X 
 
bp JHatffarct 
 
 THE OLD GARDEN, AND OTHER VERSES. 
 Enlarged Edition. i6mo, gilt top, $1.25. 
 
 JOHN WARD, PREACHER. A Novel. i6mo, 
 $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 SIDNEY. A Novel. i6mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 THE STORY OF A CHILD. i6mo, $1.25. 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
THE STORY OF A CHILD 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET DELANO 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," "SIDNEY," "FLORIDA 
 
 DAYS," "THE OLD GARDEN, AND OTHER VERSES " 
 
 Heaven lies about u> in our infancy 
 
 WORDSWORTH 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 (fa &itersi&e press, 
 1892 
 
Copyright, 1892, 
 BY MARGARET DELAND. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
To the dear Memory of 
 
 N. W. C. 
 In recollection of a happy childhood 
 
 497045 
 
THE STORY OF A CHILD 
 
 MY own opinion is," said Mrs. Dale, 
 " that he heard they were coming 
 to Old Chester again, and he felt that his 
 presence would be an embarrassment to 
 her, and so went away. Very properly, 
 I m sure ; it shows very nice feeling in 
 a person like Mr. Tommy." 
 
 " Well, perhaps so," Mrs. Wright agreed ; 
 " but I don t know why he should shut up 
 his little house, and go away, dear knows 
 where, just because she is to be in Old 
 Chester for the summer. Suppose he was 
 foolish when she was here before ; I don t 
 know but what it shows a little conceit on 
 
 Mr. , on his part, to think that his 
 
 presence makes any difference to Jane 
 
2 The Story of a Child 
 
 I mean to her." Mrs. Wright corrected 
 herself nervously, glancing at the little fig 
 ure curled up on the steps of the porch. 
 Mrs. Dale raised a cautioning finger. 
 " Children do understand things in the 
 most astonishing way," she said in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " Oh, yes," Mrs. Wright said quickly ; 
 " I did n t mean to mention names, I m 
 sure. But it is so awkward to have the 
 apothecary shop shut up, and have to go 
 to Willie King s for one s medicines, all 
 because Jane Temple Oh, dear me ! " 
 ended Mrs. Wright, blankly. 
 
 " She did n t hear you," Mrs. Dale as 
 sured her ; " it s almost her bedtime, and 
 she will go in, in a few minutes. But do 
 be careful, dear Susy." 
 
 Mrs. Wright, who despite her forty-five 
 years was still in the bubbling inconse 
 quence of youth, said nervously, " Oh, my 
 gracious, yes ! I did n t mean to ; only, 
 the Temples have n t been in Old Chester 
 for four years, and I m sure that is time 
 
The Story of a Child j 
 
 enough for him to have forgotten that he 
 was ever so foolish as to think of of 
 her" said Mrs. Wright, swallowing the 
 name ; " and I m sure she never encour 
 aged him ! " 
 
 " Of course not/ Mrs. Dale agreed. 
 
 "They are talking about Mr. Henry 
 Temple s sister," the child on the steps 
 reflected ; " and they are talking about 
 Mr. Tommy Dove going away and leav 
 ing his house all shut up. They have to 
 talk about those things because they are 
 grown up." 
 
 In her heart she pitied them, but not too 
 deeply to disturb the joy of that delicious 
 melancholy that a child feels in the sum 
 mer twilight. She put her head down on 
 her arm, and looked up into the branches 
 of the locust-trees, standing, sentinel-like, 
 on either side of the porch. She followed 
 with her eyes the curious outlines of the 
 gnarled and twisted limbs, as they were 
 drawn against the violet of the evening 
 sky. She knew those outlines well ; they 
 
4 The Story of a Child 
 
 met and crossed in a way that suggested 
 the arm and clenched hand of an airy 
 giant imprisoned by the growing branches. 
 She had, long ago, fashioned a story to 
 suit the tree picture : She said to her 
 self that when her grandfather died this 
 hand was stretched out to rob her of her 
 grandmother, too, but that the wrinkled 
 branches of this friendly tree had caught 
 it and held the giant fast ; when the wind 
 blew she could hear him whispering and 
 complaining, but the faithful tree still 
 kept him a prisoner, so that he could do 
 no harm. The thought that he might ever 
 escape made her shudder ; it occurred to 
 her that it would be wise to do something 
 to keep the tree friendly ; perhaps water 
 it every evening ? 
 
 Such plans led her far away from the talk 
 of the grown people. She did not hear 
 Mrs. Wright say that if only " he " had 
 been in a different walk of life she would 
 have been glad enough to have had " her " 
 marry him. "Her life in her brother s 
 
The Story of a Child 5 
 
 family can t be very happy," said Mrs. 
 Wright; "her sister-in-law is such a 
 wretched invalid that she, poor dear, has 
 to give herself up to the housekeeping 
 and to those two children. She ought to 
 have a home of her own; of course she 
 would be lonely, but an unmarried woman 
 must expect to be lonely.", Mrs. Wright 
 said this with as much severity as a plump 
 woman can ; she tried to have Christian 
 charity for every one, but, being happily 
 married herself, she found it hard to ex 
 cuse Jane Temple s single life. 
 
 " Yes," Mrs. Dale admitted, briefly, and 
 then added, " but it is better to be lonely 
 than to wish to be alone. If she had mar 
 ried a man so different from herself, she 
 might have come to that." The child, 
 sensitive to the change in her grandmo 
 ther s voice, looked up, and her little fore 
 head gathered in anxious wrinkles ; she 
 thought she would like to take Mrs. Dale s 
 hand, and kiss it, and say, " Don t be 
 sorry ! " She listened for some comment 
 
6 The Story of a Child 
 
 from Mrs. Wright, but none came. How 
 still they were, these two, sitting in the 
 darkness ! The full skirt of her grand 
 mother s silk dress looked as though it 
 were carved out of black marble, and 
 above it glimmered whitely the old sol 
 emn face that she loved and feared ; Mrs. 
 Wright s comfortable form seemed to 
 melt into mystery ; and suddenly, as she 
 looked at the two motionless figures, all 
 the intangible dumb terrors of childhood 
 began to rise in her throat. Oh, if they 
 would only speak ; if she could hear some 
 other sound than the high faint stir of the 
 leaves above her, and far away, below the 
 terrace, the prolonged note of a cicada ! 
 
 " Suppose," she said to herself, her eyes 
 widening with fright, " suppose that all 
 of a sudden grandmother s head and Mrs. 
 Wright s head were to roll off, and roll 
 down the steps, right here, beside me ! " 
 Her breath caught in a sob of terror. 
 The vision of the rolling heads frightened 
 her to the last point of endurance ; she 
 
The Story of a Child 7 
 
 could not trust her voice to say good 
 night, but darted down the steps, and ran, 
 her knees trembling under her, along the 
 path to the back of the house. She knew 
 that the servants would be in the kitchen ; 
 yawning, very likely, over the good books 
 Mrs. Dale provided for their edification, 
 or rocking and sewing in stolid comfort, 
 but alive speaking ! In her rush along 
 the dewy path, the child had a ghastly 
 thought of a dead world, herself the only 
 living thing in it ; but that was followed 
 by the instant reflection, that under those 
 circumstances she might walk into the 
 queen s palace and put on a crown ; this 
 thought was so calming that when she 
 reached the women she had no desire to 
 throw herself into Betsey s arms, as she 
 had planned to do, declaring that she would 
 be a good girl forever afterwards. This 
 promise had seemed to Ellen necessary as 
 a bribe to Something ; but, her passionate 
 fright over, the impulse faded, and she was 
 content to pin Betsey s shawl around her 
 
8 The Story of a Child 
 
 waist, and walk up and down the kitchen 
 with a queenly tread, absorbed in visions 
 of future, if solitary greatness. The two 
 ladies upon the porch were rather relieved 
 by her flight, though Mrs. Wright checked 
 her kindly gossip long enough to say, 
 " Why, what is the matter with Ellen ? " 
 
 " She has gone to tell Betsey to put 
 her to bed, I suppose," Mrs. Dale said. 
 " Dear me, Susy, she is a great care ! I 
 wish she were like your Lydia, quiet 
 and well-behaved. I often think I m too 
 old to train a child ; and she is very like 
 her mother ! Poor Lucy was not brought 
 up according to our ideas, you know." 
 
 "She reminds me of Dr. Dale, some 
 times," said Mrs. Wright, who was con 
 spicuous in Old Chester for always saying 
 the wrong thing. 
 
 Mrs. Dale s face hardened. " I only 
 wish she may grow to be like my dear 
 husband in in amiability." 
 
 "Oh, dear me, yes!" cried Mrs. Wright, 
 with an exuberance that betrayed her. 
 "Dear Dr. Dale!" 
 
The Story of a Child 9 
 
 Mrs. Dale bowed her head. 
 
 The thoughts of both these women 
 were on Dr. Eben Dale, one with hon 
 est pity, the other with the scorch of mor 
 tification and anger. He was dead, the 
 brilliant, weak old man, dead, and es 
 caped from his wife s fierce rectitude. In 
 their youth she had harassed him with 
 the passionate spur of exacting love, but 
 latterly that had been exchanged for con 
 tempt. And then he died. No one 
 guessed her grief, covered as it was by 
 bitterness, and yet no one knew her fear 
 of that joyous and imaginative tempera 
 ment which had made it easy for him to 
 go wrong, and which she saw repeated in 
 her grandchild. 
 
 When Mrs. Wright said that little 
 Ellen was like her grandfather, Mrs. 
 Dale s heart contracted ; she lost her in 
 terest in Jane Temple s affairs ; she began 
 to examine her conscience as to whether 
 she was doing her duty to the child. It 
 seemed to her that her husband was look- 
 
io The Story of a Child 
 
 ing at her from Ellen s eyes, looking 
 and laughing, as though he and she took 
 up the old quarrel again. 
 
 " Like her grandfather ! " Mrs. Dale s 
 thin old hands clasped each other in a 
 tremulous grip. " Oh no no ! " she 
 said to herself. "Oh, if my Heavenly 
 Father will only give me grace to train 
 her for Him!" 
 
II 
 
 OLD CHESTER is a hundred years 
 behind the times ; so, at least, it is 
 assured by its sons and daughters, who 
 have left it to live in the great world, but 
 who come back, sometimes, for conde 
 scending visits to old homes. The town 
 lies among the rolling hills of western 
 Pennsylvania, hills which have never 
 echoed with the scream of the locomotive, 
 but are folded in a beautiful green silence, 
 broken only by the silken ripple of little 
 streams which run across the meadows or 
 through the dappled shadows of the woods. 
 There is not much variety in Old Ches 
 ter. The houses are built in very much 
 the same way : broad porches ; square 
 ii 
 
12 The Story of a Child 
 
 rooms on either side of a wide hall that 
 runs from the front door to the back ; 
 open fireplaces like black caverns under 
 tall wooden mantelpieces. In all the gar 
 dens the flower-beds are surrounded by 
 stiff box hedges, and all the orchards are 
 laid out in straight lines. 
 
 The people are as much alike as their 
 houses : they read the same books, go to 
 the same church, train their children by 
 the same rules, and are equally polite, re 
 served, and gently critical of one another. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking thing about 
 the village is the way in which the chil 
 dren are brought up. In Old Chester 
 young persons are supposed to be seen, 
 and not heard ; they are taught that when 
 they have the privilege of being in the 
 company of their elders and betters it is to 
 profit by example, and be grateful for ad 
 vice. Thus they early perceive that their 
 opinions are of no importance, and need 
 not be expressed ; a perception which adds 
 greatly to the comfort of grown persons. 
 
The Story of a Child 13 
 
 In spite of this admirable system, there 
 has been more than one black sheep in the 
 village. There was Eben Dale himself, 
 although his youth dated so very far back 
 that perhaps his maturity should not be 
 quoted against Old Chester. Henry Tem 
 ple, too, had not turned out well except 
 in a worldly way ; and the worldly way was 
 of small importance in Old Chester. In 
 deed, without quite putting it into words, 
 the village felt a little lack of gentility 
 in Henry s undoubted wealth ; and that, 
 added to his change in politics, and his in 
 difference to church matters, and his will 
 ingness to live in the great world instead 
 of the village, was enough to make Old 
 Chester say that he had " not turned out 
 well." " Such a pity that his father was 
 so lenient with him ! " the people said ; 
 and waited calmly for some Nemesis to 
 overtake him. It being a peculiarity of 
 Old Chester to believe that an overruling 
 Providence agreed with it in questions of 
 desert. 
 
14 The Story of a Child 
 
 There had been one instance of over- 
 severity in the village, but only one, and 
 that not among the families of importance. 
 This was in the case of Mr. Tommy Dove, 
 the apothecary. His mother had ruled 
 him with an iron rod until his forty-sev 
 enth year ; then death pushed her from 
 her throne, and left Mr. Tommy free, ex 
 cept, indeed, for the restraint of tender 
 ness, which death, kindly but untrue, left 
 in her place. Yet he soon rallied into 
 self-reliance; " remarkably soon, Old 
 Chester commented disapprovingly ; for, 
 within three months after her death, he 
 took advantage of his liberty to go gad 
 ding about the world, leaving his patrons 
 to get their medicines where they might. 
 
 Dates were remembered chronologically 
 in the village : " Dr. Dale gave up prac 
 tice the winter that the first Mrs. Dray- 
 ton died ; " " Henry Temple voted the 
 wrong ticket the year there was a snow 
 storm when the apple - trees were in 
 bloom ; " and " Mr. Tommy s first ill-reg- 
 
The Story of a Child 75 
 
 ulated action in mysteriously leaving town 
 took place the summer that Henry Tem 
 ple and his family were here." 
 
 Mr. Tommy was hardly important enough 
 to gossip about, but Mr. Temple was ; and, 
 incidentally, his children were discussed ; 
 for spoiling Richard and Euphemia was 
 another of his sins. Not even his sister s 
 efforts to train them could make up for 
 his shocking carelessness, people said. 
 That Miss Jane did her best was plain 
 enough ; but Miss Jane was gentle and 
 timid and self-distrustful, as every unmar 
 ried woman should be ; and the children, 
 unfortunately, were like their father, head 
 strong and self-satisfied. So how could 
 she discipline them ? 
 
 Beside, the summer of the Temples 
 first visit, the summer Mr. Tommy had 
 disappeared, Miss Jane had a small hap 
 piness and interest of her own, which no 
 doubt claimed the thought that might 
 have been given to Effie and Dick. It 
 was not a very exciting happiness ; only a 
 
1 6 The Story of a Child 
 
 pleasant talk now and then with Mr. Dove, 
 or an occasional call from him in those 
 fragrant summer evenings. They would 
 sit alone, these two elderly persons, in 
 the dimly-lighted drawing-room, hearing a 
 murmur of talk in the library across the 
 hall, or starting with a fright which nei 
 ther of them understood, if a door opened 
 and closed, or if Mr. Henry Temple s voice 
 was heard in the hall. Mr. Dove had dared 
 to give Miss Temple a bunch of flowers, 
 once ; and once, too, had embarrassed and 
 touched her by bringing her a little green 
 crape shawl which had belonged to his 
 mother. It was all very harmless and 
 very pleasant ; when, suddenly, Old Ches 
 ter learned with astonishment that its 
 apothecary had gone ! Of course the rea 
 son could not long be concealed : Mr. 
 Tommy, the village declared, aghast and 
 disapproving, but grateful for a bit of gos 
 sip, Mr. Tommy had made love to Jane 
 Temple ! 
 
