The Complete Short Stories of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Lucy Maud Montgomery

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      Salome looked out of the kitchen window, and a pucker of distress appeared on her smooth forehead.

      “Dear, dear, what has Lionel Hezekiah been doing now?” she murmured anxiously.

      Involuntarily she reached out for her crutch; but it was a little beyond her reach, having fallen on the floor, and without it Salome could not move a step.

      “Well, anyway, Judith is bringing him in as fast as she can,” she reflected. “He must have been up to something terrible this time; for she looks very cross, and she never walks like that unless she is angry clear through. Dear me, I am sometimes tempted to think that Judith and I made a mistake in adopting the child. I suppose two old maids don’t know much about bringing up a boy properly. But he is NOT a bad child, and it really seems to me that there must be some way of making him behave better if we only knew what it was.”

      Salome’s monologue was cut short by the entrance of her sister Judith, holding Lionel Hezekiah by his chubby wrist with a determined grip.

      Judith Marsh was ten years older than Salome, and the two women were as different in appearance as night and day. Salome, in spite of her thirty-five years, looked almost girlish. She was small and pink and flowerlike, with little rings of pale golden hair clustering all over her head in a most unspinster-like fashion, and her eyes were big and blue, and mild as a dove’s. Her face was perhaps a weak one, but it was very sweet and appealing.

      Judith Marsh was tall and dark, with a plain, tragic face and iron-gray hair. Her eyes were black and sombre, and every feature bespoke unyielding will and determination. Just now she looked, as Salome had said, “angry clear through,” and the baleful glances she cast on the small mortal she held would have withered a more hardened criminal than six happy-go-lucky years had made of Lionel Hezekiah.

      Lionel Hezekiah, whatever his shortcomings, did not look bad. Indeed, he was as engaging an urchin as ever beamed out on a jolly good world through a pair of big, velvet-brown eyes. He was chubby and firm-limbed, with a mop of beautiful golden curls, which were the despair of his heart and the pride and joy of Salome’s; and his round face was usually a lurking-place for dimples and smiles and sunshine.

      But just now Lionel Hezekiah was under a blight; he had been caught red-handed in guilt, and was feeling much ashamed of himself. He hung his head and squirmed his toes under the mournful reproach in Salome’s eyes. When Salome looked at him like that, Lionel Hezekiah always felt that he was paying more for his fun than it was worth.

      “What do you suppose I caught him doing this time?” demanded Judith.

      “I — I don’t know,” faltered Salome.

      “Firing — at — a — mark — on — the — henhouse — door — with — new-laid — eggs,” said Judith with measured distinctness. “He has broken every egg that was laid to-day except three. And as for the state of that henhouse door—”

      Judith paused, with an indignant gesture meant to convey that the state of the henhouse door must be left to Salome’s imagination, since the English language was not capable of depicting it.

      “O Lionel Hezekiah, why will you do such things?” said Salome miserably.

      “I — didn’t know it was wrong,” said Lionel Hezekiah, bursting into prompt tears. “I — I thought it would be bully fun. Seems’s if everything what’s fun ‘s wrong.”

      Salome’s heart was not proof against tears, as Lionel Hezekiah very well knew. She put her arm about the sobbing culprit, and drew him to her side.

      “He didn’t know it was wrong,” she said defiantly to Judith.

      “He’s got to be taught, then,” was Judith’s retort. “No, you needn’t try to beg him off, Salome. He shall go right to bed without supper, and stay there till tomorrow morning.”

      “Oh! not without his supper,” entreated Salome. “You — you won’t improve the child’s morals by injuring his stomach, Judith.”

      “Without his supper, I say,” repeated Judith inexorably. “Lionel Hezekiah, go upstairs to the south room, and go to bed at once.”

      Lionel Hezekiah went upstairs, and went to bed at once. He was never sulky or disobedient. Salome listened to him as he stumped patiently upstairs with a sob at every step, and her own eyes filled with tears.

      “Now don’t for pity’s sake go crying, Salome,” said Judith irritably. “I think I’ve let him off very easily. He is enough to try the patience of a saint, and I never was that,” she added with entire truth.

      “But he isn’t bad,” pleaded Salome. “You know he never does anything the second time after he has been told it was wrong, never.”

      “What good does that do when he is certain to do something new and twice as bad? I never saw anything like him for originating ideas of mischief. Just look at what he has done in the past fortnight — in one fortnight, Salome. He brought in a live snake, and nearly frightened you into fits; he drank up a bottle of liniment, and almost poisoned himself; he took three toads to bed with him; he climbed into the henhouse loft, and fell through on a hen and killed her; he painted his face all over with your water-colours; and now comes THIS exploit. And eggs at twenty-eight cents a dozen! I tell you, Salome, Lionel Hezekiah is an expensive luxury.”

      “But we couldn’t do without him,” protested Salome.

      “I could. But as you can’t, or think you can’t, we’ll have to keep him, I suppose. But the only way to secure any peace of mind for ourselves, as far as I can see, is to tether him in the yard, and hire somebody to watch him.”

      “There must be some way of managing him,” said Salome desperately. She thought Judith was in earnest about the tethering. Judith was generally so terribly in earnest in all she said. “Perhaps it is because he has no other employment that he invents so many unheard-of things. If he had anything to occupy himself with — perhaps if we sent him to school—”

      “He’s too young to go to school. Father always said that no child should go to school until it was seven, and I don’t mean Lionel Hezekiah shall. Well, I’m going to take a pail of hot water and a brush, and see what I can do to that henhouse door. I’ve got my afternoon’s work cut out for me.”

      Judith stood Salome’s crutch up beside her, and departed to purify the henhouse door. As soon as she was safely out of the way, Salome took her crutch, and limped slowly and painfully to the foot of the stairs. She could not go up and comfort Lionel Hezekiah as she yearned to do, which was the reason Judith had sent him upstairs. Salome had not been upstairs for fifteen years. Neither did she dare to call him out on the landing, lest Judith return. Besides, of course he must be punished; he had been very naughty.

      “But I wish I could smuggle a bit of supper up to him,” she mused, sitting down on the lowest step and listening. “I don’t hear a sound. I suppose he has cried himself to sleep, poor, dear baby. He certainly is dreadfully mischievous; but it seems to me that it shows an investigating turn of mind, and if it could only be directed into the proper channels — I wish Judith would let me have a talk with Mr. Leonard about Lionel Hezekiah. I wish Judith didn’t hate ministers so. I don’t mind so much her not letting me go to church, because I’m so lame that it would be painful anyhow; but I’d like to talk with Mr. Leonard now and then about some things. I can never believe that Judith and father were right; СКАЧАТЬ