Little Miss By-The-Day Part 18

For a full minute it did not occur to Felicia that the woman was addressing her. And when she knew, she rose slowly, even carefully, so as not to upset the chess-men.

"For two dollars a day--and lunch--" she answered clearly. She hadn't the remotest idea of being impertinent. She was merely literal. The only thing that saved her from Mrs. Alden's mounting wrath was the old man's voice chuckling from his pillows.

"And--" he looked triumphantly at his angry niece-in-law's snapping eyes, "she had to steal the lunch, by the Jumping Jehosophat, she had to steal her lunch! Why don't you feed people, Clara--why don't you?"

"She had a good lunch, I'm sure I instructed the cook to give her a lunch--"

With the annoying cunning of the old he contradicted her. He dearly loved a row with the mistress of the household.

"Cold lamb--" he cackled, "I heard you say cold lamb--"

"Very well, Uncle Peter," said Mrs. Alden tapping her pointed patent leather toe impatiently, "we won't argue. I'll pay the woman and she can go."

Uncle Peter's head dropped pitifully, his bravado ceased abruptly, he became a whining child.

"Don't go, Miss Whadda-you-call-it--I want to finish the game. She can pay you but don't go. It's my house, isn't it?" he fretfully interrogated the nurse, "I guess it's my house yet even if I am half dead. I'm not all dead yet, not by a long shot--"

The nurse stooped over him professionally but he waved her away.

"Sit down, can't you?" he demanded of Felicia, "it's your move."

Felicia sat down, two spots of color burning in her pale cheeks. She extended her hand over the knight again, bowing imperiously to the angry woman. Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes--outside the echoes of the indignant woman's strident voice came across the hallway. She was venting her ill humor on the children noisily returning from their pageant, on the cook, whose frowsy head appeared at the stair landing for dinner orders, on the patient nurse who pattered about on errands.

"--what we're coming to--the trouble is I can't say my soul's my own-- sewing women! Playing chess instead of sewing! The last one couldn't sew and this one won't--" She reprimanded a grocer over the telephone, she sent a child snivelling to her bedroom. But the invalid, his eyes intent on the chess board, paid no heed. He moved cautiously, craftily, he had set his heart on winning. And he was too shrewd for Felicia to dare to pretend to let him win.

The minutes seemed like ages but at length, just as the angry voice was subsiding, the old man straightened victoriously on his pillows.

"Check!" he called buoyantly, "Check!"

Felicia arose.

"You play adroitly," she encouraged him. "And I'm really ra-ther glad I stole your luncheon for here comes your supper. I know you'll be hungry for your supper--"

She was outside the door, as quiet as a shadow, fastening Louisa's old bonnet under her chin, b.u.t.toning the old coat about her; even before Mrs. Alden was at her side she had Babiche under her arm.

"Here's your money," said the woman stiffly.

Felicia shook her head.

"You might as well take it, even if you didn't work full time. Of course, I won't want you to come again."

"No?" Felicia asked with a curious upward inflection.

In the exasperated silence the invalid's voice quavered out to them.

"Miss Whadda-you-call-it!--Call that woman back here, Miss Grant!" She stepped to his door. "I wish you'd come around sometimes," he asked her pleadingly, "I do admire a good game of chess--and it's my house, I tell you, this is my house, even Clara can't say this isn't my house!"

"I'll come sometimes," she promised, "indeed I will--" she stepped back to her abashed employer. "--you aren't making him happy," she murmured pa.s.sionately, "sick people and old people ought to be happy--"

and walked straight down the stairs and out through the ornate gates leaving a discomfited woman behind her.

There were exactly six cents left in the bottom of Louisa's reticule, --it was when Felicia was pa.s.sing a bake shop and saw a child buying currant buns that she knew what to do with them. She went in and bought buns. She walked slowly up her own stairs, pausing outside Maman's door to push the bag of buns back into the niche by the stairway. And stood a moment getting her breath and then reached out her hand.

"Let's pretend--" she murmured under the turmoil of noises--the house was perturbed at suppertime,--"Let's pretend you put them there, Maman--"

Safe in Mademoiselle's room she addressed Babiche firmly.