 But that was four years ago, and Mr. 
 
The Story of a Child 17 
 
 Tommy, who returned as soon as the 
 Temples left the village, had behaved so 
 properly ever since that his presumption 
 was not remembered against him, until 
 now, when they were coming back again, 
 a second abrupt and mysterious departure 
 brought it all to mind. 
 
 " So foolish in Mr. Tommy," every one 
 said, severely, and looked at Jane Temple 
 to see how she took it. Miss Temple took 
 it calmly ; there was a quick, surprised 
 glance at the closed house standing in its 
 neglected garden, and a little heightened 
 color in her cheek when she went to Wil 
 lie King s to have one of Mrs. Temple s 
 prescriptions filled. Perhaps she was too 
 busy for any embarrassment, or regret, or 
 wonder ; her sister-in-law s health was an 
 absorbing anxiety ; Effie s lessons had to 
 be looked after ; Dick needed her to keep 
 his fishing-lines in order ; Mr. Temple was 
 so good as to let her be of use in his lit 
 erary work, to the extent of copying manu 
 script for him. Beside, there was a certain 
 
1 8 The Story of a Child 
 
 occupation in the mere delight of being 
 back again in her old home, among old 
 friends. This quiet, old-fashioned living 
 which afforded Mr. Henry Temple much di 
 version was dear and sacred to her. There 
 was nothing droll to her ears in being called 
 a "girl ; " it gave her a pathetic happiness 
 to have Mrs. Dale apologize for speaking 
 of a delicate subject in her presence. " I 
 forgot you were here, my dear," Mrs. 
 Dale said, and Miss Jane blushed, prop 
 erly and prettily, and felt comforted and 
 cared for. She knew more of the great, 
 indifferent, vulgar world than Mrs. Dale 
 ever dreamed of, but she cast down her 
 eyes unaffectedly when the older woman 
 apologized for speaking of the miscon 
 duct of a village girl. She wished she 
 might draw Dick and Effie into this tran 
 quil life which so refreshed her. She 
 looked at these two young persons, and 
 pitied them because they did not know 
 Youth. Here, in Old Chester, how care 
 fully Youth was guarded ! It was still 
 
The Story of a Child 19 
 
 protected and considered when maturity 
 had set its mark about soft lips and gentle 
 eyes. It was done by snubbing, Henry 
 Temple said, but Miss Jane never felt 
 snubbed ; she saw only kindly protection 
 in the condescension which so amused her 
 brother, and her elderly, starved heart 
 basked in it with great content. She was 
 so modest, so grateful, that her friends 
 were pleased to say of her that Jane had 
 no "airs." This most satisfying praise 
 could not be given to the rest of the Tem 
 ple household ; the two children were es 
 pecially " airy," and " snubbing " became 
 a matter of duty to all thoughtful persons. 
 "That unfortunate Temple child," Old 
 Chester said, in speaking of Effie, " must 
 really be reproved." The reproof was only 
 the rebuke of a grave manner and a dis 
 creet indifference to what she said and did, 
 but it astounded and irritated the child. 
 To hear herself addressed, on the rare oc 
 casions when she was noticed, as Euphe- 
 mia, instead of Effie, for Old Chester 
 
20 The Story of a Cbild 
 
 did not approve of nicknames, filled her 
 with childish rage. 
 
 " My name s Effie ; I don t like to be 
 called Euphemia," she always retorted 
 glibly; and she gave her opinion of Old 
 Chester, in this connection, with great 
 freedom and force to Ellen Dale. 
 
 " How queer and old - fashioned every 
 body is here," she said, "and how funny 
 to be called Ellen ; it s such an ugly name ! 
 Why don t you make your grandmother 
 call you Nellie ? " 
 
 " Make " her grandmother ! Ellen, who 
 was really a year older than the fine young 
 lady who addressed her, shivered ; yet 
 there was no Old Chester child so quickly 
 influenced by Effie Temple as she. 
 
 All the children had received Effie with 
 admiration, and even a little fright. Ellen 
 and her dearest friend, Lydia Wright, 
 talked about her in lowered voices. They 
 felt vaguely that there was something 
 naughty in thinking too much of the 
 strange little girl, whose hair hung over 
 
The Story of a Child 21 
 
 her eyes and waved loosely about her 
 shoulders, who possessed two rings, and 
 who never wore aprons. One morning, 
 soon after Effie s arrival in Old Chester, 
 Ellen whispered to Lydia behind her spell 
 ing-book, at school, that if she would come 
 down to the fence of the east pasture that 
 afternoon, she would be there, " and 
 tell you something about her" she ended 
 mysteriously. 
 
 Lydia opened her round eyes very wide, 
 and shook her brown curls. " May be my 
 mother won t allow me to go down to the 
 east pasture, Ellen." 
 
 " But if you just happened to be walk 
 ing there," Ellen tempted, " an I hap 
 pened to be walking on my side of the 
 fence ? it is n t like visiting ; I guess we 
 need n t ask leave." 
 
 "Well," said Lydia doubtfully. 
 
 " If you should be there, and you should 
 bring your sewing, I d do it for you," El 
 len enticed ; " only, of course, may be / 
 won t be there." 
 
22 The Story of a Child 
 
 "Well," said Lydia again, but with more 
 firmness. 
 
 " Mother did n t say I must n t," she 
 assured herself, when, in the afternoon, 
 silencing her conscience with casuistry 
 learned from her friend, she ran across 
 a sunny meadow, and through the deep 
 grass of an orchard, and reached the east 
 pasture. Two poplars, one on either side 
 of the fence, dropped flickering shadows 
 through the sunshine, and their smooth 
 trunks offered a comfortable support to 
 any one who climbed up and sat on the 
 fence, as Ellen was doing now. 
 
 "Why ! " said she, affecting vast aston 
 ishment. " Where are you going ? Won t 
 you stop a minute and talk ? " 
 
 " Why, Ellen," faltered the other, " you 
 said " - 
 
 " I happened to be walking along here," 
 Ellen interrupted, frowning, it was so 
 stupid in Lydia to forget to make believe ; 
 " I saw you coming, and I waited a little 
 while. It is n t visiting." 
 
The Story of a Child 23 
 
 " Oh, no," Lydia assented weakly. " I 
 I brought the handkerchief to hem, El 
 len. You said you would," she ended, with 
 a confused air. 
 
 " Oh, I don t mind doing a little for 
 you," Ellen returned, in an obliging man 
 ner ; she ignored the arrangement, but 
 she did not ignore the work. 
 
 Lydia reached the handkerchief up to 
 her, and then climbed on the fence and 
 settled herself comfortably against her 
 poplar. Ellen whipped a thimble out of 
 her pocket and began to sew very fast. 
 " She s coming to our school until it 
 closes, and when it does, she is to have a 
 governess." 
 
 "Oh!" cried Lydia. There was no 
 need to say who was coming. To the two 
 children Effie Temple was the only per 
 son of importance in Old Chester. 
 
 " She does n t want to," proceeded 
 Ellen. "I heard grandmother tell Mrs. 
 Drayton so. Grandmother said it showed 
 how she was brought up, that anybody 
 
24 The Story of a Child 
 
 knew or cared what she wanted. Grand 
 mother said she was spoiled 7 " 
 
 "Oh, my!" 
 
 "But she s coming, any way. And, 
 Lydia, do you know, she talks French ! " 
 Lydia was speechless. " They re coming 
 to tea to our house to-morrow night, and 
 she s coming. And grandmother said I 
 might have my tea-set on the table on the 
 side porch, just Effie and me. I wish 
 grandmother would invite you." 
 
 " Won t she ? " Lydia asked anxiously. 
 
 " No," Ellen assured her, sighing. " I 
 guess I 11 go home now and fix my tea-set 
 for to-morrow night. I wonder if she 11 
 like to play hollyhock ladies, or hear 
 stories ? Do you suppose she 11 like sto 
 ries ? I ll tell her lots. I ll tell her 
 what happened to me when I was a little 
 girl and was sick." 
 
 Lydia knew this story well, but she 
 could not resist asking for it again, and 
 listening with delightful shudders, while 
 Ellen, cheerfully, her hands clasped around 
 
The Story of a Child 25 
 
 her knees, staring up into the branches 
 above her, related, circumstantially, and 
 with that pride in illness which children 
 feel, how she had taken lots of medi 
 cine, and got worse, and worse, and worse, 
 and worse ; and then at last they thought 
 she was dead ; and she was put into a 
 coffin and buried, here she paused to 
 quake with terror, not at her bold untruth, 
 but at the picture she had conjured up, - 
 and how she had "escaped," and thus, 
 and thus. Neither child believed this 
 marvelous tale, but it was true to both. 
 Midway in her fiction Ellen stopped to 
 say, " Oh, Lydia, do you know any French 
 at all?" 
 
 It was not often that Lydia occupied 
 the proud position of instructor to Ellen, 
 so it was a happy moment when she said, 
 " Yes, I do ; I know How do you do, this 
 morning ? My brother told me." 
 
 " Oh, tell me," Ellen begged ; and Lydia 
 generously said something which sounded 
 like " Coma-voo port ah voo, set mattan." 
 
26 Tbe Story of a Child 
 
 Her pleasure at giving Ellen information 
 almost made her forget the vague and 
 gnawing consciousness that she had done 
 wrong in coming out without permission. 
 
Ill 
 
 THAT tea-party was an event in Ellen s 
 life. To begin with, she had a quarrel 
 with Betsey Thomas, who was dressing 
 her. 
 
 " I don t want to wear a white apron ; 
 it s too babyish. I won t ! So there ! " 
 
 " You will," Betsey assured her briefly, 
 holding out the hated garment. Ellen 
 stamped and opened her lips for some 
 outcry, but there was a sound in the 
 hall outside the door, and she only drew 
 a sobbing breath and waited ; she knew 
 that slow rustle of her grandmother s 
 dress. As for Betsey, she hailed it with 
 delight. 
 
 "If you please, ma am," she said, as 
 27 
 
28 The Story of a Child 
 
 Mrs. Dale entered, "Ellen won t put on 
 her apron." 
 
 " Grandmother, I don t see why I should 
 wear an apron. I m going on twelve, and 
 Effie does n t have to, and " 
 
 " That is enough, Ellen." 
 
 Mrs. Dale s hair, soft and white as spun 
 silk, was caught back by little tortoise- 
 shell combs, and fell in three short, thick 
 curls on either side of her face ; she wore 
 a turban, made of snowy muslin, and the 
 bosom of her black satin gown was filled 
 with the same soft whiteness, crossed in 
 smooth folds and fastened with a small 
 pin in a silver setting. Her delicate old 
 hands were covered with rings, most of 
 them with strands of hair beneath dull 
 glass. She looked at her little grand 
 daughter critically. "Tie her hair back 
 with a brown ribbon, Betsey Thomas," 
 she said, and Ellen involuntarily put up 
 her hands to protect the pink band which 
 held her straight brown locks smoothly in 
 place. Ellen wore her hair, as did all Old 
 
The Story of a Cbild 29 
 
 Chester little girls, parted in the middle 
 and cut short behind her ears. It was so 
 thick that it made her head look like a 
 mop. 
 
 Even Betsey regretted the order about 
 the pink ribbon. " She wants," the maid 
 explained afterwards to the cook, "to 
 make that child just as old-fashioned as if 
 she was fifty, I do declare ! And that 
 little Effie, all dressed up, and banged and 
 all that. There! I did pity our Ellen." 
 
 Ellen pitied herself, but submitted to 
 the brown ribbon with only a quiver of 
 her little red upper lip. She gave a de 
 spairing glance in the long glass, and saw 
 a small, sturdy figure in a green frock, 
 a frock reaching nearly to her ankles, and 
 made very simply, with only a frill in the 
 neck and sleeves for trimming ; she saw 
 the white dimity apron with tabs pinned 
 up on each shoulder ; then, rosy cheeks, 
 big troubled eyes, and the brown ribbon 
 tying back the straight, silken, brown hair. 
 That straight dark hair was Ellen s great- 
 
30 The Story of a Child 
 
 est cross. Many, many times she had 
 added to her prayers the petition that it 
 might grow light and curly, or that she 
 might own a frizzled yellow wig ; and she 
 had painfully eaten many crusts of bread, 
 having been told by some deceitful disci 
 plinarian that to eat crusts would make 
 her hair curl. Perhaps she would have 
 been happier had she known that Mrs. 
 Dale, watching that glance into the mirror, 
 was saying to herself, " How much better 
 my little Ellen looks than that furbelowed 
 Temple child!" But Mrs. Dale would 
 never have told Ellen that she looked 
 nicely, lest the knowledge should make 
 her vain. 
 
 When Ellen saw the "Temple child," 
 with her yellow hair, and her white dress 
 and blue sash, she had a moment of that 
 intense anger which only childhood knows. 
 She grew white, and her grandmother, see 
 ing the change of color, said to herself that 
 she was glad to see the child show a little 
 shyness. Generally Ellen was too modest 
 
The Story of a Child 31 
 
 to be shy, though Mrs. Dale did not make 
 that distinction in her thoughts. As for 
 Effie, she was neither modest nor shy. 
 
 " Oh, how do you do ? " she said, and 
 took Ellen s limp hand in hers with the 
 most matter-of-fact and grown-up polite 
 ness. Then Mrs. Temple spoke kindly to 
 Ellen, and murmured something about her 
 dear dead mother ; and Miss Jane kissed 
 her, and said she hoped she would come 
 to see Effie often. 
 
 " If grandmother will allow me," Ellen 
 answered, her anger ebbing as she spoke. 
 
 "Now, Ellen," said Mrs. Dale, "take 
 your little friend to the side porch. Have 
 you put out your tea things ? Euphemia, 
 you and Ellen are to take tea on the side 
 porch." 
 
 Ellen was quite joyous by this time, and 
 took her guest s hand with smiling haste. 
 Effie looked blank. "Are we to go away ? " 
 
 "Oh, we are going to have a good time; 
 we re going to have tea all by ourselves. 
 Come, we must set the table ! " 
 
^2 The Story of a Child 
 
 There was a bubble of happiness in her 
 voice. She had forgotten the brown rib 
 bon, and the plain frock, and her wrath. 
 One could not be angry when one could 
 drink tea on the side porch, where the 
 jasmine was blooming on the lattice, and 
 where one had one s oVn china dishes, and 
 small cakes baked to fit them ! 
 
 Efne stared at her. " Does your grand 
 ma make you set the table ? How horrid ! 
 We have servants. I thought your grand 
 ma was rich ? " 
 
 "Rich?" said Ellen. "I don t know. 
 Don t you think it s fun to put out your 
 own china ? It s mine, you know. See ! 
 is n t that teapot pretty ? " 
 
 EfHe admitted that it was ; but she 
 looked at it with a bored irritation. " How 
 queer, not to go to supper with the grown 
 people," she said. 
 
 The table on which Ellen spread her 
 cloth was really only a wide bench at one 
 end of the porch. It was so low that the 
 children sat on hassocks instead of chairs. 
 
The Story of a Child 33 
 
 Through the long hall, from the front 
 porch, they could hear the voices of the 
 company; but here all was quiet, save for 
 their own chatter. 
 
 " Let s get some roses for the table," 
 Effie suggested, beginning to be interested. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " cried Ellen, and then hesi 
 tated. " But I did n t ask grandmother." 
 
 " Do you have to ask ? Why, I should 
 just tell the gardener to get me bushels, if 
 I wanted them." 
 
