Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings Part 7

Miss Theodosia looked with softened eyes. Then a smile grew in them, wrinkling their corners whimsically. She was noticing something else besides the little old-lady back. Evangeline's braids toed in! Tight and flaxen, they stood out in rounded curves, converging suddenly to the bit of faded ribbon that tied them together. There was something suspicious looking about that ribbon--"Stefana starched it!" smiled Miss Theodosia's thought.

The small figure whirled face about.

"There, _he_ can see to him awhile." Evangeline was always cheerfully oblivious to any confusion of ideas arising from her use of personal p.r.o.nouns. "I'm tired. Children are a great care," said Evangeline. She seated herself in an easy chair and dangled thin legs.

"If you drank tea--I'll make you a cup of cocoa, Evangeline."

"Oh, mercy gracious, no! I'm not as tired as _cocoa_. Jus'

sit-'n'-a'-chair tired. You know how it feels--no, you don't either.

I forgot. I guess you are pretty lucky. No, I don't guess so _either_!"

Evangeline suddenly straightened on the edge of the big chair and eyed Miss Theodosia sternly, as though that innocent soul had been the one guilty of disloyalty to darlin' dears.

"Children are a great comfort," declaimed Evangeline with emphasis. She might have been the mother of six comforts. Tenderness crept into her eyes, and her freckles seemed to fade out, and even the small blunt nose of her take on middle-agedness and motherliness. '"Specially when you undress 'em. They're so darlin' an' soft! You ever undressed one--a reg'lar _baby_ one? Of course not one o' your own when you never _had_ any, but I thought p'raps you might've undressed a grandbaby or somethin'--"

Miss Theodosia shook a humbled head.

"No," she murmured, "I never undressed even a grandbaby." And curiously she failed either to smile at the child's little notion or to wince at the advanced age it implied for her. She looked across the room from her big chair to Evangeline's with rather a wistful look. She was envying Evangeline.

"I'm sorry," the child said gently, a little embarra.s.sed by the unexpected solemnity of the moment. To relieve it, she had recourse to a sudden funny memory of her own undressings of Elly Precious. She broke hurriedly into laughter.

"I have to have an extra pig for my baby!" she shrilled. "Takes six instead o' five! You know where it ends, 'This little pig said: "Quee!

Quee! Quee! can't get over the barn-door sill"?' Mercy gracious, you don't know the little pigs, I s'pose--" More embarra.s.sment. Even Evangeline was losing presence of mind.

"Oh, yes!" Miss Theodosia brightened perceptibly. "I know the one that went to market and the one that stayed at home--all five of them I know."

"But you don't know Elly Precious's extra little pig!" crowed the rea.s.sured Evangeline. "Just _us_ know that one. I made him up. When you have six toes,--I mean when Elly Precious has,--you have to have six pigs. After the one that can't get over the barn-door sill, I say: 'This little pig said--' wait, I'll say the last two together so you'll see they rhyme beautifully. Reg'lar poetry.

"'This little pig said, "Quee! Quee! Quee! can't get over the barn-door sill.'"

"'_This_ little pig said, "He! He! He! when you tickle, I can't keep still!'"

"Elly Precious wiggles it when I tickle! We laugh like everything. I think it is pretty good poetry," added Evangeline modestly.

"It is beautiful poetry. I never could have begun to make up such a lovely, ticklish little pig!"

Evangeline leaned back again in the soft cushiony embrace of the great chair and actually achieved a moment of silence. The talkative clock on Miss Theodosia's mantel filled in the s.p.a.ce. Then once more Evangeline:

"But I shall never have any."

"Any--pigs?" smilingly.

"Children. Not any. I've decided I'll rest. They're such a care. But of course I can run in an' undress Stefana's an' Elly Precious's--mercy gracious, Elly Precious's!"

It required too great a mental effort to visualize them. Elly Precious's children were _funny_! Evangeline giggled softly. "Then I'll be a gran'mother, won't I! I've always wanted to be a gran'mother an' say what I did when _I_ was a child an' how I always _minded_." A fresh giggle. "'_I_ never had to be _told to_ twice, my dears,' I'll say to Elly Precious's children! They'll all be my dears. I'll help bring 'em up. Isn't it queer," broke forth Evangeline suddenly, "how when you get to be old you never were bad when you were young? The badnesses have kind of--kind of faded out. I bet there _were_ badnesses!"