"That woman, that Mrs. Alden is just a WEED! A weed like the tailor's missus and the rest. Some one ought to pull her right out of Uncle Peter's house! She is worse than a weed! She ought to have to be a by- the-day! And sit in a windy hall and sew and sew. And then some one ought to bring her a tray, with messy napkins and just two pieces of dry lamb and a sad tomato--and all the while that she was eating it somebody ought to put Uncle Peter's tray on the table beside her! With chicken and custard and celery and all! Yes, that's what some one should do, Babiche!"

Babiche begged gracefully for her part of the buns. They had a delightful time together.

"But I do wish," she murmured, after they'd settled themselves on the narrow bed for the night, "I could remember whether Mademoiselle ever let the Wheezy have such a dreadful luncheon--I shall ask her tomorrow--"

She did ask her, for she did find the Wheezy, just as she found anything she set out to find, by sheer dint of persistence.

It was late afternoon when she found her. The visiting hours were almost over. The Wheezy never had visitors, she was sitting listlessly looking at nothing at all when the attendant ushered Felicia through the corridor. She was just the same old Wheezy, but more crotchety, smaller and thinner, wheezing still and she turned her dim eyes toward the doorway and called,

"If you want to speak to Mrs. Sperry why under the shining canopy don't you come in? She'll be back in a second."

For several minutes she stubbornly would not recognize Felicia. She grudgingly admitted that she did remember Mademoiselle D'Ormy and that she did recall there had been a little girl, but she was as incredulous as the Disagreeable Walnut had been that this frumpy, drab looking person was that sprightly child. Felicia strove mightily to rea.s.sure her.

"Can't you remember when you used to sew for us at Montrose Place, how I called you the Wheezy and it made you cross?"

Miss Pease admitted that the child had called her that.

"And can't you remember anything else I did? I mean that the little girl did? For if you could I would do it and then you'd know--"

"She used to whistle--" the admission came slowly after deep thought, "She used to whistle real good, when the old man wasn't about."

Felicia sat down on the edge of the Wheezy's bed. Her eyes were shining. Mrs. Sperry had come back and was sitting by the Wheezy's window. It seemed that they shared the room. She was staring animatedly at her room-mate's visitor. From the opened door into the corridor Felicia could glimpse other old ladies, peeping in curiously, hovering about like gray moths at twilight.

She smiled at them wistfully, as she was wont to smile at Grandy, with her heart in her eyes.

"We're going to pretend something," she called to them softly, "Would you like to pretend? We're going to pretend I'm a little girl in a back yard who has been hearing Marthy sing--Marthy sings a song called Billy Boy about a boy who had been courting. She used to say, in the song, 'Where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy--Where have you been, charming Billy?' I can't sing but you shall hear me whistle it--"

The little gray moths of women crept closer, some of them fluttered into the Wheezy's room. The twilight grew deeper and deeper, and on the edge of the Wheezy's bed sat little Miss By-the-day and whistled the songs that Marthy used to sing. "Churry Ripe--Churry Ripe--" and "Ever of thee I am fondly dreaming--"

She whistled until some one came down the corridor to light the lights. The Wheezy's bony hand was on hers, the Wheezy's tears were falling.

"Why under the shining canopy I didn't know who you was--" she muttered apologetically, "My soul, I guess it's because I can't half see!"

"No, it's because--" Felicia sighed, "I'm not really that little girl any more. Only the Happy Part of her is here--" she put her hand on her breast. "I'm really old--like Grandy--like Piqueur. I can see vairee well. I saw myself--" she paused, "in a mirror, you know, I was that surprised--" she managed to laugh a little. "But Wheezy dear, there's a man who has to know that I am Felicia Day. Will you tell him that you know I am?"

The Wheezy promised eagerly. And then Felicia whistled a while longer, because one little gray moth, more daring than the rest wanted to hear,

"I remember, I remember in the years long pa.s.sed away, A little maid and I would meet beside the stream to play-"

Her quavering voice recited the verses, while Felicia whistled, oh, so softly!