Part 4 (2/2)

It had not occurred to Bobby to consult his mother. They two were not intimately acquainted, and naturally he felt shy.

Bobby's mother was very young and beautiful. He had seen her dressed in a wondrous soft white dress once, with little specks of s.h.i.+ny things burning on her bare throat, and ever since he had known what angels look like.

There were reasons enough why Bobby seldom saw his mother. The house was very big, and her room so far away from his;--that was one reason. Then he always went to bed, and got up, and ate his meals before she did.

There was another reason why he and the beautiful young mother did not know each other very well, but even Olga had never explained that one. Bobby had that ahead of him to find out,--poor Bobby! Some one had called him Fire Face once at school, but the kind-hearted teacher had never let it happen again.

At home, in the great empty house, the mirrors were all high up out of reach, and in the nursery there had never been any at all. Bobby had never looked at himself in a mirror. Of course he had seen himself up to his chin--dear, yes--and admired his own little straight legs often enough, and doubled up his little round arms to hunt for his ”muscle.” In a quiet, un.o.btrusive way Bobby was rather proud of himself. He had to be--there was no one else, you see. And even at six, when there is so little else to do, one can put in considerable time regarding one's legs and arms.

”I guess you don't call _those_ bow-legged legs, do you, Olga?” he had exulted once, in an unguarded moment when he had been thinking of Cleggy Munro's legs at school. ”I guess you call those pretty straight-up-'n'-down ones!” And the hard face of the old nurse had suddenly softened in a strange, pleasant way, and for the one only time that he could remember, Olga had taken Bobby in her arms and kissed him.

”They're beautiful legs, that iss so,” Olga had said, but she hadn't been looking at them when she said it. She had been looking straight into his face. The look hurt, too, Bobby remembered. He did not know what pity was, but it was that that hurt.

The night after he learned U at school Bobby decided to hazard everything and ask Olga what the one in his name stood for. He could not put it off any longer.

”Olga, what does the U in the middle o' my name stand for?” he broke out, suddenly, while he was being unb.u.t.toned for bed. ”I know it's a U, but I don't know a U-_what_. I've 'cided I won't go to bed till I've found out.”

Things had gone criss-cross. The old Norwegian woman was not in a good humor.

”Unwelcome--that iss what it must stand for,” she laughed unpleasantly.

”Bobby Unwelcome!” Bobby laughed too. Then a piteous little suspicion crept into his mind and began to grow. He turned upon Olga sharply. ”What does Unwelcome mean?” he demanded.

”Eh? Iss it not enough plain to you? Well, not wanted--that iss what it means then.”

”Not wanted,--not wanted.” Bobby repeated the words over and over to himself, not quite satisfied yet. They sounded bad--oh, very; but perhaps Olga had got them wrong. She was not a United States person.

It would be easy for another kind of a person to get things wrong.

Still--”not wanted”--they certainly sounded very plain. And they meant--Bobby gave a faint gasp, and suddenly his thoughts turned dizzily round and round one terrible pivot--”not wanted.” He sprang away out of the nurse's hands and darted down the long, bright hall to his mother's room. She was being dressed for a ball, and the room was pitilessly light. She sat at a table with a little mirror before her. Suddenly another face appeared in it with hers--a little, scarred, red face, stamped deep with childish woe. The contrast appalled her.

Bobby was not looking into the gla.s.s, but into her beautiful face.

”Is that what it stands for?” he demanded, breathlessly. ”She said so. Did she lie?”

”Robert! For Heaven's sake, child, stand away! You are tearing my lace. What are you doing here? Why are you not in bed?”

”Does it stand for _that?_” he persisted.

”Does what stand for what? Look, you are crus.h.i.+ng my dress. Stand farther off. Don't you see, child?”

”She said the U in the middle o' my name stood for Not Wanted. Does it? Tell me quick. Does it?”

The contrast of the two faces in her mirror hurt her like a blow. It brought back all the disappointment and the wounded vanity of that time, six years ago, when they had shown her the tiny, disfigured face of her son.

”No, it wasn't that. I morember now. It was Unwelcome, but it _means_ that. Is the middle o' my name Unwelcome--what?”

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