Somebody's Little Girl Part 3

And those children did not wash their hands in little white basins sitting in rows on long back gallery benches.

It was strange to Bessie Bell that those children did not sit in rows to eat tiny cakes with caraway seeds in them while Sister Angela sat on the bench under the great magnolia-tree and looked at the row of little girls.

It was so very strange to Bessie Bell that these children wore all sorts of clothes--all sorts! Not just blue dresses, and blue checked ap.r.o.ns.

And Bessie Bell knew, too, that those little girls in all sorts of clothes could not float away into that strange country of No-where and Never-was, where, too, the things that she remembered seemed to drift away--and to so nearly get lost, living only in dimming memory.

These little girls in all sorts of clothes were real, and sure-enough, and n.o.body could ever say of them, "There are no such little girls in the world," because sometimes when Bessie Bell would get to thinking, and thinking about the strangeness of them, she would almost wonder if she did not just remember them. When she would give one just a little pinch to see if that one was a real sure-enough little girl, why that little girl would say, "Don't." She would say "Don't!" just the same as a little girl in the row of little girls all with blue checked ap.r.o.ns would say "Don't," if you pinched one of them ever so little.

There were no Sisters on that high mountain. Sister Helen Vincula was the only Sister there. That seemed very strange to Bessie Bell.

One day the strangest thing of all so far happened.

One little girl called another little girl with whom she was playing, "Sister."

Bessie Bell laughed at that.

"Oh, she is not a Sister!" said Bessie Bell.

"Yes, she is; she is my sister!" said the little girl.

"No," said Bessie Bell, just as great grown people said to her when she remembered strange things, "No, there never was in the world a Sister like that!"

Then the smaller of the little girls who were playing together ran to the larger one, and caught hold of her hand, and they stood together in front of Bessie Bell--they both had long black curls, but Bessie Bell had short golden curls--and the smaller girl said: "Yes, she is my sister!"

And the larger girl said: "Yes, she is, too. She is my-own-dear-sister!"

The smaller little girl shook her black curls and said: "She is my own-dear-owny-downy-dear-sister!"

In all of her life Bessie Bell had never heard anything like that.

And all the other little girls who were playing joined in and said: "Bessie Bell doesn't know what she is talking about. Of course you are sisters. Everybody knows you are sisters!"

Bessie Bell was distressed to be told that she did not know what she was talking about--and she knew so much about Sisters.

So she began to cry, very softly.

Then she stopped crying long enough to say: "But I never saw Sisters like that before!"

Then she took up her crying again right where she left off.

Then a little boy--but he seemed a very large boy to Bessie Bell with his long-striped-stocking-legs--said to Bessie Bell: "No, Bessie Bell, they are not Sisters like Sister Helen Vincula and the Sisters that you know, but they are just what they say they are--just own dear sisters."

Then came to Bessie Bell that knowledge that we are often times slow in getting: she knew all of a sudden--that she did not know everything.

She did not know all, even about Sisters.

Because, in all that she knew or remembered or wondered about, there was nothing at all about that strange thing that all the little children, but herself, knew so well about--"Own-dear-sisters."

Another strange thing came into her mind, brought into her mind partly by her ears, but mostly by her eyes: There were not in this new world on the high mountain--perhaps there were not after all so many anywhere as she had thought--there were not so many Sisters like Sister Helen Vincula (for was not Sister Helen Vincula the only Sister she had seen on the mountain?). There were not after all so many Sisters like Sister Angela; and Sister Mary Felice, who watched the little blue-checked-ap.r.o.n girls playing in the sand; and Sister Ignatius, who cooked the cakes with the caraway seeds in them; and Sister Theckla, who taught the little girls to Count and to Sing.

Why, the whole world, surely the up-on-the mountain-world, seemed full of Only-Just-Ladies.

Not just a Lady here and there, coming to visit with hats on, to talk a little to the Sisters, to look at the little girls with blue checked ap.r.o.ns on. But here they were coming and going all the time, moving about, and living in the cabins, walking everywhere with or without hats on, standing on the gray cliffs, and looking down--maybe into the heart of a worldwide violet there, off the edge of the cliff, such as Bessie Bell saw or fancied she saw.

So many Ladies.

Bessie Bell leaned against the little fluted post of the gallery to the cabin that she and Sister Helen Vincula lived in, and decided to herself that, strange as it was, yet was it true that the whole world was full of--Ladies.

There were yet stranger things for Bessie Bell to learn.

She had not for long played with those many little girls in all sorts of clothes, and with larger girls, and with boys,--some with short-striped-stocking-legs and some with long-striped-stocking-legs,--before she heard one child say: "Mama says she will take me to Sweet Fern Cave to-morrow."

Or perhaps it was another child who said: "Mama won't let me wade in the branch."

Or another child said: "Mama says I can have a party for all the little girls and boys on the mountain next Friday!"

Then another little child said: "My Mama has made me a beautiful pink dress, and I will wear that to your party."

Mama? My Mama?

Bessie Bell leaned against the little fluted post of the gallery to the cabin where she and Sister Helen Vincula lived, and thought a great deal about that.

And Bessie Bell wondered a great deal what that could mean: Mama? My Mama?

There were strange new things in this world.

Bessie Bell almost forgot to remember now, because every day was so full of such strange new things to know.

Mama? My Mama?

Bessie Bell did a great deal of thinking about that.

One day the little children were playing at building rock chimneys.

There was not much sand there for little children to play in, so that the children often built rock chimneys, and rock tables, and rock fences.

As they were playing one little girl suddenly left the playground and ran, calling: "Mama! Mama! Come here; come this way, and see the chimney we have built!"

Bessie Bell turned quickly from play and looked after the little girl who was running across the playground to where three ladies were standing.

The little girl caught the dress of one of the ladies, and came pulling at her dress and bringing her across the ground to see the stone chimney, and the little girl kept saying:

"Look, Mama! See, Mama! Isn't it a grand chimney? Won't it 'most hold smoke?"

Bessie Bell stood still with her little hands--they were beginning to be round pink little hands again, now--clasped in front of her and wondered.

"See, Mama! Look, Mama!" cried the little girl.