Part 5 (2/2)

”And then they will have it all to go over again--all the miser'bleness of my not being a Boy,” the Little Girl thought, sadly.

”And I don't know whether they can stand it or not, but _I_ can't.”

A wave of infinite longing had swept over the shy, sensitive soul of the Little Girl who should have been a Boy. One of two things must happen--she must be loved, or die. So, being desperate, she resolved to chance everything. It was under the Golden Pippin tree, rocking herself back and forth in the long gra.s.s, that she made her plans.

Straight on the heels of them she went to the gardener's little boy.

”Lend me--no, I mean give me--your best clothes,” she said, with gentle imperiousness. It was not a time to waste words. At best, the time that was left to practise in was limited enough.

”Your _best_ clothes,” she had said, realizing distinctly that fustian and corduroy would not do. She was even a little doubtful of the best clothes. The gardener's little boy, once his mouth had shut and his legs come back to their locomotion, brought them at once. If there was a suspicion of alacrity in his obedience towards the last, it escaped the thoughtful eyes of the Little Girl. Having always been a mistake, nothing more, how could she know that a boy's best clothes are not always his dearest possession? Now if it had been the threadbare, roomy, easy little fustians, with their precious pocket-loads, that she had demanded!

There were six days left to practise in--only six. How the Little Girl practised! It was always quite alone by herself. She did it in a sensible, orderly way,--the leaps and strides first, whoops next, whistle last. The gardener's little boy's best clothes she kept hidden in the long gra.s.s, under the Golden Pippin tree, and on the fourth day she put them on. Oh, the agony of the fourth day! She came out of that practice period a wan, white, worn little thing that should _never_ have been a Boy.

For it was heart-breaking work. Every instinct of the Little Girl's rebelled against it. It was terrible to leap and whoop and whistle; her very soul revolted. But it was life or death to her, and always she persevered.

In those days lessons scarcely paid. They were only a pitiful makes.h.i.+ft. The Little Girl lived only in her terrible practice hours.

She could not eat or sleep. She grew thin and weak.

”I don't look like me at all,” she told herself, on a chair before her mirror. ”But that isn't the worst of it. I don't look like the Boy, either. Ugh! how I look! I wonder if the Angel would know me? It would be kind of dreadful not to have _anybody_ know you. Well, you won't be _you_ when you're the Boy, so prob'ly it won't matter.”

On the sixth day--the last thing--she cut her hair off. She did it with her eyes shut to give herself courage, but the snips of the shears broke her heart. The Little Girl had always loved her soft, s.h.i.+ning hair. It had been like a beautiful thing apart from her, that she could caress and pet. She had made an idol of it, having nothing else to love.

When it was all shorn off she crept out of the room without opening her eyes. After that the gardener's little boy's best clothes came easier to her, she found. And she could whoop and leap and whistle a little better. It was almost as if she had really made herself the Boy she should have been.

Then the s.h.i.+ning Mother came, and the Ogre. The Little Girl--I mean the Boy--was waiting for them, swinging her--his--feet from a high branch of the Golden Pippin tree. He was whistling.

”But I think I am going to die,” he thought, behind the whistle. ”I'm certain I am. I feel it coming on.”

Of course, after a little, there was a hunt everywhere for the Little Girl. Even little girls cannot slip out of existence like that, undiscovered. The beautiful green expanses were hunted over and over, but only a gardener's little boy in his best clothes, whistling faintly, was found. He fell out of the Golden Pippin tree as the field-servants went by, and they stopped to carry his limp little figure to the gardener's lodge. Then the hunt went forward again. The s.h.i.+ning Mother grew faint and sick with fear, and the Ogre strode about like one demented. It was hardly what was to be expected of the s.h.i.+ning Mother and the Ogre.

Towards night the mystery was partly solved. It was the s.h.i.+ning Mother who found the connecting threads. She found the little, jagged locks of soft, sweet hair. The Ogre came upon her sitting on the floor among them, and the whiteness of her face terrified him.

”I know--you need not tell me what has happened!” she said, scarcely above a whisper, as if in the presence of the dead. ”A door in me has opened, and I see it all--_all_, I tell you! We have never had her,--and now, dear G.o.d in heaven, we have lost her!”

It was very nearly so. They could hardly know then how near it came to being true. Link by link they came upon the little chain of pitiful proofs. They found all the little, sweet, white girl-clothes folded neatly by themselves and laid in a pile together, as if on an altar for sacrifice. If the Little Girl had written ”Good-bye” in her childish scrawl upon them, the s.h.i.+ning Mother would not have better understood. So many things she was seeing beyond that open door.

They found the Little Girl's dolls laid out like little, white-draped corpses in one of her bureau-drawers. The row of stolid little faces gazed up at them with the mystery of the Sphinx in all their glittering eyes. It was the s.h.i.+ning Mother who shut the drawer, but first she kissed the faces.

After all, the Ogre discovered the last little link of the chain. He brought it home in his arms from the gardener's lodge, and laid it on the Little Girl's white bed. It was very still and pitiful and small.

The took the gardener's little boy's best clothes off from it and put on the soft white night-gown of the Little Girl. Then, one on one side and one on the other, they kept their long hard vigil.

It was night when the Little Girl opened her eyes, and the first thing they saw was the chairful of little girl-clothes the s.h.i.+ning Mother had set beside the bed. Then they saw the s.h.i.+ning Mother.

Things came back to the Little Girl by slow degrees. But the look in the s.h.i.+ning Mother's face--that did not come back. That had never been there before. The Little Girl, in her wise, old way, understood that look, and gasped weakly with the joy and wonder of it. Oh, the joy! Oh, the wonder!

”But I tried to be one,” she whispered after a while, a little bewildered still. ”I should have done it, if I hadn't died. I couldn't help that; I felt it coming on. Prob'ly, though, I shouldn't have made a very good one.”

The s.h.i.+ning Mother bent over and took the Little Girl in her arms.

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