Part 20 (1/2)

Anna, inclined to be wroth, retorted: 'I suppose you'd be preferring one o' them tight ganzy [sweater] things that fit the figger like a jersey, all b.u.t.toned down before.'

A sudden light flamed in the old face. 'I have it!' she cried. 'Tis what I've been seeking this good while. 'Twill come now--the red coat! I must be getting back to the beginning.'

With that, she was off, relaxing and composing herself, as if surrendering to the spell of a hypnotist.

To reach any desired picture in her gallery, she must start at the outset. Then they followed on, in due order--all that procession of little girls: pink clad, blue-print clad, bare-legged or brogan-shod; flirting their short skirts, plaiting their heavy braids. About half way along, a new figure a.s.serted itself--a girl of nine or ten, who twisted this way and that before a blurred bit of mirror and frowned at the red coat that flapped about her heels,--bought oversize, you may be sure, so that she shouldn't grow out of it too soon. The sleeves swallowed her little brown hands, the shoulders and back were grotesquely sack-like, the front had a puss [pout] on it.

”Tis the very fetch of Paddy the gander I am in it. I'll not be wearing it so.' She frowned with sudden intentness. 'Could I be fitting it a bit, I wonder, the way mother does cut down John's coats for Martin?'

With needle, scissors and thread, she crept up to her little chamber under the eaves. It was early in the forenoon when she set to work ripping. The morning pa.s.sed, and the dinner hour.

'Peggy! Where's the girl gone to, I wonder?'

'To Aunt Theresa's, I'm thinking.'

'Well, it's glad I am she's out o' my sight, for my hands itched to be shaking her. Stand and twist herself inside out she did, fussing over the fit of the good coat I'm after buying her. The little fustherer!'

For the small tailoress under the roof, the afternoon sped on winged feet: pinning, basting, and st.i.tching; trying on, ripping out again, and re-fitting. 'I'll be taking it in a wee bit more.' She had to crowd up to the window to catch the last of the daylight. At dusk, she swept her dark hair from her flushed cheeks and forced her st.u.r.dy body into the red coat. It was a 'fit,' believe you me! Modeled on the lines of the riding-habit of a full-figured lady she had seen hunting about the country-side, it b.u.t.toned up tight over her flat, boyish chest and bottled up her squarish little waist. About her narrow hips, it rippled out in a short 'frisk.' Beneath, her calico skirt, and bramble-scratched brown legs.

Warmed with triumph, she flew downstairs. Her mother and a neighbor were sitting in the glow of the peat fire. She tried to meet them with a.s.surance, but at sight of their amazed faces, misgiving clutched her.

She pivoted before the mirror.

'Holy hour!' cried her mother. 'What sausage-skin is that you've got into?' Then, as comprehension grew: 'Glory b' t' G.o.d, Ellen! 'tis the remains of the fine new coat, I'm after buying her, large enough to last her the next five years!'

”Twas too large!' the child whimpered. 'A gander I looked in it!' Then, cajolingly, 'I'm but after taking it in a bit, ma. 'Twill do grand now, and maybe I'll not be getting much fatter. Look at the fit of it, just!'

'Fit! G.o.d save the mark!' cried her mother.

'Is the child after making that jacket herself?' asked the neighbor.

'I am,' Margaret spoke up, defiantly. 'I cut it and shaped it and put it together. It has even a frisk to the tail.'

'Maggie,' said the neighbor to Margaret's mother. ”Tis as good a piece o' work for a child of her years as ever I see. You ought not to be faulting her, she's done that well. And,' bursting into irrepressible laughter, 'it's herself will have to be wearing it, woman dear! All she needs now is a horse and a side-saddle to be an equeestrieen!'

So the wanton destruction of the good red coat--in that house where good coats were sadly infrequent--ended with a laugh after all. How long she wore that tight jacket, and how grand she felt in it, let the other children laugh as they would!

What joy the old woman took in this incident! With its fullness of detail, it achieved a delicious suggestion of permanence, in contrast to the illusiveness of other isolated moments. Margaret O'Brien _saw_ all these other figures, but she really _was_ the child with the red coat.

In the long years between, she had fas.h.i.+oned many fine dresses--gowned gay girls for their conquests and robed fair brides for the altar. Of all these, nothing now remained; but she could feel the good stuff of the red kersey under her little needle-scratched fingers, and see the glow of its rich color against her wind-kissed brown cheek.

'To the life!' she exclaimed aloud, exultantly. 'To the very life!'

'What life, Aunt Margaret?' asked Anna, with gentle solicitude. 'Is it afraid of the end you are, darling?'

'No, no, asth.o.r.e. I've resigned myself long since, though 'twas bitter knowledge at the outset. Well, well, G.o.d is good and we can't live forever.'

Her eyes, opening to the two flaring patent gas-burners, winked as if she had dwelt long in a milder light. 'What's all this glare about?' she asked, playfully. 'I guess the chandler's wife is dead. Snuff out the whole of them staring candles, let you. 'Tis daylight yet; just the time o' day I always did like the best.'

Anna obeyed and sat down beside the bed in the soft spring dusk. A little wind crept in under the floating white curtains, bringing with it the sweetness of new gra.s.s and pear-blossoms from the trim yard. It seemed an interval set apart from the hurrying hours of the busy day for rest and thought and confidences--an open moment. The old woman must have felt its invitation, for she turned her head and held out a shy hand to her niece.