The Chronicles of Rhoda Part 5

"Major Daniel Clark hasn't any little girls or boys. He lost them all, dear. He is a very lonely man."

"Didn't he ever find them again, mother?"

"No, dear. Never again."

Now, I was very good at finding things. I found grandmother's spectacles ten times a day, even when they were only lost in her soft, white hair.

And once I found mother's thimble when little brother d.i.c.k had it in his mouth, and it was just going down red lane. Norah said that I had a pair of bright eyes, and my very father, when he wanted his slippers, could think of no one so trustworthy to send as I. To find little girls and boys would be quite easy, for they were much larger things. I had only to ask all the girls and boys who came past my gate if they belonged to the major, and, when the right ones came, we would run hand-in-hand up to that distant door and go in. He would be so pleased, and never lonely again. And, perhaps--Just suppose that he would be my friend forever and ever!

I was waiting on my gate the next day when he came by.

"Oh, Major!" I cried, excitedly, nodding my head at him, "I'm going to find your little girls and boys for you!"

"My little girls and boys?" he asked, perplexed.

"Yes. The ones that you lost so long ago."

He turned quite suddenly on his way, so quickly that I thought that he was angry, but when he came back he stopped at the gate again. He took my face softly between his hands, and looked down deep into my eyes, into the little circles where there were pictures.

"When you grow up, always remember that the old major loved you," he said, hurriedly, and then went back toward the house from which he had come out so shortly before.

We were great friends after that. We held long conversations over the gate, about my dolls, and the hobby-horse which had lately come to live in the hall. We discussed the best way to raise children, and how convenient it would be if ap.r.o.ns could only be made to b.u.t.ton in front.

We both had original ideas on things, and often differed, but none of my new clothes ever seemed quite real to me until the major had admired them, and pinched my cheeks with that air of gallantry which showed that I was a woman. He brought me presents, very wonderful things; bright pebbles which he picked up on the street, willow whistles, and a tiny basket carved from a peach-stone, which I hung on a ribbon about my neck. I gave him flowers, and once, when no one was looking, I let him kiss me in the shadow of the pink sunbonnet.

If the major and I met thus on the sunny days, when it rained there came a blank in my life. Then he could not go out at all, but must stay shut up in his house until the weather cleared again. There was something the matter with the major which made this necessary. In some unaccountable way he was different from other people, and to be different from other people was sad, and was, moreover, a thing which never happened in our family.

Now, grandmother had a little red brick house that stood on her mantel-piece which aided me a great deal in the stormy times. A little man and woman lived in this house who were never of the same mind, and carried their lack of sympathy to such an alarming extent that they used separate doors, and, as far as I could see, had never met in the course of their lives. For as sure as the man with the umbrella came out of one door, the little lady with the roses in her bonnet gathered up her skirts, and scurried in as if she were afraid to meet him. With her went the sunshine and the blue look to the sky, and the rain came down heavy and fast. But if the old man went into his house, the old lady sprang out, with a smile on her face, the rain stopped falling, and the sun came out. Then, by and by, the major would walk down the street, and stop to chat awhile.

I used to run into grandmother's room every morning to look at that house.

"Grandma," I cried, eagerly, "has the little lady come out to-day?"

Then I took my stand soberly in front of the mantelpiece and regarded the two figures with much attention.

"Grandma," I said once, "do you think that they can be relations?"

Grandmother took up a st.i.tch in her knitting without replying.

"Because, if they are," I went on, indignantly, "I think that they ought to be ashamed!"

"Ashamed of what, Rhoda?"

"Why, of the way that they act. They don't even look at each other! And, grandma, I think that he's the worst. He goes in with such a click when she comes out. He's so afraid that she'll say something to him."

Grandmother looked up over her spectacles.

"Now that I come to think of it," she said, "they've acted that way for forty years."

"I wonder why he don't like her?" I went on, musingly. "Is it because she's got flowers in her bonnet, and he hasn't? Look, grandma, she's coming out very quietly. She's going to catch him this time. Oh, he's gone in with a click! And he never said a word!"

"We'll have fair weather now, Rhoda."

"And my major will come out, grandma."

"He's my major!" little d.i.c.k cried.

"He's my major!" Beatrice a.s.serted.

"No such thing!" I said, turning on them angrily. "He belongs all to me.

Don't he, grandma?"

Grandmother did not answer, but I knew that he did. When the twins came, hand-in-hand, down the path to see him, he would pat their fat arms through the spokes of the gate, but it was always I to whom he wished to talk, for I was more of his own age and not a baby like them.

"Baby yourself!" d.i.c.k said, when I mentioned this, and slapped me, but it made no difference.

Sometimes the lady from across the way would come over to walk with the major. They were old friends, and had a great deal to talk about. I remember seeing her shake her finger at him when she found him leaning on my gate.

"So you're trying to turn another woman's head!" she cried, gayly.

He wheeled upon her with that sudden straightening of his shoulders that would come so unexpectedly.

"Did I ever turn yours, Kitty?" he asked, with a mischievous smile.

"Dozens of times," she cried. "Dozens of times!"

Then she took his arm, and they went up and down in the bright sunshine, up and down, while the major would thump his cane upon the ground with that gruff laugh that always seemed merrier than other people's. His white hair was smoothly brushed, and his black hat was set on jauntily, and his kind eyes shone as if he were young again. I noticed that the lady from over the way always wore a black silk dress and her best, curly, brown hair whenever she came to walk with the major, and, also, a battered silver bracelet which looked as if it had been chewed. The major would glance at it and laugh.

"I took castor-oil to buy that bracelet," he said once, with his twinkle.

It sounded funny, but I knew just what he meant. I had made dollars and dollars myself taking castor-oil, except that time when Auntie May mixed it so cunningly with lemonade that it went down and down to the very dregs, and I never discovered until then how I had been cheated out of my just dues.

"So that was it!" the lady from over the way exclaimed, patting the bracelet. "I always knew that there was something curious about it."

"It was harder than leading a regiment into action," the major answered, soberly, and then broke into a gleeful laugh. "I wouldn't do it for you now!" he cried.

First she threatened him with the bracelet. Then she took his arm again, and they went on in the sunshine, talking of all the many people whom they had known in their lives. Her touch on his arm was very light, guiding, and sustaining, rather than dependent, but the old major thought that she leant upon him.

I was not jealous of the lady from over the way. I felt that we shared the major between us, and then it was always at my gate that he stopped first. It was here that he told me about a trip that he was intending to make.

"I'm going off to the city for a week," he said.

"Are you, Major?" I questioned, sorrowfully, for a week had seven days in it, and even a day was a long, long time. No wonder that my eyes were full of tears.

"There, there," he said. "Bear it like a woman."

I was not a woman, but sometimes the major used to forget. I thought that it was because I looked so tall when I stood on my gate.

He put out his kind old hand and smoothed my hair.