 "Would you?" said Ellen wistfully. 
 "I have to ask." 
 
 " Well, I think that s perfectly dreadful; 
 Effie sympathized, emphasizing her words 
 in a way that was quite new to the other 
 child. Indeed, many things were new to 
 Ellen. By the time the little feast was 
 over she had learned much that she had 
 never suspected. She was told that Bet 
 sey ought to call her " Miss Ellen or Miss 
 Nellie ; Ellen is awful. I m going to call 
 you Nellie or Nettie ; how would you like 
 Nettie? Ellen is dreadful!" She was 
 
34 The Story of a Child 
 
 assured that she looked awfully queer with 
 her hair parted and cut so short, and with 
 no bang, and also that it was funny to 
 wear an apron : although, indeed, she 
 knew that, she said. And then she con 
 fided the story of the afternoon. 
 
 " I would n t stand it ! " cried Effie. " I 
 would n t let anybody rule me that way ! 
 I d why, my goodness, I think your 
 grandmother is awfully cruel." 
 
 Ellen gasped. 
 
 " You poor little thing," Effie went on, 
 " it s perfectly shameful, the way they 
 treat you. Well, never mind ; I 11 take 
 care of you, only you must have some 
 spirit. Watch me, and I 11 show you how 
 to act : Here, Betsey ! give Miss Nellie 
 some more cake." 
 
 Betsey was "that dumfounded," as she 
 told the cook afterwards, that she " did n t 
 hardly know what to say ; " what she did 
 say, looking severely at Ellen, was, " Eat 
 your pudding, and don t talk," which El 
 len scarcely deserved, being speechless 
 
The Story of a Child 35 
 
 with astonishment. She was thinking to 
 herself, " What will Lydia say when I tell 
 her about it at recess to-morrow ? " But 
 she helped Effie to the pudding, and sug 
 gested that they should make believe that 
 the little mounds of rice on their plates 
 were mountains, and the brown, soft raisins 
 hidden in them were the bodies of trav 
 elers buried in the snow, and they them 
 selves were noble St. Bernard dogs, search 
 ing, at terrible risk, to save imperiled 
 lives. To do this, made the simple dessert 
 delicious to Ellen, who, in eating each 
 frozen traveler as soon as he was found, 
 was not disturbed by any sense of incon 
 gruity. But she had so far profited by 
 Effie s example that when Betsey reproved 
 her for leaving some rice upon her plate, 
 with the remark that it was wicked waste, 
 and that some poor child would like to 
 have it, she had the courage to retort that 
 she did n t see what good it would do 
 the poor child if she ate the rice. 
 
 " So there ! " Effie added, to encourage 
 her. 
 
$6 The Story of a Child 
 
 " And from that minute," Betsey Thomas 
 used to say, " I took a dislike to that young 
 one ! " 
 
 Effie s indignation at her hostess s hard 
 lot was very impressive to Ellen ; Lydia 
 had never seemed to be so sorry for her, 
 she thought. But although it was inter 
 esting to talk about herself, she felt that 
 politeness demanded that she should en 
 tertain her guest, and so, when tea was 
 over, she reluctantly interrupted Effie s 
 sympathy to ask her if she would like to 
 play martyrs. 
 
 " Martyrs ? " said Effie, with an unflat 
 tering readiness to change the subject. 
 " What is it ? I don t know ; yes. Is it 
 forfeits, or anything like that ? I like for 
 feits, but I don t want to play any old im 
 proving game." 
 
 " It is n t a game," Ellen explained ; 
 " it s just martyrs. Lydia and I play it. 
 Come down in the garden and we 11 make 
 them. Do you think you could be a mar 
 tyr, Effie ? " 
 
The Story of a Child 57 
 
 " Well, you are the queerest girl ! " was 
 all Effie vouchsafed to say. 
 
 The two children ran across the lawn, 
 and down between the box-edged borders 
 to a group of hollyhocks, standing like 
 slender spires against the yellow sunset. 
 Ellen s face was grave and eager as she 
 chose the flower she wanted, but Effie 
 was not certain whether to be contemp 
 tuous or interested. 
 
 A splendid crimson blossom was the first 
 one to be picked. "That is the mother 
 of the family," said Ellen, explaining. 
 A pale rose came next, " that s the eld 
 est daughter ; this white one is a bride, 
 and she has consumption ; and this little 
 yellow one is a little girl. Like me." 
 
 " Martyrs ! " said Effie, with unaffected 
 contempt. " I never heard of anything so 
 silly." 
 
 " You wait," Ellen answered mysteri 
 ously. She sat down on the grass, and 
 carefully pulling off the furry calyx of each 
 gorgeous blossom, she bent the silken 
 
38 The Story of a Child 
 
 petals back with careful touches, and then, 
 plucking long blades of grass, tied what 
 she called " sashes " about the waist of 
 her floral dolls ; after that, a stalk of grass 
 was thrust through each of these high- 
 shouldered ladies, and there were their 
 arms stretched out at right angles. The 
 feathery pistils made stately headdresses 
 for the four little persons who were to die 
 for a principle. 
 
 Then the children went back to the 
 house and pushed four matches down into 
 the mossy line between the flagstones of 
 the path, and tied a martyr to each little 
 stake, heaping bits of twigs as fagots 
 about their devoted forms ; by that time 
 Effie was as absorbed as Ellen. Ellen 
 told the " story " of the play, but, as Effie 
 was company, she applied the fire ; the 
 " torch," Ellen called it. "And they said, 
 If you will recant," 1 Ellen recited, the 
 bride s silvery white robe shivering at the 
 touch of the flame, " if you will recant 
 you shall have all the money you want, 
 
The Story of a Child 39 
 
 and a palace to live in. But the lovely 
 lady shook her head, and said, I won t, 
 and so they burned her up." Ellen s lip 
 quivered as she reached this point in the 
 story. The fresh flowers did not burn 
 well, and their prolonged suffering made 
 her so unhappy that, suddenly, she scat 
 tered the tiny brands and rescued them. 
 
 " Oh, my ! " she said, " I f m glad I did n t 
 live in Bloody Mary s time. I would n t 
 have liked to be burned. I know it s 
 wicked, but I would n t. I tried it, to see 
 if I could, and I couldn t? she ended, in 
 a shamed voice. 
 
 " How did you try it ? " 
 
 "Well, I put my hand in the candle, 
 like Cranmer." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "I I took it out again. Oh, I hope 
 there won t be any more persecutions. 
 I get so scared thinking about it ! " 
 
 " You re the funniest girl ! " Effie de 
 clared. 
 
 Ellen was silent. It seemed to her that 
 
40 The Story of a Child 
 
 she had been very silly to cry because she 
 had not been able to keep her blistering 
 finger in the candle flame. After a while, 
 she said, in a low voice, " Did you ever 
 read Persecutions in Spain ? There *s a 
 lot about martyrs in it. It scares me." 
 
 "What do you read it for, then ?" Effie 
 inquired, not unnaturally ; but she could 
 not help being interested when Ellen told 
 her of beautiful nuns walled up alive in 
 dreadful dungeons, and she was con 
 strained to say she would read it some 
 day. 
 
 " It would be nice to play walling up," 
 Ellen said meditatively. " We have a 
 brick oven round by the kitchen door ; we 
 could crawl in and pretend to be walled 
 up ? " 
 
 Effie was enchanted with the thought, 
 and the two children hurried, in the fading 
 light, to the old oven. It had a turtle-like 
 back, and stood on three squat brick legs. 
 Bread had been baked in it that day, and 
 it was still faintly warm, and the smell of 
 
Tie Story of a Child 41 
 
 fresh bread mingled deliciously with the 
 pungent scent of wood smoke. There 
 were traces of ashes about its cavernous 
 mouth, and Ellen pushed in the fire-rake 
 and drew out some charred brands. 
 
 Effie had no suggestions to make, but 
 she assented eagerly to all Ellen s plans. 
 
 " They used to leave some food for the 
 nuns," said Ellen, " so we must put in a 
 loaf of bread, and a ewer, it always said 
 in the book a ewer of water. But who 
 will wall us up ? That wooden square is 
 the door, and Betsey puts this rake-handle 
 against it, to keep it up when the bread is 
 in. But we can t do that when we get 
 inside ? " 
 
 "Oh, I ll do it," Effie said: "you get 
 inside, and I 11 do it." 
 
 This seemed very unselfish on Effie s 
 part. Ellen hesitated, but the temptation 
 was too great, and she crawled into the 
 open mouth of the oven. Then Effie 
 propped the door in place with the rake- 
 handle, and the martyr, curling herself up 
 
42 The Story of a Child 
 
 to fit the small space, folded her hands 
 upon her breast and composed herself for 
 an ecstasy. " I 11 sing a hymn," she 
 called out in a muffled voice, " the mar 
 tyrs always sing hymns. But I think I 11 
 eat my bread first." She crammed some 
 bread into her mouth, and continued, dra 
 matically ; "I must save this bread I 
 must make it last as long as I can ! but 
 I will never recant ! Never ! " 
 
 Effie really shuddered at the tone, and 
 was about to tear open the tomb, when, 
 unfortunately, Betsey Thomas appeared, to 
 tell Ellen that it was her bedtime ; Betsey 
 cried out, and scolded, and pulled the ash- 
 covered Ellen from her martyr s grave and 
 into the house, to her intense mortification 
 and anger. 
 
 " You go right straight to bed ! " said 
 Betsey. " My ! just look at you ! Well, 
 you can t go on the porch to say good 
 night. I 11 tell your grandmother ; see if 
 I don t, you naughty girl, you ! " 
 
 In the midst of the tirade Effie slunk 
 
The Story of a Child 43 
 
 away, and Ellen battled with the servant 
 alone. But in the end she went upstairs 
 to bed, and cried, and thought of what 
 Effie had said of the hardness of her life, 
 and prayed a great deal, with that bitter 
 piety which is a form of resentment and is 
 not confined to adolescence. She looked 
 at her arm, which Betsey had griped with 
 plump fingers while expressing forcible 
 opinions, and saw a faint red mark. She 
 decided to show this mark to her grand 
 mother, but was dismayed to see that the 
 redness was disappearing, and so pinched 
 it a little, that it might bear witness to 
 Betsey s behavior. 
 
 As she lay in her little bed, looking out 
 at the fading sky, where suddenly, be 
 tween the branches of the pear-tree, a star 
 shook and then burned clear, she heard the 
 murmur of voices, and sometimes a little 
 low, pleasant laughter, and she reflected 
 that Efrle was there with the grown peo 
 ple, while she had been sent to bed ! 
 sent to bed and pinched 7 Oh, how miser- 
 
44 The Story of a Child 
 
 able she was ! How cruel her grandmother 
 was, to oblige her to go to bed at half past 
 eight, like a baby, while Effie stayed down 
 stairs with the company ! 
 
 Ellen realized that her eyes were wet, 
 and she shut them tightly, so that the 
 tears would show upon her lashes ; her 
 grandmother, when she came to her bed 
 side, as she did the last thing every night, 
 should see that Ellen had been crying, and 
 then she would feel badly. Ellen turned 
 over on her back, so that the pillow should 
 not dry the tears, and determined to lie 
 awake to note the effect upon Mrs. Dale. 
 She extended her arm, too, with the sleeve 
 of her night-gown well pushed up above 
 the fading illustration of Betsey s unkind- 
 ness. The thought of Mrs. Dale s remorse 
 began to soften her, and then But it 
 was morning, and Betsey was saying, 
 " Come, get up, Ellen, or you 11 be late 
 for worship." And all the room was full 
 of sunshine, and it was not until an hour 
 later that she remembered her wrongs. 
 
IV 
 
 THE friendship between Ellen and Effie 
 grew very rapidly, in those pleasant 
 summer days ; they saw each other con 
 stantly, and, as though that were not 
 enough, corresponded by the aid of some 
 thing that they called a " telegraph," a 
 string from the window of Ellen s bed 
 room to the big locust-tree just within 
 Mr. Temple s grounds. At first, Ellen s 
 feeling for Effie had been ecstatic devo 
 tion ; she knew for at least a week the 
 tremulous pangs of bliss and pain, the 
 rankling stab of jealousy, the spur of the 
 desire for approbation, the impulsive and 
 ingenious flattery of the lover, all that 
 goes to make up what is called falling in 
 45 
 
46 The Story of a Child 
 
 love. And then her idol shattered the 
 idealization with a wholesome squabble, 
 and Ellen came down to commonplace 
 friendship, in which in games and fancies 
 she was first. In the generosity of her 
 imagination, she told Effie of a plan she 
 and Lydia had, of digging up a great stone 
 in the woods, under which Ellen was con 
 vinced were buried many Indian warriors, 
 together with bags of gold, tomahawks, 
 and copper spears. It was their inten 
 tion to dig the boulder up, and then pre 
 sent the buried wealth to their grateful 
 relatives. The skeletons of the Indians 
 Lydia and Ellen were to keep for them 
 selves. 
 
 Effie entered cheerfully into the project, 
 but she did not care to dig ; and the stone, 
 gray with lichen, and bedded deep in ferns 
 and moss and years of fallen forest leaves, 
 continued to seal the riches in which Ellen 
 firmly believed. Effie would sit under a 
 tree and watch Ellen tugging and straining 
 at a big stick thrust as a lever under one 
 
The Story of a Child 47 
 
 side of the rock, or digging until her face 
 was as crimson as the single columbine 
 that nodded on the great stone s breast. 
 Effie had not a very lively faith in the 
 skeletons beneath the stone, but she liked 
 to hear Ellen talk about them. "Will 
 they be in coffins ? " she inquired placidly. 
 "No," Ellen told her; "they ll be 
 wrapped in wampum ; that s golden robes, 
 I think; and they ll have necklaces of 
 bear s teeth, and strings and strings of 
 scalps ! Lydia and I meant to keep the 
 scalps; but you can have some." She was 
 very earnest ; she could fancy so clearly 
 the great moment when the rock should 
 be at last raised from its bed, she saw it 
 heaving up, rocking, balancing, crashing 
 over, and rolling with tremendous bounds 
 down the hillside ; she knew just how the 
 grave beneath it would look : a square hole 
 in the black soft forest earth, fringed with 
 ferns and windflowers ; solemn figures ly 
 ing straight and still within it, figures hold 
 ing burnished spears, and glittering with 
 
48 The Story of a Child 
 
 gold and gems, and decked with drooping 
 scarlet plumes ; a hundred times she had 
 pictured the moment when she should 
 stand looking down at them, while high 
 up, with faint, far sound, the tops of forest 
 trees stirred between her and the blue sky. 
 
 As this project involved more or less 
 hard work, Effie liked better the acting 
 out some of Ellen s romances of daring 
 and of love. Lydia, as a third child, would 
 have added much to their games, but Effie 
 did not like her, and so she was left out 
 of all these joys. Ellen no longer urged 
 her to "walk down by the fence in the 
 east pasture ; " Ellen s own faithlessness 
 made her say that the disloyalty was 
 Lydia s ; but more than that, her former 
 friend seemed very young ! 
 
 That Ellen and Effie were so much 
 together was pleasing not only to the two 
 children, but to the entire Temple house 
 hold. Miss Jane had begged Mrs. Dale to 
 allow her granddaughter to be with Effie 
 as much as possible. " Because," she ex- 
 
The Story of a Child 49 
 
 plained, " Ellen is such a dear child, so 
 modest and well behaved, that I am sure 
 her example will be good for Effie." 
 
