maybe you remember now the times she’s said, ‘This is no little daughter of mine’?”

      Margaret turned sharply. “That was only because I was naughty,” she pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn’t “only because.” She knew it was because. The terror within her was growing more terrible every moment.

      Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been lurking in the background waiting its turn, – it was its turn now. Margaret stood quite still, ashamed. She could not name the strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs. Streeter’s and the minister’s and the Enemy’s! – oh, most of all past the Enemy’s! – for fear they’d look out of the window and say, “There goes an adopted!” Perhaps they’d point their fingers. – Margaret closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter’s plump one and the minister’s lean one and the Enemy’s short brown one, all pointing. She could feel something burning her on her forehead, – it was “Adopted,” branded there.

      The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she got to the Enemy’s house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.

      Moth – She That had Been – would be wondering why Margaret was late. If she looked sober out of her eyes and said, “This can’t be my little girl, can it?” then Margaret would know for certain. That would be the final proof.

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