Part 13 (1/2)
”Nonie--let's you and I play lots together. I can give you books, too.
We'll read them together. You can come to Happy House often in the daytime.”
Nonie shook her head doubtfully.
”Liz won't let me. She says there ain't--there isn't--no use my going off and leaving my work. She says school's bad enough!”
”Does Liz--punish--you much?”
”She chases Davy and me with the broom sometimes. And she scolds, too, but we don't mind, 'cause she's scolding all the time. I wish she would whip us--or lock us up--or--or send us to bed! It'd be like other kids, then.”
The strangeness of a child longing for punishments that would make her life seem like other childrens' shocked Nancy! She looked at the thin body--was poverty starving the physical being while neglect starved the spirit?
”I'll talk to Liz myself. We'll see what I can coax her to do,” Nancy declared resolutely. ”We'll be chums, Nonie.”
”Oh, then I won't have to play 'bout Rosemary! So, you _are_ as nice as Miss Denny. You don't know her, do you? But she'll come back in the fall and sometime, I guess, she'll be Mr. Peter's dearest.”
”What _do_ you mean, Nonie,” demanded Nancy.
”Well, Mr. Peter's the _nicest_ man I know 'cause he's awful--nice to Davy and me, and Miss Denny's the nicest _lady_ and so she'll be his dearest! He don't--he doesn't--know her yet but he will in the fall and so will you.”
”I may not,” Nancy answered, rather coldly, ”so your Miss Denny may have your Mr. Peter all to herself. And now something tells me it's time for fairies to be in bed! If you'll hand me my slippers I'll dance with you to the gate--only we must be very, very still or we'll waken B'lindy!”
From the gate of Happy House Nancy watched the child's figure disappear in the shadows of the road. In a very little while she would be crawling into her deserted bed, pulling the clothes up over her head and pretending that a mother's hand was caressing her to sleep and a voice that never ”hollered” was whispering ”goodnight.”
”Blessed child,” thought Nancy, ”her fairy G.o.dmother has given her one gift that even Liz can't take away from her--imagination!”
CHAPTER XII
LIZ
Old Jonathan, returning from his daily trip to the postoffice, brought home the news that ”there'd be doin's on Fourth of July 'count of the soldier boys--that Webb'd said it'd got to be a Fourth that not a child in Freedom'd forget!” And B'lindy had retorted that ”it wa'nt likely, I guess, if Webb got up the doin's anyone _would_--they'd be doin's no one _could_ forget!”
But Nancy's interest in the coming event gave way with a quickly smothered exclamation of delight when Jonathan drew from an inside pocket a square, bluish envelope with a foreign postmark, redirected in Mrs. Finnegan's most careful handwriting.
”And here's another,” he added, bringing forth a letter from Claire.
”You're a _dear_,” cried Nancy, hugging her treasures. ”If you'll take this pan of peas, Jonathan, I'll run off and read them!”
B'lindy watched Nancy disappear toward the orchard with mingled amazement and disapproval. ”There never was a letter _I_ got I'd set by my work for! _That's_ a young one for you!”
Out in her Bird's-nest Nancy held up the two envelopes. ”I'll save you 'til last, Daddy,” she whispered, kissing the handwriting she loved.
Claire's letter was short and yet so like her that Nancy could have believed her friend was there with her--talking to her.
”I'm perfectly miserable, and I can't let mother guess--she tries to make everything so jolly for me. But I'm just plain homesick for college and you girls. The summer isn't a bit what I'd planned. Barry went away before I got home. Mother thought he'd come back but he didn't, and the maddening thing is she won't tell me where he is. She said Barry was 'getting settled.' Isn't that absurd? I suppose he's gone off to the Canadian Rockies or maybe to j.a.pan. But I don't see why mother has to make a secret of it! The war's changed all the men I know--none of them seem as nice. They're so restless and act so old.
But then, I'm restless, too, and feel as old as the hills. For heaven's sake, Nancy, hurry up and do your duty by Anne's relatives and come here to me--I need you!”
”Funny Claire,” laughed Nancy, talking aloud in the way she had learned at Happy House. ”She's always trying to make herself think she's miserable. But Barry _is_ a pill! Now, Daddy mine!”