 Miss Jane said this at the first meeting 
 of the sewing-society at which she was 
 present. She and Mrs. Dale were waiting 
 in the church porch after the meeting, 
 watching an unexpected downpour of sum 
 mer rain. "As soon as the carriage 
 comes, I 11 take you home, Jane Temple," 
 Mrs. Dale said ; " you can t walk up the 
 hill in this rain." There was something 
 in her voice which made the younger wo 
 man redden, and answer in quick excuse, 
 " I suppose no one at home has noticed 
 the storm, and so the carriage has not 
 been sent for me." 
 
 " I suppose not," Mrs. Dale agreed 
 dryly. Like everybody else in Old Ches 
 ter, she blamed Jane Temple because her 
 family neglected her. 
 
 " Besides," Miss Temple asserted," every 
 body knows I like the rain. No, I don t 
 mind walking, thank you." 
 
50 The Story of a Child 
 
 " No doubt," said Mrs. Dale ; "but it will 
 give me pleasure to have you, my dear, 
 so I hope you will come. I don t know 
 what has happened to Morris ; he should 
 have been here five minutes ago." 
 
 The two ladies fell into an uncomfort 
 able silence. The rain dripped steadily 
 from the pitch roof of the porch, and fell 
 into the pebbly gutters below with the 
 sharp running chime of little bells ; the 
 bare earth under the branches of the fir- 
 trees on either side of the path gleamed 
 with pools, and the grass beyond, growing 
 thick about the gray tombstones, seemed 
 greener every moment. 
 
 " It is quite a rain/ Miss Jane admitted 
 reluctantly. " Perhaps I had better drive ; 
 but will you let me stop and get a pre 
 scription filled for sister ? " 
 
 "Why, certainly," said Mrs. Dale. 
 "You know Willie King has taken Mr. 
 Tommy s place? I suppose you know 
 that Mr. Tommy has disappeared again ? " 
 She was careful not to look at Miss Jane. 
 
Tbe Story of a Child 51 
 
 " So I heard," Miss Jane answered. 
 
 " It s very vexing in Mr. Tommy to 
 run away in this fashion," Mrs. Dale went 
 on. " I wanted him to teach Ellen Latin 
 this summer ; you know he is quite a 
 scholar in his small way Ah, here is 
 the carriage. Get in, my dear;" and then, 
 a moment later, " I wonder if your sister- 
 in-law would allow Ellen to have an hour 
 or two a week with Euphemia s govern 
 ess ? " 
 
 Miss Jane, whose face had flushed at 
 Mr. Tommy s name, hastened to say that 
 she was sure Mrs. Temple would be glad 
 to make such an arrangement ; then she 
 made her little speech about Ellen s influ 
 ence. And so it came about that Ellen 
 went to Mr. Temple s house twice a week 
 for her Latin, and at least once beside 
 to spend the afternoon with Effie. This, 
 Mrs. Dale felt, was only doing what she 
 could, as a friend of the family, to im 
 prove Henry Temple s neglected child. 
 Ellen carried on this missionary work with 
 
52 The Story of a Child 
 
 a zeal which her grandmother never sus 
 pected. 
 
 On the hill, up which the orchard 
 sloped to the edge of the woods, was a 
 latticed summer-house. It was old, and 
 long ago the rain had painted it a faint, 
 soft gray ; there were vines all about it, 
 which almost hid the diamond-shaped win 
 dows in its sides, and lilacs and wild cher 
 ries crowded so closely around it that any 
 one looking up from the kitchen garden, 
 or even passing through the orchard, 
 would never have guessed that the two 
 children met in it almost every day. And 
 could their conversation on a certain Sun 
 day afternoon have been overheard, Miss 
 Jane might not have been so sure of El 
 len s influence upon Effie, and it is proba 
 ble that not even Mrs. Dale s willingness 
 to be of service to Henry Temple would 
 have made her consent to the intimacy 
 between the children. 
 
 " I don t think," Ellen was remonstrat 
 ing, " that you ought to speak so to Miss 
 Jane." 
 
The Story of a Child 53 
 
 "I don t care," said Effie, "I won t be 
 ordered around by anybody. I m not 
 like you ! " 
 
 The two children were sitting on the 
 steps of the summer-house ; they could 
 look down into the orchard, and over the 
 roof of the Dale house, which lay below 
 them. Beyond was the white, dusty turn 
 pike, and the meadows, and then the blue 
 curve of the Ohio River. It was very si 
 lent in the orchard ; only the faint rustle of 
 the leaves in the woods behind them and 
 their own hushed voices broke the sunny 
 quiet. Effie had said, in answer to Ellen s 
 request that she should hear her say her 
 hymn, " Do you have to learn hymns on 
 Sunday ? I would n t be you ! Go on : 
 Softly now " 
 
 " Softly now the light of day, 
 Fades upon my sight away ; 
 Free from care, from labor free, 
 Lord, I would commune with Thee." 
 
 Ellen s voice sounded as though she 
 were half ashamed. 
 
54 The Story of a Child 
 
 Effie, scarcely waiting for the last line, 
 closed the book with a bang, and tossed it 
 into her friend s lap. " Aunt Jane wanted 
 to make me learn a hymn on Sundays, and 
 I just told her I wouldn t. She asked me 
 if I would n t learn one ; and I said, I 
 can t, I can t, I cant, so there, now ! I 
 knew if I did it once, she d say I could, 
 and then I might have to do it again." 
 
 It was here that Ellen made her protest 
 for Miss Jane, but Effie only tossed her 
 head. "Do you think I care what she 
 says ? Nobody cares what Aunt Jane 
 says. Why, look here ; I 11 tell you 
 something about her, only it s a se 
 cret ! " 
 
 " I 11 never tell," Ellen declared. 
 
 But she was not much interested ; she 
 was too conscious that it was Sunday. Sun 
 day visiting was not approved of by Old 
 Chester, at least among the children, and 
 even the occasional afternoon calls of 
 grown persons were more or less apolo 
 getic. That Ellen, who had been allowed 
 
The Story of a Child 55 
 
 to go out into the garden to study her 
 hymn, should have dared to meet "the 
 Temple child," and spend the long, still, 
 sunshiny hours in idle talk, was something 
 that Mrs. Dale would not have forbidden, 
 because it would never have seemed 
 possible. 
 
 Before this new friendship came into 
 Ellen s life, her Sunday afternoons, in sum 
 mer, had had a distinct and happy charac 
 ter of their own. There were always some 
 verses from the Bible to be studied, and 
 a hymn. And so, book in hand, mur 
 muring over and over words which had 
 little meaning in her ears, she wandered 
 about the garden, "getting by heart," as 
 she expressed it, some of the noblest ex 
 pressions of the spiritual life. Sometimes 
 she stopped to talk to the flowers ; some 
 times to lay her cheek against the ground, 
 and look through the mist of grass stems, 
 and weave her little fancies about the 
 world of bee, and butterfly, and blossom ; 
 not unfrequently she climbed into the low 
 
56 The Story of a Child 
 
 branches of her favorite apple-tree, and 
 " preached, like Dr. Lavendar," to the con 
 gregation below her of bending and rip 
 pling Timothy. To hear herself talk of 
 piety and obedience gave Ellen all the 
 satisfaction of good behavior ; her exhor 
 tations were so earnest that she mistook 
 them for feelings, a mistake incidental, 
 perhaps, to the pulpit. She might stop at 
 this stage to repeat her hymn, and then, 
 still murmuring it to herself, go down be 
 low the terrace where the violets grew 
 thick under a larch tree ; to sit down 
 among them, and put a little finger under 
 a blossom s chin and look into its meek 
 eye, gave her far more joy than any mere 
 plucking flowers would have done. She 
 was very apt to come to this part of the 
 garden for a certain ceremony which she 
 called " marrying the grass." She would 
 kneel down and tie two stalks of blos 
 soming grass together, and pronounce 
 some solemn gibberish over them, which, 
 she said, was the marriage ceremony: 
 
TJ)e Story of a Child 57 
 
 " Now you re married, 
 We wish you joy ; 
 Your father and mother 
 You must obey ; 
 And live together 
 Like sister and brother ; 
 And now kneel down 
 And kiss each other." 
 
 Ellen never spoke of these fancies to her 
 grandmother, not from any secrecy or re 
 serve, but because of their absolute com- 
 monplaceness. If she ever reflected upon 
 them at all, it was to imagine that Mrs. 
 Dale, and everybody else in the world, 
 had the same pleasant thoughts. 
 
 Beside her pretty romancing, she had 
 long theological arguments with herself. 
 Mrs. Dale never imagined the religious 
 fogs into which her grandchild wandered, 
 or how again and again she wearied her 
 little brains over the puzzle of personal 
 responsibility. Nor did she ever fancy 
 the heartache with which sometimes, ro 
 mancing over, the child sat down to plan 
 ways and means of showing her grand- 
 
5# The Story of a Child 
 
 mother her love, for, she thought, if she 
 could only express that, perhaps Mrs. Dale 
 would kiss and cuddle her, as she had 
 once seen a gypsy mother caress a little 
 swarthy black-eyed child. Swaying to and 
 fro, her head on her knees, her mop of 
 brown hair falling forward about her ears, 
 Ellen agonized over her sins, which she 
 was sure kept her from her grandmother s 
 heart. She thought of things she might 
 do to prove her affection : pick all the flow 
 ers in her garden and put them down for 
 Mrs. Dale to walk on ; kiss the hem of her 
 dress ; climb up to the top of the locust- 
 tree, and hang by her feet from the highest 
 branch to give her grandmother pleasure. 
 She thought of all these things, and many 
 more ; and yet, somehow, her little, crowd 
 ing, impetuous love remained unspoken. 
 
 The meetings with Effie in the summer- 
 house were, in a certain way, of a healthier 
 character than such dreams ; if only they 
 had not been stained by the consciousness 
 of Mrs. Dale s disapproval ! 
 
The Story of a Child 59 
 
 And here, on this still July Sunday, the 
 two children were. Ellen s hymn-book was 
 open on her knee, and she had silenced 
 her conscience for a moment by thinking 
 that she would say to her grandmother, in 
 a casual way, " I saw Effie this afternoon, 
 as I was walking in our orchard, and I 
 asked her to hear me say my hymn." The 
 prospect of confession lightened her heart, 
 and, the hymn repeated, made her stay on 
 to hear the secret that Effie promised. 
 " I 11 never tell," she urged. 
 
 "Well," began Effie, edging a little 
 closer to her friend, "you know Mr. 
 Tommy ? I mean the apothecary man." 
 Ellen nodded. " Well, you know how he 
 went away, the last time we were in Old 
 Chester, oh, years, and years, and years 
 ago, when I was a little girl and nobody 
 knew where he d gone, and he never came 
 back until after we went to town ; and 
 he s gone away this summer again, and 
 nobody knows wnere he is ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Ellen, but she was disap- 
 
60 The Story of a Child 
 
 pointed. Grown-up people did not inter 
 est her, and beside, there was nothing 
 secret so far. " Everybody knows that," 
 she said. 
 
 "But nobody knows why he went," 
 Effie proceeded, "except me. It was 
 aunty!" Ellen looked puzzled. "Goose!" 
 cried Effie. " He was in love with her ! " 
 
 A little more color came into Ellen s 
 rosy cheeks. " Effie, Betsey Thomas says 
 it isn t nice for little girls to talk about 
 that." 
 
 Effie laughed shrilly. " Why, I m eleven 
 months and two days younger than you, 
 and I Ve been in love myself." 
 
 "Oh, Effie!" 
 
 "Yes, I have. Well, I am now, too. 
 He s oh, he s perfectly lovely. He 
 has a market on the avenue, about three 
 blocks away from our house. And he s 
 as big oh, twice as big as papa. He 
 wears a white apron in the shop, and he s 
 just lovely. And I used to be in love 
 with my cousin, John Lavendar. We were 
 engaged. He gave me a pressed rose, and 
 
lie Story of a Child 61 
 
 I wore it around my neck on a black silk 
 thread," and I gave him a pressed pansy, 
 and he kept it in his watch. We were 
 going to be married when we were four 
 teen, and we were going to have six chil 
 dren, three girls and three boys. That 
 was when we were engaged. But I told 
 him I didn t want aunt Mary Lavendar 
 for a mother-in-law ; she s cross, and I 
 hate cross people. And then he got tired 
 of me," she ended cheerfully. Ellen was 
 speechless with interest. " I was n t mad ; 
 I was tired of him, too. I 11 tell you 
 how it was. We were playing croquet, 
 and a little girl, I think she s a rela 
 tion of his, her name s Rose, she came 
 walking along with her nurse. My ! she 
 was so little ; she was n t more than four. 
 And John said, Effie, if Rose was a little 
 older, she d do for me, would n t she ? 
 And I said, Well, she ll get older, and I 
 think I like her brother better than you, 
 so let s change. So we changed." 
 
 " Are you engaged to her brother ? " 
 Ellen inquired with anxiety. 
 
62 The Story of a Child 
 
 " Oh, no," Effie said pensively. "I saw 
 the marketman then, so I didn t care for 
 Rose s brother. But this was the way it 
 was about aunty. Mr. Tommy fell in love 
 with her, and he proposed. I know, be 
 cause I heard papa tell mamma that he 
 came in and found him proposing to 
 aunty. Just think ! I wonder what he 
 said? Will you be mine? I suppose. 
 But papa, he would n t allow such a thing, 
 of course. Mr. Tommy, just an apothe 
 cary, you know, and to fall in love with 
 my aunt ! And any way, she can t ever 
 get married ; she has to take^ care of us. 
 Well, papa sent him off, I tell you ! Papa 
 was awfully mad. I peeked in the door, 
 and saw him. And then Mr. Tommy ran. 
 I saw him. He ran and ran, as hard as 
 his legs could carry him. And the next 
 day his house was all shut up, and he 
 didn t come back to Old Chester until 
 we d gone away." 
 
 "And was Miss Jane mad, too ?" 
 
 " Aunty ? No ! That s the joke of it. 
 
The Story of a Child 63 
 
 She liked him. She thought he d come 
 back. Nellie, would you rather marry a 
 sailor or a man ? I m going to marry the 
 captain of a Cunarder, so that I can go to 
 sea all the time." 
 
 Ellen was horrified. " Effie, it is n t 
 right to talk that way, and on Sunday, 
 too ! And the marketman ? " 
 
 "As though Sunday made any differ 
 ence ! Goodness, I would n t be like you 
 for anything, being told all the time 
 things are n t right, and being ordered 
 round by everybody. I would n t stand 
 it." 
 
 Ellen s face flushed. " I can t help it," 
 she said sullenly. 
 
 " I d help it ! " Effie assured her. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Well," said Effie, "in the first place, 
 I d just talk right out. I d say, Grand 
 ma, I m too old to be ordered round, and 
 and I won t stand it ! And then, if she 
 did n t stop being cruel, I d run away ! " 
 
 " Oh, I ve thought of that lots of times," 
 
64 The Story of a Child 
 
 Ellen said dolefully, "only I don t know 
 where I d go." 
 
 " Have you thought of it ? Oh, Nellie ! 
 Let s talk about it ; let s do it. I 11 go, 
 too. I m tired of living at home, though 
 they are not quite as unkind at my house 
 as they are at your house. I ve decided 
 to do something ; I m not quite sure what. 
 I did think of going on the stage, but I 
 don t know but what I d rather be a mis 
 sionary. It would be awfully nice to go 
 to Africa and see the Great Desert. I 
 tell you what let s do ; let s run away 
 and be missionaries. You know lots of 
 hymns, don t you ? " 
 
 " Yes," Ellen said with enthusiasm (and 
 added, in her own mind, that she would 
 tell her grandmother that she and Effie 
 had talked about being missionaries). " But 
 we re not very old, Effie ?" 
 
