Part 3 (2/2)

”Or one piece o' fruit-cake--”

”Maybe you remember now the times she's said, 'This is no little daughter of mine'?”

Margaret turned sharply. ”That was only because I was naughty,” she pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn't ”only because.” She knew it was _because_. The terror within her was growing more terrible every moment.

Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been lurking in the background waiting its turn,--it was its turn now.

Margaret stood quite still, _ashamed_. She could not name the strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs.

Streeter's and the minister's and the Enemy's!--oh, most of all past the Enemy's!--for fear they'd look out of the window and say, ”There goes an adopted!” Perhaps they'd point their fingers.--Margaret closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter's plump one and the minister's lean one and the Enemy's short brown one, all pointing.

She could feel something burning her on her forehead,--it was ”Adopted,” branded there.

The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she got to the Enemy's house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.

Moth--She That had Been--would be wondering why Margaret was late. If she looked sober out of her eyes and said, ”This can't be my little girl, can it?” then Margaret would _know for certain_. That would be the final proof.

The chimney was in sight now,--now the roof,--now the kitchen door, and She That Had Been was in it! She was shading her eyes and looking for the little girl that wasn't hers. A sob rose in the little girl's throat, but she tramped steadily on. It did not occur to her to s.n.a.t.c.h off her hat and wave it, as little girls that belonged did.

She had done it herself.

The kitchen door was very near indeed now. It did not seem to be Margaret that was moving, but the kitchen door. It seemed to be coming to meet her and bringing with it a dear slender figure. She looked up and saw the soberness in its dear eyes.

”This can't be my little girl, can--” but Margaret heard no more.

With a m.u.f.fled wail she fled past the slender figure, up-stairs, that she did not see at all, to her own little room. On the bed she lay and felt her heart break under her awful little checked ap.r.o.n. For now she knew for certain.

Two darknesses shut down about her, and in the heart-break of one she forgot to be afraid of the other. She had always before been afraid of the night-dark and imagined creepy steps coming along the hall and into the door. The things she imagined now were dreadfuler than that.

This new dark was so much darker!

They thought she was asleep and let her lie there on her little bed alone. By-and-by would be time enough to probe gently for the childish trouble. Perhaps she would leave it behind her in her sleep.

Out-of-doors suddenly a new sound rose shrill above the crickets and the frogs. It was the Enemy singing ”Glory, glory, hallelujah.” That was the last straw. Margaret writhed deeper into the pillows. She knew what the rest of it was--”Glory, glory, hallelujah, 'tisn't me!

_My_ soul goes marching on!” She was out there singing that a-purpose!

In her desperate need for some one to lay her trouble to, Margaret ”laid it to” the Enemy. A sudden, bitter, unreasoning resentment took possession of her. If there hadn't been an Enemy, there wouldn't have been a trouble. Everything would have been beautiful and--and respectable, just as it was before. _She_ would have been out there singing ”Glory, glory hallelujah,” too.

”She's to blame--I hate her!” came m.u.f.fledly from the pillows. ”Oh, I do!--I can't help it, I do! I'm always going to hate her forevermore!

She needn't have--”

Needn't have what? What had the little scape-goat out there in the twilight done? But Margaret was beyond reasoning now. ”Mine enemy hath done it,” was enough for her. If she lived a thousand years--if she lived _two_ thousand--she would never speak to the Enemy again,--never forgive her,--never put her into her prayer again among the G.o.d blesses.

A plan formulated itself after a while in the dark little room. It was born of the travail of the child's soul. Something must be done--there was something she would do. She began it at once, huddled up against the window to catch the failing light. She would pin it to her pin-cus.h.i.+on where they would find it after--after she was gone.

Did folks ever mourn for an Adopted? In her sore heart Margaret yearned to have them mourn.

”I have found it out,” she wrote with her trembling little fingers. ”I don't suppose its wicked becaus I couldent help being one but it is orful. It breaks your hart to find youre one all of a suddin. If I had known before, I would have darned the big holes too.

Ime going away becaus I canot bare living with folks I havent any right to. The stik pin this is pined on with is for Her That Wasent Ever my Mother for I love her still. When this you see remember me the rose is red the violet blue sugger is sweet and so are you.

”Margaret.”

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