And Miss Theodosia found herself nodding decisively. She, too, bet there were.

A hilarious little crow suddenly sounded from without the window; it was accompanied by a deep man-sound of mirth. Miss Theodosia and Evangeline smiled across at each other indulgently.

"Elly Precious is havin' a good time. That's his good-time noise. Oh, I think he's a nice person, don't you?"

"Nice? I love him!" cried Miss Theodosia warmly. Her face that was still the face of a girl was tenderly flushed. "I love every inch of him, Evangeline."

"Merry gra--that's a lot of lovin'! I guess you are ahead o' me!"

"Evangeline Flagg, aren't you ashamed! When he is the dearest, cunningest--"

"Not--not _cunnin'est_. But he's got beautiful whiskers. I mean if he didn't shave 'em off. When he came, he had 'em on. You can't love his whiskers when you never saw--"

Miss Theodosia held up a limp hand to stem this terrible tide of words.

"Oh, stop! _wait_, Evangeline!" she begged. "Who are you talking about?"

Why stop for grammatic rules at a time like this?

"Why, he--_him_. I said I liked him, an' you said you lov--"

"I have been talking about Elly Precious, naturally," Miss Theodosia returned stiffly. "You are very careless with your p.r.o.nouns, Evangeline," she added with an effect of severity. Her cheeks that persisted still in being a girl's cheeks had grown a warm, becoming pink. In pink Miss Theodosia was lovely.

"Don't you think you'd better relieve Elly Precious' caretaker by this time? He may not enjoy being left in charge quite so long."

"Not enjoy! Come an' see him not enjoy!" sang Evangeline from the window. She was flattening her nose against the pane and bubbling with sympathetic glee. Miss Theodosia went over and stood beside her.

Out there the two of them were frolicking together--two joyous children.

It was the good old game of Peek-a-boo, but seemed a new, surprising game to Miss Theodosia. The big playmate on the gra.s.s spread a handkerchief over the little playmate's face, and with a shriek of joy the little playmate did the rest. Then the big child's turn--turn and turn about. Deep voice and thin, sweet tinkle of baby voice joined in a curiously harmonious chorus that rang through the window pane into the two pairs of listening ears.

It was a new light in which to see--a new sound in which to hear John Bradford. Miss Theodosia had a guilty consciousness of being an eavesdropper, yet she kept on eavesdropping. At a particular climax in the little play, she laughed aloud softly. Evangeline wriggled with enjoyment. Her fingers drummed applause on the gla.s.s, and the big player glanced quickly up and saw the two lookers-on. He did not hesitate in the play, did not stop the next little gleeful peek. Miss Theodosia loved it in him for not stopping. They were not ashamed--Elly Precious and John Bradford.

CHAPTER IV

In the next few days Miss Theodosia unpacked the rest of her trunks and put the things away neatly in permanent places. She sang as she did it.

Life seemed a singing thing to Miss Theodosia who had been a lonely woman--until now. Now she could look out of her window and see the little House of Flaggs. Any minute Evangeline might burst in. The steam whistle might blow. The Shadow Reformed-Doctor Man might come for another cup of tea. Anything might happen.

Something did happen, but it was not a singing thing. Evangeline did burst in. It was some days later than the Day of the Shirt. Miss Theodosia sat comfortably sipping her afternoon tea. Two dainty cups were before her.

"Mercy gracious--mercy, mercy, mercy gracious! This is the worst! This is worse than Aunt Sarah! An' to think it's Elly Precious, my darlin'

dear! An' to think I never had--! An' to think I did it myself!"

Even to Evangeline, words failed to express this worst of all things.

She dropped, a little leaden thing of despair, into Miss Theodosia's great chair and rocked herself in anguish.

"What is it, dear?" Miss Theodosia cried anxiously. The little word of endearment slipped out unconsciously, though she was not used to "dears." But she was not used to this, either--this rocking in anguish of a little child in her great chair.

"Can't you stop crying and tell me?" Evangeline not able to talk! Miss Theodosia was actually alarmed. If speech did not return quickly--but speech returned.