 " We re old enough to teach the hea 
 then," said Effie piously. " I was con 
 firmed at Easter, so of course it s all 
 right for me. Have you been confirmed ? " 
 
The Story of a Child 65 
 
 Ellen shook her head, and Effie looked 
 conceited. 
 
 " Well, perhaps then it would n t do for 
 you to be a missionary ; but I d run away, 
 anyhow." 
 
 " I had n t thought of being a mission 
 ary," Ellen acknowledged ; " I only meant 
 to run away. I used to think I d take 
 one of the benches on the front porch, 
 and turn it upside down, so it would be 
 a boat, you know. Then at one end I d 
 put some loaves of bread and a little bar 
 rel -of water, and maybe a ham. Well, 
 then I d get it down to the river, and 
 push it in, and go floating off. Pretty 
 soon I d reach the Mississippi " Ellen s 
 eyes grew vague with her dream. She 
 saw it all as she spoke, the yellow water 
 lapping and rippling against the sides of 
 the upturned bench ; the green meadows 
 along the shore ; the sudden splash of pad 
 dle-wheels as, perhaps, some great steam 
 boat passed her, and disappearing among 
 the hills, left, like a drift of melody, the 
 
66 The Story of a Child 
 
 sound of its calliope behind it. "When 
 I got to the Caribbean Sea, I d find a 
 desert island, and live on it. I J d eat cocoa- 
 nuts, and breadfruit, and get a man Fri 
 day, and some goats. Then I d send 
 beautiful presents home." Ellen paused 
 to think, not of the difficulties of trans 
 portation, but, with bitter joy, of the coals 
 of fire such presents would be to her 
 grandmother. " But perhaps it would be 
 better to be a missionary," she ended. 
 
 " Course it would," Effie assured her; 
 and they began to make many plans. 
 
 And when, that evening, after tea, El 
 len stood before her grandmother, repeat 
 ing her hymn, she was much too full of 
 her devout intentions to remember to 
 .confess how she had spent her afternoon. 
 She heard Mrs. Dale s comments on the 
 hymn, received her quiet kiss, and was 
 told that she might walk about in the gar 
 den till bedtime. Her mind was still in 
 tent upon voyages, and desert islands, and 
 converted cannibals, but something in 
 
The- Story of a Child 67 
 
 the touch of the soft old hand upon her 
 head stirred the child s heart. Confession 
 rushed to her lips. 
 
 " Oh ! " she said, flinging her arms about 
 Mrs. Dale s neck, " I love you very much ; 
 only I I " The tears were in her 
 eyes, and her hot face was buried in the 
 spotless neckerchief. 
 
 " There, my dear, there ; control your 
 self, Ellen. Ah, my child, if instead of 
 protestations you would be an obedient 
 little girl, how much more that would 
 prove your love than these foolish out 
 bursts ! " Mrs. Dale sighed. Ellen drew 
 back quickly ; rudely, her grandmother 
 thought. " Be more gentle in your move 
 ments," she said ; " do not be so abrupt." 
 
 " Yes m," Ellen answered, with a sob 
 in her throat. " Oh, how I hate grand 
 mother ! " she said between her teeth, as 
 she darted down into the garden. There, 
 below the terrace, she threw herself, sob 
 bing, on the grass that grew deep and 
 soft under the solemn branches of a 
 
68 Tbe Story of a Child 
 
 larch. The check to her impetuous love 
 caused her to forget her own wrong-doing. 
 She said to herself that nobody loved her, 
 and she was very wretched. Little Ellen 
 had the temperament which made it. pos 
 sible to observe her sorrows and measure 
 her emotions ; life was always more or less 
 spectacular to her, and she exaggerated 
 her woes for very interest in them. Just 
 now, as she was so ill-treated, she wished 
 she might be very ill and die. It gave 
 her pleasure to fancy her sufferings and 
 the grief of her friends ; especially did her 
 mind dwell on the neglected Lydia, whose 
 astonishment and sorrow filled her with a 
 delightful sense of power in being able to 
 produce such an effect. 
 
 " Or if I could only be drowned ! " she 
 reflected, growing happier each moment. 
 " When they found me in the river, they d 
 carry me home, and how sorry they d be ! " 
 She closed her eyes and saw her white 
 dress (a white dress is necessary for an 
 effective suicide), saw her white dress 
 
The Story of a Child 69 
 
 dripping and clinging to her figure, and 
 her long hair (for somehow her hair must 
 be long), her long hair trailing upon the 
 ground, wet and straight. She thought 
 how pale her face would be, how tightly 
 her eyes would be closed ; she reflected, 
 with satisfaction, how Betsey would cry 
 and say she was sorry for all her wicked 
 ness ; and she thought of Lydia s fright 
 and of her grandmother s repentant grief. 
 At that she involuntarily sobbed, which 
 interested her so much that she began to 
 pity and forgive everybody, and a little 
 later went very happily to bed. 
 
EFFIE, who said her head ached too 
 much for study, was leaning out of 
 the school-room window, kicking her toes 
 against the wainscoting, while she waited 
 for Ellen to finish the third declension. 
 " Do hurry up with your old regibuses" 
 she called over her shoulder, and a mo 
 ment later seized Ellen s hand and went 
 skipping from the room, much to the 
 relief of weary Miss Dace. 
 
 Effie had a suggestion to make : " Let s 
 go down to the back parlor and play house 
 under the sofa." 
 
 "Won t it make your head ache more ?" 
 Ellen said, faintly polite, for playing house 
 
 under the sofa was great happiness. 
 70 
 
TJ}e Story of a Child 77 
 
 "No," Effie assured her; "it s only 
 those old stupid declensions that make 
 my head ache. Mamma s awfully afraid 
 I 11 overwork ; so I always tell her when 
 I think I m going to have a headache. 
 Is n t your grandmother afraid you 11 
 overwork ? " 
 
 " No," Ellen said bitterly. 
 
 But for once Effie forgot to be sympa 
 thetic. "Oh, Nellie," she said, "come 
 look at the idol ; somebody brought it 
 from China for papa." * 
 
 She pulled Ellen across the room, 
 where, in a dim corner, mounted on an 
 ebony pillar, a small bronze Buddha sat 
 on his jade throne. Under oblique and 
 cynical eyebrows, his half -shut, dreaming 
 eyes seemed to stare with strange con 
 tempt at the two silent children. 
 
 Ellen caught her breath and made a 
 clutch at Effie s arm. The dark god 
 was looking, from under those puffed and 
 drooping eyelids, straight at her. 
 
72 Tbe Story of a Child 
 
 " Is n t he ugly ? " Effie inquired calmly. 
 "And he s really an idol. He used to be 
 in a temple with lots of little roofs on it, 
 all strung with bells that rung when the 
 wind blew, papa says. And he had things 
 sacrificed to him, rice and things." 
 
 Ellen made no answer. So much came 
 into her mind scenes from "Little 
 Henry and his Bearer," and various other 
 unpleasant and morbid stories, full of that 
 cheap sentiment which once ministered to 
 childish piety that she did not find it 
 easy to talk. She said she would not 
 play house under the sofa ; and, followed 
 by Effie s reproaches, went home to think 
 about the god. She was very silent at 
 tea, and she lay awake that night for cer 
 tainly a quarter of an hour, listening to 
 the rain dripping on the leaves of the 
 woodbine about her window, and thinking 
 of the bronze image with his strange still 
 smile. She shut her eyes, and fancied the 
 pagoda with its roofs strung with jangling 
 bells ; the hot, white sunshine pouring on 
 
The Story of a Child 73 
 
 the dusty streets ; the palm-trees stand 
 ing like great feathers against the sky, and 
 the figures of people wearing their clothing 
 all wrapped about them, like the paper 
 spills she made for lamp-lighters. Her 
 mind was a jumble of terms palanquins, 
 rupees, coolies, litters gathered from 
 the India stories of the Lady of the Manor. 
 The Arabian Nights came in, too, and 
 beautiful slaves and cream tarts and roc s 
 eggs, danced through her mind with be 
 wildering interest. But through all she 
 seemed to see, sitting in the shadows of 
 the temple, with rice and flowers spread 
 before him, and joss-sticks filling the air 
 with heavy fragrance, the dark, squatting 
 figure of the god, smiling cruelly under his 
 tilted eyebrows. She pictured his wonder 
 now at Mr. Temple s drawing-room, his 
 contempt for the two little girls who had 
 stood and looked at him that afternoon, 
 his homesickness for his worshipers, his 
 anger because no sacrifices were offered 
 him. And then came a delightful and 
 
J4 The Story of a Child 
 
 terrible thought, a thought which made 
 Ellen say to herself that she was very 
 wicked ! After that she fell asleep, but 
 the thought came back to her the next 
 morning, when she opened her sleepy eyes 
 to the sunshine. 
 
 " He must miss those sacrifices. There 
 wouldn t be any harm in doing it, just 
 for fun. And if all those heathen people 
 think it s right to sacrifice things to him, 
 why, may be it would be safer to ?" 
 
 More and more delightful did the plan 
 appear of taking some flowers and laying 
 them down in front of him. Yet it was 
 a week before she confided it to Effie. 
 
 " Oh, yes, let s worship him ! " Effie 
 agreed with enthusiasm. 
 
 But Ellen shrank at the word. " Oh, 
 no, that would be wicked ; let s only pre 
 tend." 
 
 It was Saturday afternoon, and there 
 was no one at hand to interfere with the 
 strange rites which the two children be 
 gan to enact, in the back parlor, where, 
 
The Story of a Child 75 
 
 cross-legged upon his jade cushion, the 
 bronze god watched them from under his 
 sleepy eyelids. 
 
 It was curious to see the difference in 
 Ellen and Effie as revealed in their rela 
 tion to their little drama. To Effie, until 
 she grew tired of it, it was a play ; to El 
 len it was tasting sin, with the subtle, 
 epicurean delight of the artistic tempera 
 ment. 
 
 They made great preparations for their 
 service. They lit the candles in the sconce 
 in the corner where Buddha sat, and then a 
 row of bedroom candles, stolen from the 
 table in the back entry. Ellen made a 
 larkspur wreath, sticking one blue horn 
 into another, until the whole rested in her 
 little palm, a flat, thin crown, just large 
 enough for Buddha s head. Then she 
 brought a dozen of those dark red and 
 deeply sweet roses whose stems are thick 
 with thorns, and put them in his lap. 
 The cool dusk of the room was pierced by 
 thin lines of sunlight, creeping between 
 
j6 The Story of a Child 
 
 the bowed shutters of the west windows, 
 and falling in tremulous pools upon the 
 floor. Each line was so clear in the dusk 
 that Ellen chose to think they were golden 
 barriers to the temple, and she must crawl 
 under them to reach the inner court of 
 worship. She did it, solemnly, her little 
 head touching once or twice the slanting 
 sunbeam above her, so that for a moment 
 her forehead and eyes were glorified ; 
 then she dropped down on her knees and 
 looked up into the still, dark face. She 
 forgot that she was " making believe;" 
 the god became horribly real to her ; she 
 felt the sombre mirth of his cruel eyes 
 following her when she stepped back and 
 forth before him, and the desire to propi 
 tiate him grew into actual terror. Efne 
 brought some rice and scattered it in front 
 of the image, and watched Ellen bowing 
 and bending and muttering to herself a 
 little pagan prayer which spoke suddenly 
 in her soul. The perfumes offered some 
 difficulty, but Effie solved it by stealing 
 
The Story of a Child 77 
 
 into her mother s room and bringing down 
 a long" green bottle of cologne, which Ellen 
 with a lavish hand sprinkled all about the 
 god. 
 
 "We ought to sing, and we ought to 
 have a mat to kneel on," she said, in a 
 whisper, to Effie, who reflected, and then 
 said she would go and get something. A 
 moment or two later she came back with a 
 green crape shawl in her hands. 
 
 " It came from China," she explained ; 
 "aunty said so. It s just the thing." 
 
 Ellen was too absorbed to question the 
 propriety of taking Miss Jane s shawl, nor 
 did she notice that she was staining the 
 delicate " mat " at her feet when, with sol 
 emn gestures, she pressed the bottom of 
 the oil-can from the sewing-machine, so 
 that they might offer a libation of oil. 
 "We must sing to him," she said, her 
 eyes wide with excitement ; but only 
 Christian words suggested themselves to 
 her. " Heathen god " she began, "you 
 you shall 
 
78 The Story of a Child 
 
 shall reign where er the sun 
 Doth his successive journeys run ; 
 Your kingdom stretch from shore to shore, 
 Till moons shall wax and wane no more. " 
 
 Ellen s eyes were vague with the vision 
 of the words. She saw the yellow sun 
 journeying through the silent sky ; she saw 
 water, heaving and swelling, gray and 
 misty, lapping the shores of the world ; 
 she saw the thin and melancholy moon, 
 curving like a sickle in dun clouds 
 " wax and wane no more no more ! " 
 an end of all things emptiness dark 
 ness and this dreadful god unmoved and 
 smiling at the desolation ! She began to 
 cry, under her breath. 
 
 "What is the matter?" said Effie. 
 
 " Hush ! " Ellen whispered. " He 11 
 hear you ! " 
 
 She was standing before Buddha, wav 
 ing her arms over her head, and saying, in 
 a voice shaken with feeling, the first long 
 words that occurred to her " Justifica 
 tion sanctification predestination ! " 
 
The Story of a Child jg 
 
 She did not know what they meant, but 
 they were out of the catechism, and so 
 were proper to say to a god. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" de 
 manded Effie. " Let s play something 
 else. I m tired of this. Besides, I think 
 it s wicked. Oh, there s aunty ! Hide 
 the shawl." 
 
 But it was too late. Miss Jane came in, 
 kindly curious, to see that the two little 
 girls were having a happy time. The half- 
 burned candles, the roses on Buddha s 
 lap, the scattered rice, and her own crape 
 shawl, crumpled under Effie s feet, made 
 her silent for a moment with astonish 
 ment. 
 
 "We were playing heathen," Effie ex 
 plained hastily. "Ellen wanted to." 
 
 "W r here did you get my shawl, chil 
 dren ? " said Miss Jane indignantly. 
 
 " Ellen said we had to have a mat ; she 
 put it there. It s an ugly old shawl, any 
 way ! " 
 
 Miss Jane had lifted it with anxious 
 
8o The Story of a Child 
 
 hands. "And you have spotted it with 
 something ! Oh, Ellen, how could you be 
 so naughty?" 
 
 "I m so sorry I didn t know" 
 Ellen began to cry. 
 
 " There, my dear ! " said Miss Jane, 
 with remorseful forgiveness. " I did n t 
 mean to be cross, my child; only I 
 I value it very much. A friend of mine 
 gave it to me," she tried to comfort the 
 child ; " it is n t any value in itself, but a 
 friend of mine gave it to me, a friend 
 whom I have not seen for many years. 
 There, dear, don t cry ; we won t say any 
 thing more about it." But her voice 
 trembled. 
 
 Effie had run away, glad to leave re 
 proof or reproach to Ellen, and glad to 
 escape what the housemaid called "red 
 ding up the mess " she had helped to 
 make about the idol. As for Ellen, she 
 went home very soberly. The excitement 
 of " making believe " over, the hideous fact 
 of idolatry presented itself to her mind. 
 
The Story of a Child 81 
 
 This was the beginning of remorse to 
 Ellen, that most intolerable pain of life. 
 The thought of her sin began to lurk 
 under all innocent pleasures ; ready to 
 spring out upon her like some terrible 
 wild beast when she was most unconscious 
 of it, or most forgetful. When she read, 
 or worked, or played, there would come, 
 suddenly, a pang in the breastbone, and 
 the thought of the god. 
 
 " Thou shalt not make unto thyself any 
 graven image," poor little Ellen said to 
 herself again and again ; " thou shalt not 
 bow down to it or worship it," and then 
 she would follow over and over one line 
 of reasoning which traveled in a circle 
 through justification back to pain. 
 
 " If the heathen think it s right to bring 
 rice and flowers and to pray to him, why, it 
 can t be wrong for them to do it. So there 
 is no need to confess to grandmother." 
 She would draw a breath of relief here, and 
 then the stab would come : " But I m not 
 a heathen ! I did n t think it was right." 
 
82 The Story of a Child 
 
 The accusation and excuse, repeated and 
 repeated, grooved into the child s mind. 
 Once she had a shivering glimpse of a 
 possible wreck of all her little faith ; a 
 vague dull pain that grew into the ques 
 tion : "How do we know we are right ? 
 We can t do anything more than think so, 
 and that s what the heathen do ! " But 
 this faded almost as soon as it came, with 
 the reassurance, " Oh yes ; the Bible 
 says so, and so does grandmother/ and so 
 far as faith went she was satisfied but 
 her sin remained. Once, in a passion of 
 pain, she burst out into confession to Miss 
 Jane, who flushed a little, but said, " Oh, 
 Ellen, dear, never mind ; I took the spots 
 out." 
 
 " I did n t mean that," Ellen whispered, 
 hiding her face on that kind shoulder. 
 "We we played heathen, you know." 
 
 " Well, dear ? " said Miss Jane cheer 
 fully. 
 
 " Was it was it very wicked ? Oh, 
 shall I go to hell? Will it be visited 
 
VI 
 
 WHEN Miss Jane Temple interrupted 
 the worship of Buddha, she carried 
 the poor little stained shawl upstairs to 
 her bedroom, and then stood and looked at 
 it with eyes that were blurred with tears. 
 It all came back to her : the night that 
 Mr. Tommy had brought this offering and 
 ventured to ask her acceptance of it. She 
 remembered the look of pride and relief 
 that came into his face when she thanked 
 him and said it was beautiful. How cruel 
 it was that, just because she was her 
 brother s sister she could have called such 
 a look into his face ! It cut her to the 
 heart that Mr. Tommy had been afraid of 
 her. It was not fair that he should have 
 84 
 
The Story of a Child 6*5 
 
 been made to feel she did not care for 
 him because she felt herself better than 
 he ; it was not right that he should have 
 thought her proud. Proud ? Oh, how 
 happy she could have been in those rooms 
 above the apothecary shop if only duty 
 allowed her to think of her own happi 
 ness! Something like resentment came 
 into Jane Temple s face. Her brother s 
 family might have permitted her this one 
 friend. It would not have interfered with 
 her services to them ! With a trembling 
 lip, she folded her shawl and laid it back 
 in the bottom drawer of her bureau. She 
 took some rose - geranium leaves from the 
 bunch of flowers on her stand and laid 
 them on it. 
 
 After this episode of the god, Effie and 
 Ellen were not so intimate for a little 
 while. Ellen s misgivings lest she had 
 committed the unpardonable sin made her 
 find Effie a less congenial companion, and 
 Effie s self-congratulation on having es 
 caped the scolding she deserved made her 
 
86 The Story of a Child 
 
 more cautious. But the estrangement did 
 not last very long, and the two children 
 were soon confidential again. Effie told 
 Ellen every possible family matter, and it 
 was remarkable how many family matters 
 she knew. She repeated again, dramati 
 cally, the story of Mr. Tommy s inter 
 rupted proposal, although Ellen, with 
 flaming cheeks, protested that she did n t 
 believe Miss Jane would like it, and she 
 wished Effie would rit! She was elo 
 quent concerning Dick s extravagances at 
 college, and how her aunt had given him 
 money to pay his debts, because he did n t 
 want to tell his father. She commented, 
 too, with the alarming frankness of youth, 
 on her father s ill-temper. " Yes," said 
 Effie, "he s horrid when he s cross," and 
 then went on to comment on her mo 
 ther s jealousy of "anybody papa likes; 
 at least, of any ladies," she ended calmly, 
 with that peculiar and discriminating dis- 
 eernment which seems to belong to chil 
 dren and servants. 
 
ne Story of a Child 87 
 
 But for the most part the children 
 talked of the hardships of Ellen s life : 
 that her hair was kept short ; that she 
 had to go to bed at half past eight ; that 
 she was obliged to do a little sewing every 
 day, hem a frill or backstitch a long seam. 
 Effie, with fluent use of adjectives, pitied 
 her for all these things, but she pitied her 
 most of all because, on Mondays and Tues 
 days, Ellen was obliged to make her own 
 bed, and dust and tidy her little bedroom. 
 
 "Well," cried Effie, when this cruel fact 
 had been revealed to her, " before I d be 
 a servant girl ! " Ellen had never thought 
 of it in that way before ; it had only been 
 "helping." So, at least, she had been 
 told. It had not seemed proper to Mrs. 
 Dale to explain that her real reason for 
 giving the child these little tasks was to 
 teach her that any work was fitting for a 
 lady that could be done with the fine, old- 
 fashioned delicacy which the women of 
 Old Chester brought to every duty. 
 
 But Effie left no doubt in Ellen s mind, 
 
88 The Story of a Child 
 
 that she had been " imposed upon," and 
 was doing a servant s work ! Once, very 
 soon after her eyes had been opened to 
 this, Ellen confided her wrongs to Lyclia, 
 but was met with blank wonder, which 
 she was quick to resent as " airs ; " and 
 the other child s protest, " If mother 
 thinks it right, Ellen, I guess it is," only 
 made her quarrel with Lydia, and "not 
 speak" for several days. She was alert 
 to discover further "impositions," and 
 as such a search is always rewarded, she 
 found many, and was in a chronic state of 
 injured feelings, a state which expressed 
 itself by sullen looks and neglect of many 
 small and pleasant duties ; she grew irri 
 table, with the constant effort to " stand 
 up for her rights." " I don t know what s 
 the matter with our Ellen," Betsey sighed, 
 more than once ; " she s awful good, 
 but she s that contrary!" The "good 
 ness " had reference only to Ellen s de 
 votions, which at this time were very 
 marked. Betsey had never been obliged 
 
The Story of a Child 89 
 
 to wait so long with the bedroom candle, 
 while Ellen said her prayers. This was 
 partly for the relief of complaining to her 
 Maker, partly, because she knew she was 
 not behaving well, and was constrained to 
 balance her naughtiness by a little extra 
 religion, and partly because, most often 
 at night, the thought of her idolatry as 
 sailed her, and urged upon her works of 
 supererogation in the form of prayers and 
 promises. No doubt much of her naughti 
 ness grew out of these religious impulses 
 which satisfied themselves in visions of 
 good deeds and never crystallized into 
 anything so commonplace as obedience. 
 She was constantly planning great self- 
 sacrifices ; heroic bravery, sublime devo 
 tion. Such dreams were very concrete : 
 as, for instance, what her conduct would 
 be if the house were on fire ; she would 
 rush into the flames, and save every 
 body ! She gave herself up to such visions 
 one Monday morning ; she had left the 
 breakfast-room and gathered some posies 
 
90 The Story of a Child 
 
 for the little blue jug that stood on her 
 dressing-table, and then, forgetting her 
 work in her bedroom, stopped, and got 
 into the swing under the front porch. 
 Ellen was very fond of this latticed in- 
 closure under the high porch, from the 
 rafters of which hung the little swing, that 
 creaked with a dry and dusty rhythm when 
 started by her foot ; perhaps part of its 
 charm was a lack of the austere order of 
 the rest of Mrs. Dale s household. It still 
 bore the traces of Eben Dale s light- 
 hearted and inconsequent life ; under the 
 rafters above the swing were his long 
 bamboo fishing rods, still with the lines 
 wound in careful spirals from the quiver 
 ing ends to the stout, silver-clasped han 
 dles. As Ellen swung back and forth, 
 they shook and trembled, as they had done, 
 no doubt long ago, on some green bank 
 beside a trout pool. A loop of line from 
 a broken reel hung just above the child s 
 eyes, and through it, in delicious abstrac 
 tion of great purposes, she looked out, 
 
Tbe Story of a Child 97 
 
 across the sunshine on the side lawn, at 
 the watering-trough in the stable yard, and 
 at the pigeons strutting and cooing on the 
 ridge-pole of the barn. 
 
 She was saying to herself, with a 
 swelling heart, " Suppose Betsey Thomas 
 should have small-pox?" And then she 
 went on to reflect upon how tenderly she 
 would nurse her, how bravely, even though 
 her grandmother and all her friends should 
 implore her not to run such a risk. Ah, 
 how they would appreciate her when they 
 saw how noble she was ! Very likely she 
 should catch the dreadful disease, and lie 
 for days between life and death ; and then 
 how saintly she would be, what hymns she 
 would repeat, what appropriate texts ! 
 
 " * It is not death to die, " 
 
 quoted Ellen, her eyes brimming with de 
 lightful melancholy, and curling her arms 
 about the ropes of the swing, so that she 
 leaned sideways, comfortably. 
 
 " It is not death to die, 
 To leave the weary road, 
 To join the brotherhood on high " 
 
92 The Story of a Child 
 
 " I d say that," she thought, very sor 
 rowfully. But when she recovered (on the 
 whole, she thought she should recover) 
 she would be very beautiful ; not a single 
 scar would mar her face ; and how Betsey 
 Thomas would love her ! 
 
 She paused in planning her saintly re 
 venge long enough to look at the diamonds 
 of sunlight falling through the lattice, and 
 lying on the black, hard earth of the floor ; 
 how much nicer it was here, under the 
 porch, than in the parlor ! There were 
 garden tools in the corners, and on one 
 side of her playroom, like a long red 
 cornucopia encrusted with crumbling 
 earth, were flower pots of lessening sizes 
 fitted into each other. Ellen could scrawl 
 a large E on the dusty top of an old chest 
 of drawers that stood against the wall of 
 the house ; it had scarcely been touched 
 since Dr. Dale had put his flies away, after 
 his last fishing trip. Some of the drawers 
 were half open, and there were packets of 
 flower seeds scattered about in them, and 
 
The Story of a Child 93 
 
 one or two books in yellow paper covers, 
 dog-eared and torn. Ellen had looked at 
 them with a view to improving her mind 
 by reading some of grandpapa s wise 
 books ; but alas, they were in French, so 
 that aspiration had been checked. On top 
 of the chest was a china bowl half full of 
 water ; Ellen had coiled a dozen horsehairs 
 in it, and was waiting to see them turn 
 into snakes ; she kept her paper dolls 
 in an old cupboard fastened above it upon 
 the wall ; the sagging doors and rattling 
 shelves could not have given the tissue 
 ladies a sense of security, but Ellen liked 
 to think that they were sheltered there, 
 when she lay in her little bed and heard 
 the wind blow, and caught the murmur 
 ing complaint of the giant in the locust- 
 trees. The dolls, she saw fit to say, were in 
 a fort, and they were in great terror lest 
 one of the pythons coiled in the white china 
 tank should crawl out, and up to their lit 
 tle shelter, and open his horrible jaws and 
 hiss at them ! Ellen shivered for very 
 
94 The Story of a Child 
 
 horror of the situation but did not abate 
 her care for the horsehairs, nor put a bet 
 ter fastening on the cupboard door. She 
 liked to think that the beat of wind or rain 
 was the assault of pirates upon the unhappy 
 paper ladies, and the idea of their distress 
 when the door banged gave her all the ex 
 hilaration of fright. " If pirates were to 
 break into our house," said Ellen, her foot 
 tapping a diamond of sunshine every time 
 she swung forward, " I would say, Sir, 
 kill me, but save grandmother save " 
 But at that moment Betsey Thomas 
 came hurrying out to look for her. Betsey 
 was busy and not in the best temper ; her 
 patience had been sorely tried that morn 
 ing, because Ellen had seen fit to pour 
 water on the floor when she had been 
 dressing her, for the purpose of discover 
 ing whether it would run under her in 
 step. " If it does," said Ellen, holding up 
 her skirts, and dabbling her little bare 
 foot in the water, " it shows I m very aris 
 tocratic, Betsey, and would have had my 
 
The Story of a Child 95 
 
 head cut off in the French Revolution." 
 Betsey had been most unsympathetic, and 
 there had been a tussle, followed by a 
 truce, and now the maid would rather 
 have done Ellen s work herself than get 
 into any discussion with her. But Mrs. 
 Dale had bidden her remind Ellen that 
 her bed was not made, and it was after 
 nine. 
 
 Ellen, with a very red face, jumped out 
 of the swing, " I just wish you d do your 
 work yourself, Betsey Thomas, so there ! " 
 she said. 
 
 Betsey looked at her soberly. " Ellen, 
 you ought n t to talk that way, deed you 
 ought n t ; t ain t right." 
 
 " Well, it is n t your place to tell me 
 what I ought to do, anyhow," Ellen an 
 swered. 
 
 The chambermaid put her red arms 
 akimbo on her hips and gazed at Ellen 
 with real concern. She was a pleasant- 
 looking maid - servant, with an honest 
 Welsh face and curly red-brown hair ; she 
 
g6 The Story of a Child 
 
 wore a brown calico gown and a long blue 
 apron with a bib pinned up over her ample 
 bosom. " I don t know what s the matter 
 with you, these days, Ellen," she said. 
 " Come, now ; be a good girl, and do your 
 work nice, and please your grandmother." 
 
 Ellen made no answer, but she followed 
 the maid upstairs. " You know well 
 enough, Ellen, you ain t behavin as you 
 ought, nowadays," Betsey went on. " You 
 ought to think what the Good Man likes 
 little girls to be. My! I never see any 
 little girl so sassy as you ! " 
 
 "Will you be quiet, Betsey Thomas ?" 
 said Ellen, turning suddenly upon her. 
 
 " Why, Ellen Dale ! " cried Betsey, 
 dropping admonition, in personal affront ; 
 " you re real impudent. I ve a good mind 
 to tell your grandmother!" 
 
 Ellen s face was white. " You are a low, 
 mean, miserable, lazy woman," she said in 
 a high, quivering voice, "and if you speak 
 another word more to me I 11 kill you ! " 
 
 This was so awful that Betsey was 
 
The Story of a Child 97 
 
 shocked into real dismay. " Ellen, I 11 
 have to tell your grandmother," she said 
 reluctantly. 
 
 "I don t care!" cried Ellen. She 
 stamped her foot, stood trembling, flew at 
 Betsey and struck her with all her little 
 might, and then dropped sobbing upon the 
 floor. 
 
 Betsey was appalled, but angry also. 
 She turned, and hurried out of the room 
 to find Mrs. Dale. 
 
 " Oh, ma am," she said, coming breath 
 lessly into the dining-room, " Ellen is 
 acting awful ! She beat and beat me, 
 ma am ! She acted like as if she was 
 possessed ! " 
 
 Mrs. Dale was sitting at the head of 
 the long table with as much stateliness as 
 though it were surrounded by guests, in 
 stead of merely holding a big basin of hot 
 water, a mop, and glass towels. " Tell me 
 just what Ellen has done," she said briefly. 
 And then listened to the agitated com 
 plaint, but made no comment. " You may 
 
9# The Story of a Child 
 
 go now," she said, and proceeded calmly 
 to wipe the teaspoons ; she was in no 
 haste to go upstairs. She knew that si 
 lence and reflection would be very alarm 
 ing to Ellen. 
 
 Ellen, sobbing on the floor, was strain 
 ing her ears for her grandmother s step. 
 By and by the waiting grew dreadful; 
 she stopped crying and sat up, pushing 
 her hair back from her eyes. The house 
 was very silent. It seemed to the child as 
 though everything held its breath to hear 
 the reproof which was coming. At last 
 she felt she could not bear it any longer, 
 and she crept out into the entry and 
 looked over the balustrade down into the 
 wide hall. The front door was open, and 
 she could see the hot, bright garden. 
 Stretched out in a strip of sunshine that 
 fell across the threshold into the hall was 
 Rip, the red setter ; his glossy side was 
 stirred by his deep breathing, and once 
 a paw twitched, as though he were run 
 ning in some pleasant dream. Her grand- 
 
Tbe Story of a Child 99 
 
 mother s work-table was beside the long 
 sofa, which stood between the dining- 
 room and library doors ; there was some 
 knitting on the table, and a book with 
 Mrs. Dale s gold spectacles across an open 
 page, and one of Ellen s white aprons, 
 waiting to be mended. The child felt 
 a quick repentance. How naughty she 
 had been ; how good her grandmother 
 always was ; and even Betsey Thomas 
 was sometimes kind ! She would go 
 downstairs and ask to be forgiven ; she 
 would tell Betsey she was sorry ; she 
 would say But at that moment, run 
 ning lightly up the front steps came Effie 
 Temple. Rip, startled at the sound, rose, 
 yawning and stretching, but Effie did not 
 notice him. She had seen Ellen, and 
 dashed at once upstairs. 
 
 "Why, what s the matter?" she de 
 manded. " You have been crying ! Why, 
 Nellie, what s the matter ? " 
 
 Ellen felt the tears stinging again, and 
 all her anger came back with a rush. 
 
/oo The Story of a Child 
 
 "Come into my room," she whispered, 
 and drew the eager Effie into her bed 
 room. "Oh, Effie, it s awful!" she said 
 in a trembling voice. 
 
 " What s awful ? " 
 
 " I ve had such a time with Betsey 
 Thomas; she she oh, she talked to 
 me ! " Ellen caught her breath in a sob. 
 She did not know whether she was more 
 angry at Betsey, or frightened at the 
 prospect of the interview with her grand 
 mother. 
 
 " Oh, is that all ? " cried Effie. " I hope 
 you talked back to her ? " 
 
 And Ellen straightway poured out the 
 whole story. As she talked her courage 
 returned, and her anger burned more 
 fiercely. Effie, sitting on the bed beside 
 her, interrupted her with exclamations of 
 pity and indignation, and when she had 
 quite finished was ready with advice. 
 " I d make that girl get down on her 
 knees and beg my pardon," she said shrilly. 
 " Gracious, I wish you had some spirit, 
 Nellie ! " 
 
The Story of a Child roi 
 
 " Beg my pardon ? " said Ellen. " Why, 
 I" She was ashamed to finish the 
 sentence. 
 
 " Of course ; and if she should say she 
 wouldn t well, then I know what I 
 should do." 
 
 " What ? " asked Ellen faintly. 
 
 Effie leaned towards her and whispered 
 something in her ear. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Ellen. 
 
VII 
 
 FOR a moment after Effie s whisper 
 the two children looked at each 
 other in guilty silence. 
 
 " Oh, would you, really ? " Ellen said at 
 last, under her breath ; but before Effie 
 could answer, the door opened and Mrs. 
 Dale entered. A quick displeasure came 
 into her face at the sight of Ellen s guest, 
 but she only said gravely, "Good-morning, 
 Euphemia," and looked to see the child 
 rise, as Ellen had done ; but Effie, as she 
 sat on the edge of the bed, swinging her 
 foot to and fro and playing with her rings, 
 only nodded, with a sheepish look, and 
 said, " Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Dale ? " 
 
 Mrs. Dale put on her glasses and looked 
 
 102 
 
The Story of a Child 103 
 
 at her. " Euphemia," Ellen caught her 
 breath at the solemnity of the tone, "I 
 wish to talk with Ellen, so must ask you 
 to leave us." 
 
 "All right," said Effie. She rose and 
 shook her skirt, which had wrinkled a 
 little, and gave a careless glance into the 
 mirror as she put on her hat. " Mrs. 
 Dale, may Ellen come over and take tea 
 with me to-night ? Mamma said I might 
 ask her," she added impatiently, having 
 learned that such reference to her mother 
 was a necessary formality in Old Chester. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Oh, please ? " Effie teased, but was 
 dismissed with a decision which ignored 
 her coaxing. 
 
 Ellen s face grew red and sullen as 
 Effie left the room, and she stared at the 
 carpet that she might not see her grand 
 mother. 
 
 " Now, Ellen, tell me what this means ? " 
 
 " What what means ? " the little girl said 
 in a low voice, still looking at the carpet. 
 
104 The Story of a Child 
 
 " I am very much grieved, Ellen," Mrs. 
 Dale said, not noticing the question. 
 
 No response. 
 
 " Betsey Thomas tells me that when she 
 spoke to you about putting your room in 
 order you grew very angry, and struck 
 her ! Ellen, no little girl could do such a 
 thing, unless she had " Mrs. Dale spoke 
 very solemnly " unless she had the feel 
 ing of murder in her heart. Suppose you 
 had had a knife in your hand when you 
 struck Betsey ? you might have killed her ! 
 You did not have a knife, but you had the 
 feeling in your soul. Oh, Ellen, I hope 
 you will ask your Heavenly Father to give 
 you a better heart." 
 
 Ellen did not reply ; her chin quivered, 
 and she felt as though something was beat 
 ing up in her throat ; but her silence was 
 not repentance ; it was embarrassment at 
 this talk about her "heart," and her Heav 
 enly Father. 
 
 Mrs. Dale sighed ; she did not know 
 what to say next. She had been prepared 
 
The Story of a Child 105 
 
 for the fluent and fatiguing excuses of an 
 active" imagination, and Ellen s silence con 
 fused her ; to show affection in such a 
 crisis did not occur to her ; she looked 
 at the stubborn little face, and wondered 
 how the child could be so hard. " She does 
 not show a trace of feeling ! " thought 
 Mrs. Dale, and sighed. She felt as though 
 she stood outside this one heart in all the 
 world that belonged to her, and sought an 
 entrance in vain. There was a wistful dis 
 appointment behind the stern justice in 
 her eyes. " Why have I never gained her 
 love ? " she thought ; but all she said was 
 that Ellen must spend the rest of the day 
 in her room ; at five o clock, if penitent, 
 she might come downstairs and ask for 
 giveness. (" Such hardness can be con 
 quered only by severity," Mrs. Dale was 
 thinking sadly.) " I hope," she ended, 
 " that you will remember what I have 
 said about the sin of anger; and that you 
 may remember it, I have made out for 
 you a list of verses in the Bible which 
 
w6 The Story of a Child 
 
 speak of anger and passion. You will 
 look them out during the day, commit 
 them to memory, and repeat them to me 
 when you come downstairs at five." 
 
 She had written the references on a slip 
 of paper, and putting it down on the white 
 work-table, left the room without another 
 look at Ellen. 
 
 She was very much troubled. But it 
 never occurred to her to prick the bubble 
 of the child s naughtiness by treating the 
 matter lightly. She gave to the imagina 
 tion of a foolish child the deference of 
 conscientious effort, she took the situ 
 ation seriously. That Ellen might find 
 it interesting, never occurred to her, for 
 Mrs. Dale could no more have been the 
 atrical than she could have been flippant. 
 "I am too old," she thought, with the 
 painful and pathetic humility of age, 
 " too old to manage children ; and I 
 cannot make her love me." Her mouth 
 looked stern and hard. " She is like him" 
 she thought ; " I never understood him. 
 
The Story of a Child ioj 
 
 The fault must be mine, somehow." Her 
 glasses were so dim she did not see that 
 some one was waiting for her in the hall, 
 until she heard a voice say, "Good-morn 
 ing, dear Mrs. Dale," and found Miss Jane 
 Temple ready to take her hand at the foot 
 of the stairs. 
 
 Now, Miss Jane Temple had come to 
 see Mrs. Dale with a purpose which had 
 only taken definite form that day, although 
 it had been smouldering in her heart for 
 many weeks ; she had gone that morning 
 down into the village upon an errand, 
 and had stopped absently at the little gate 
 that shut Mr. Tommy Dove s garden away 
 from the dusty street. The garden was 
 full of the sweet confusion of flowers 
 which had been watched and tended for 
 nearly a generation, and then suddenly 
 left to untrained and untrammeled liberty. 
 There were not many weeds, unless the 
 Johnny - jump-ups, growing outside the 
 borders, could be called weeds ; or the por- 
 tulaca, which had sown itself in the grass 
 
io8 The Story of a Child 
 
 from the round bed that lay below the 
 shop window, half in sunshine, blazing 
 with crimson cups, and half in shadow, 
 with tightly shut and shining buds. White 
 petunias flared broadly between the flag 
 stones of the path, and morning-glories 
 were braided among the prickly branches 
 of the moss-rose ; the friendly perennials 
 were more decorous, and kept their old 
 places ; the queen-of-the-meadow still lifted 
 her powdery crown, close to the gate; and 
 the hollyhocks and bleeding heart and 
 peonies blossomed, as they had blossomed 
 on the same spot, fifty years before. 
 
 Miss Jane Temple, leaning on the gate, 
 remembered how she had stopped there 
 one morning, four years ago, just after 
 old Mrs. Dove s death, to tell Mr. Tommy 
 she was sorry for his grief. She remem 
 bered that she had sat on the broad door- 
 stone, which was warm with sunshine, and 
 they had talked of many things. Effte 
 was with her, and the little girl s lip 
 had curled in contemptuous amusement 
 
The Story of a Child log 
 
 when Mr. Tommy tried to entertain her. 
 The color came into Miss Jane s cheek as 
 she thought of the child s rudeness, and 
 then came the remembrance of that other 
 rudeness to Mr. Dove, on the night when 
 he had tried to tell her that he " cared," 
 the rudeness of her brother who, enter 
 ing in the midst of those gentle, stumbling 
 words, dismissed the apothecary with cour 
 teous contempt. She remembered how Mr. 
 Tommy dashed into the darkness, leaving 
 his sentence unfinished and never coming 
 back again, even to learn that, although 
 she would not leave her brother s family, 
 she too " cared." At first there had been 
 a faint reproach in her heart because he 
 did not come back, but she had very soon 
 understood it : he wanted to spare her the 
 sight of his mortification. She never sup 
 posed that disappointed love could long 
 prey upon him. Miss Jane Temple had had 
 snubs enough in her life to know that mor 
 tification leaves a pang more lasting than 
 the serpent s tooth, or than disappointed 
 love. 
 
no The Story of a Child 
 
 But she wished that he would come 
 back to this neglected garden, this quiet, 
 shabby house that seemed shrinking be 
 hind its lilac and sweet-brier bushes. She 
 wished she knew where he was. In a 
 dozen timid ways she had tried to find 
 out, rather by suggesting the question 
 than by any direct inquiry. And yet, 
 why should she not inquire ? Yes, a ques 
 tion, boldly put, need not betray her, and 
 her heart leaped at the very thought of 
 hearing about him. 
 
 The mortar and pestle which hung 
 above the shop door, and had long ago 
 parted with any gilding they had pos 
 sessed, creaked in a puff of wind. " I 
 will find out ! " she said, and pushed open 
 the gate and went across the deep tangle 
 of the grass to the big thorny bush of 
 yellow Persian roses. She picked one, 
 resolution growing in her face ; and then 
 she went at once up the hill to Mrs. Dale s 
 house. " Mrs. Dale will tell me," she said 
 to herself. 
 
The Story of a Child 1 1 1 
 
 But when the two ladies sat down by the 
 work-table in the open hall, and Mrs. Dale, 
 with a little sigh, took up Ellen s apron 
 to mend, Miss Jane began to talk of any 
 thing and anybody but Mr. Tommy Dove ; 
 the weather, first, and the gardener s 
 anxiety about the drought ; her sister-in- 
 law s health, and her own regret that since 
 the death of old Dr. King there had been 
 only his son, a young boy of twenty eight 
 or nine, to minister to the physical ills of 
 Old Chester. 
 
 " He can t help being young, I know," 
 said Miss Jane, " but I am sure I hope my 
 sister will not have to consult him this 
 summer. I suppose young doctors must 
 have some patients to practice on, or else 
 they would never get experience, but I 
 don t want him to practice on sister." 
 
 Mrs. Dale agreed with her, but in the 
 tone of one who is liberal enough to put 
 up with a necessity. " They ve got to be 
 young, some time," she said. 
 
 "I suppose so," Jane Temple admitted ; 
 
H2 The Story of a Child 
 
 " but really, even I know more about 
 some things, chicken - pox, for instance, 
 than Willie does. When Effie had it, I 
 knew just what to do, and I am sure Wil 
 lie had to ask his mother before he dared 
 prescribe. And then, in preparing medi 
 cine, a young man is apt to be careless. 
 I wish some more experienced person " 
 
 Miss Jane s voice was not quite even 
 
 "some more experienced person had 
 charge of the drugs." 
 
 Mrs. Dale glanced at her over her spec 
 tacles, keenly. " Indeed, dear Jane, you 
 are needlessly concerned ; Willie is really 
 careful, and beside, his dispensing the 
 medicines is only a temporary arrange 
 ment. Tommy Dove is our apothecary 
 usually, and he is old enough, I am sure. 
 He is absent just now, but he is a most 
 capable person. Of course, Old Chester 
 would not encourage any one who was 
 not capable." 
 
 Miss Jane bent down to pat Rip s red- 
 brown head. " Yes, he is capable ; but 
 
The Story of a Child 113 
 
 as you say, he is not here this summer ? 
 I noticed, the first time that I went down 
 to the village, that his house was shut up, 
 and all his pretty garden so neglected ; 
 it seemed so strange ! I I wondered 
 where I should say why I mean 
 where, he had gone ? " 
 
 She stroked Rip s ears rapidly, the color 
 fluttering into her face. 
 
 " Dear me ! one would think Jane was 
 interested ! " Mrs. Dale said to herself ; 
 but aloud she only observed that she was 
 not surprised that her companion thought 
 Mr. Tommy s conduct strange. " In spite 
 of his years, and of the influences about 
 him though sometimes I think influ 
 ences amount to very little," said Mrs. 
 Dale, the thought of Ellen heavy upon 
 her heart, " in spite of everything, Mr. 
 Tommy s conduct shows, I fear, an ill-regu 
 lated mind." 
 
 " Does it, indeed, ma am ? " Miss Jane 
 asked tremulously. " I always thought 
 him most estimable, though I have been 
 away so much," she ended weakly. 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 "Oh," said Mrs. Dale, putting down the 
 little white apron and adjusting her spec 
 tacles, " he is, of course, a very estima 
 ble person in his walk of life. But, my 
 dear Jane, his leaving Old Chester as he 
 did shows a weak character." She was 
 very grave. " This is really very serious," 
 she thought ; " poor foolish girl ! " 
 
 " I had I have a great respect for 
 Mr. Dove," Miss Temple said. 
 
 " Every one has," Mrs. Dale agreed, 
 resenting an unspoken reproach. " In 
 deed, I have sometimes thought I would 
 invite him to tea." Miss Jane drew in her 
 breath, as if something hurt her. "He 
 did the same thing about four years ago," 
 Mrs. Dale went on. " Let me see why, 
 it was the summer you were here. He 
 disappeared without a word to anybody ; 
 such a sensational, foolish thing to do. 
 Don t you remember ? " 
 
 " I remember," said Miss Jane faintly. 
 
 " I heard," Mrs. Dale continued, " that 
 he was in Philadelphia this summer. I * 
 
The Story of a Child 7/5 
 
 don t know what he is doing. But even 
 to see as little of the world as Philadel 
 phia is good for Mr. Tommy." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " No doubt he will come back some 
 time, and then it will be our duty to let 
 him see that we do not approve of him. 
 Still, if he will settle down and marry a 
 a suitable person you know, no doubt 
 his conduct will be overlooked in time. 
 But I doubt if we can have quite the con 
 fidence in him that we had, eccentricity 
 is more dangerous than mere youth ! " 
 
 " He must have had good reasons," said 
 Jane Temple ; " I am sure he must ! " It 
 occurred to her that she was betraying 
 herself, but that did not matter. "I I 
 knew Mr. Dove quite well, and I trust 
 his judgment, absolutely," she said, with 
 emphasis, for anger had come to her aid. 
 
 "You are too kind, dear Jane," said 
 Mrs. Dale. She was sincerely troubled. 
 "Dear! dear!" she said to herself; " to 
 think that Jane Temple can be so weak ! " 
 
n 6 The Story of a Child 
 
 Miss Temple s indignation brought a 
 fine glow into her cheek ; her eyes shone ; 
 she began to feel a warmth about her 
 heart that meant happiness, although she 
 did not know it. She was defending him ; 
 how sweet it was to defend him ! Never 
 mind if she should not see him again, if 
 he never knew that she " cared." She 
 did care, and that was happiness enough. 
 Mrs. Dale s condescension roused her to 
 sudden self-knowledge. " I have a right 
 to my own life," she thought. 
 
 " I think I must go now," she said 
 stiffly. She felt she must be alone to 
 think this thing out, and decide what to 
 do ; for, without reasoning about it, she 
 knew she was going to do something to 
 make amends to this man, who had given 
 up his home for her sake. Then, with an 
 effort to seem at ease, she added, " I met 
 Effie, as I came over, and she told me El 
 len could not take tea with her to-night ; 
 I am so sorry." 
 
 The mention of Ellen brought Mrs. 
 
The Story of a Child 7/7 
 
 Dale back from her consternation at Jane 
 Temple s folly, to her own troubles. " I 
 am afraid," she said, " that I was a little 
 stern to Euphemia when she came to 
 make her request. I was obliged to send 
 her home somewhat abruptly." And 
 then she explained that Ellen had been 
 naughty, and it was necessary to punish 
 her. 
 
 Miss Jane s kind eyes filled with pity. 
 " Dear little Ellen ! " she said. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE day was long and sad to Mrs. 
 Dale ; she was disciplining Ellen ac 
 cording to her light, but she was not hope 
 ful. " She is repenting now," she thought, 
 " but she will have forgotten both her re 
 pentance and her naughtiness by to-mor 
 row." As it happened, however, Ellen was 
 too interested in the situation to repent. 
 She had made haste to commit to memory 
 the verses her grandmother had brought 
 her, meditating, as she studied, not upon 
 the sacred words, but upon her wrongs. 
 The verses memorized, she went over to 
 the window and knelt down, her cheek 
 resting on the sill. 
 
 She did not want to read any of her 
 118 
 
The Story of a Child ng 
 
 sedate little story-books. The "Parent s 
 Assistant," or " Harry and Lucy," or the 
 Rollo books were not as entertaining as 
 was her own misery. Oh, how long, how 
 long was this cruel punishment to last ? 
 For she would never beg Betsey s pardon ! 
 Perhaps she should grow old, shut up here 
 in this room. She fancied how, gradually, 
 her clothes would wear out, her hair grow 
 gray, and the dust heap itself about her, 
 as she sat silent, motionless ! A moment 
 later she thought that she should not like 
 it, and decided that she would bring her 
 imprisonment to an end : she would starve 
 herself! She would not eat any dinner 
 nor any supper. Probably she should die 
 in a few days, and then how sorry every 
 body would be ! She should be going to 
 heaven, so she would not be sorry. 
 
 " I 11 plume my wings and take my flight," 
 
 said Ellen to herself. But before doing 
 this she would forgive her enemies. 
 
 She pictured the scene : Her grand- 
 
/2o The Story of a Child . 
 
 mother would find her lying, white and 
 still, on her bed. She would see that 
 Ellen had eaten nothing ; then she would 
 implore her to eat oh, anything ! Yes, 
 fruit-cake if she wished it ! But no ; 
 Ellen would turn her head away, and whis 
 per that she should rather go to heaven. 
 (The tears were rolling peacefully down 
 her face by this time.) At last her 
 grandmother would say, " Oh, my darling 
 Ellen, I have been very cruel to you ; is 
 there anything I can give you for a 
 present ? " 
 
 Here Ellen stopped crying, and reflected 
 upon what she should accept, to signify 
 her forgiveness. "Yes," she decided to 
 reply, " yes, grandmother, you may give 
 me a wig of long yellow curls, and a 
 Bible." What a pang that last word 
 would give her grandmother ! How it 
 would betray the saintly character to 
 which Mrs. Dale had been so blind ! The 
 Bible would not be of much use, as she 
 was going to die immediately. But she 
 
TJ}e Story of a Child i2r 
 
 might leave it to Effie ? " Effie does n t 
 read her Bible as much as I do," Ellen 
 thought, with solemn satisfaction. As 
 for the lovely yellow wig, she would wear 
 that when she was dead. At this thought 
 she wept afresh. 
 
 She wondered what would be done with 
 her "things," her china dishes, her 
 best hat, her little iron bank, into which, 
 on every birthday, her grandmother slipped 
 a gold-piece. 
 
 "Why," said Ellen to herself, " I ought 
 to make my will ! " 
 
 She jumped up at that thought, and 
 began with a blunt, blue lead pencil to 
 inscribe her last wishes upon a large sheet 
 of foolscap. " I leave my geography to 
 Betsey Thomas," she wrote in a round, 
 childish hand, and added, " but she s a 
 cross girl." Here she paused to remember 
 her legatees and her possessions ; then, 
 hurriedly, wrote Miss Jane Temple s name, 
 and bit the end of her pencil for two 
 minutes before she could decide what to 
 
i22 The Story of a Child 
 
 bequeath to her kind friend. The thought 
 of Miss Jane awoke the remorse for her 
 idolatry, and for a moment that horrible 
 melancholy, which has a physical abiding- 
 place just below the breastbone, dimmed 
 her pleasure in the prospect of death. 
 But to. leave Miss Jane a lock of her hair, 
 and Lydia Wright her paper dolls, cheered 
 her to tears ; for, with a thrill of pride, 
 she felt her eyes blur with a sudden mist. 
 
 This touched her deeply, and she 
 leaned forward, and squeezed her eyes 
 tightly shut, at which one single tear 
 trickled down her cheek and splashed full 
 upon the paper ; it made a round blot with 
 a little fringe all about it ; she breathed 
 on it to dry it ; but as the spot rose into 
 a wet blister, she had a bitter moment 
 of feeling that her heirs might not recog 
 nize it as a teardrop. She wondered how 
 it would do to write "tear" above it. She 
 wished she could cry some more to make 
 another blot, but alas ! interest had dried 
 her eyes, and she could only proceed to 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 divide her property among those who ap 
 preciated her so little. 
 
 Her horse-hair snakes she bequeathed 
 to Mrs. Temple ; " Little Henry and his 
 Bearer" to Mr. Temple. 
 
 " I will give my bank to my grand 
 mother," she wrote, but, sighing, added, 
 as older consciences have done before her, 
 " the money in it is for the poor hea 
 then." 
 
 She paused here to note with satisfac 
 tion the perfection of her teardrop, and 
 to look out over the garden. How hot. 
 and bright it was out of doors ! There 
 was a bed of scarlet poppies blazing in 
 the sunshine ; even the shadows looked 
 hot. She could see, across the lane, the 
 stone posts of Mr. Temple s gate, and 
 that made her think of Effie and of the 
 Bible she must leave her. 
 
 Just then she noticed that the tele 
 graph string was jarring and thrilling ; 
 that meant that Effie was at the other end 
 of it, and was about to send her a note. 
 
124 The Story of a Child 
 
 The thought of communication with the 
 outside world made her forget death ; 
 she dropped her will, and leaned out of the 
 window. In a moment, slowly and with 
 little jerks, came the bit of folded paper 
 floating over the sunny garden, catching 
 for a perilous instant on the highest twig 
 of the laburnum, and then landing safely 
 among the leaves of the woodbine, below 
 the window. Ellen with trembling fingers 
 unfastened it, and, smoothing the crum 
 pled paper, read" " Come iip to the somer 
 hous after diner" 
 
 She dropped it dismally. What was 
 the use of Efne s saying that ? Why 
 did n t she sympathize ? 
 
 " Grandmother wont allow me to go out 
 of my room," she wrote. " She says I 
 must ask Betsey s pardon" 
 
 She fastened her answer to the line, and 
 watched it flutter back to Effie ; but the 
 excitement had faded from her face. 
 " Effie knows grandmother won t let me 
 go up to the summer-house," she said to 
 
ne Story of a Child 125 
 
 herself. But Effie s next note explained 
 her meaning. 
 
 " Is the door loked ? Can t you get out ? " 
 " Goodness ! " said Ellen. She read it 
 over and over. " The door locked ? " 
 Why, no, of course not. And after din 
 ner her grandmother always took a nap 
 and Betsey Thomas would be carrying in 
 the clothes from the lines on the kitchen 
 green and there would be no one to 
 see her leave her room ! " I won t do it," 
 she said to herself ; " only, it would be 
 easy to do it." She was so absorbed and 
 excited that she forgot to send an answer 
 to the note. Very quietly, on tiptoe, she 
 crossed the room, and tried the door. It 
 was not locked; but Ellen stood staring 
 at it with great eyes. This punishment 
 of being obliged to stay in her room she 
 knew well ; it had happened only too often 
 before, although never, perhaps, for so 
 serious an offense. But it had never 
 occurred to her that it was voluntary. 
 She went back to the window with a be- 
 
126 The Story of a Child 
 
 wildered air, and started to see another 
 note awaiting her among the leaves. 
 
 " Why don t you anser? Are you lokcd 
 in ? " 
 
 Ellen s reply betrayed the agitation of 
 a new idea. 
 
 "I m not locked in, but I cant get out 
 
 She hoped and feared at once that Effie 
 would not send any more notes, but a 
 moment later another little folded temp 
 tation came over the string. 
 
 " If you re not loked in, come itp to the 
 somer house right after dinner. Your 
 grandmother is wiked to shut you up in 
 prizon. If you beg that servant girl s 
 pardon I ll never speak to you again. 
 Anser if you II come up to the somer hous." 
 
 Effie, standing on the locust stump, on 
 the other side of the wall, waited a long 
 time for Ellen s reply ; the delay made her 
 first angry, and then scared. Perhaps 
 Mrs. Dale had come in and caught Ellen 
 reading the notes ! At this thought she 
 was about to jump down from the stump 
 
The Story of a Child 727 
 
 and run away, when, lo ! there was an an 
 swer coming slowly along the line. Effie, 
 in her eagerness to get it from the string 
 tore it a little, but she could read it in 
 spite of that : " / will come." 
 
IX 
 
 7 LLEN had been hurried into decision 
 i by hearing Betsey Thomas s careful 
 step upon the stairs, and then the sound 
 of a tray bumping against the door. Betsey 
 must not discover the correspondence, and 
 the only way to prevent that was to con 
 sent to Effie s wishes. 
 
 With excitement Ellen s appetite had 
 returned, and she was glad to eat the 
 bread and butter and cold meat which had 
 been sent her. The thought of the hot 
 dinner downstairs made this severe diet 
 seem a cruelty which justified rebellion. 
 
 As she ate, she was excitedly planning 
 her "escape." Ellen had many a time 
 acted out her own fancies of adventure or 
 128 
 
The Story of a Child 729 
 
 peril, but she had never had the chance to 
 make them real, if she chose. Her skill 
 in weaving romance blurred just now the 
 actual fact of her naughtiness and gave 
 the whole situation an unreality and an in 
 terest that kept her conscience quiet. 
 
 She might as well look over her verses, 
 she thought, until it was time to dismiss 
 this exciting possibility. " He that ruleth 
 his spirit," said Ellen, sitting in the big 
 dimity-covered chair, her hands clasped 
 above her head, and her small heels swing 
 ing to and fro, "is greater than he that 
 taketh a city. Oh!" she heard Mrs. 
 Dale s step upon the stairs ; then the clos 
 ing of her bedroom door. 
 
 Ellen, sat with parted lips ; the clock 
 in the lower hall struck three. The great 
 moment had come ! She rose stealthily, 
 and, opening her door, looked out into the 
 hall. Then a sudden gush of determina 
 tion took the little temptation she had 
 played with and carried it into action. 
 She was bewildered, absorbed, fascinated, 
 
i jo The Story of a Child 
 
 to find herself yielding yielding! She 
 had not supposed she was really going to 
 do it ; her own possibility intoxicated her ; 
 hardly breathing, she slipped on tiptoe out 
 of the room, past her grandmother s door, 
 and then, step by step, downstairs. 
 
 It was a still August day. Far off, be 
 yond the meadows at the foot of the ter 
 race, came, through the thinning leaves, 
 the sparkle and flash of the river ; nearer, 
 in the stone vase in the middle of the 
 garden, a bunch of scarlet geraniums blazed 
 and glowed. Rip lay stretched on the 
 warm dust of the carriage road at the foot 
 of the steps. There was a scent of hot 
 sunshine in the hazy air. Ellen, palpi 
 tating with excitment, stood a moment on 
 the porch, and looked at it all, then she 
 heard a step somewhere in the silent house 
 and darted like a bird out into the freedom 
 of the sunshine ! Three minutes later 
 she had reached the summer-house, and 
 Effie, awaiting her for half an hour, was 
 crying out for particulars. 
 
The Story of a Child 131 
 
 " Wait till I get my breath " 
 Ellen gasped. When she did get her 
 breath, they talked in whispers, though 
 there was no one nearer than Betsey tak 
 ing the clothes off the lines down on the 
 kitchen green ; but considering, how as 
 tonished Betsey would have been could 
 she have overheard that conversation, it 
 was no wonder that they whispered. 
 
 Suddenly Ellen jumped up. " Oh, Effie, 
 what time do you think it is ? Oh, I m 
 afraid it s late ! " 
 
 "No, it is n t," Effie reassured her; 
 " only, may be you d better go. Now 
 don t forget : if she does n t apologize to 
 you, you are to be here to-morrow morn 
 ing, with some clothes and food and your 
 bank ; and I 11 be here with my things, 
 and " 
 
 " Oh, Effie, I must run ! Grandmother 
 will be downstairs, and then what shall I 
 do? Oh, Effie, I must go!" Ellen stamped 
 her foot with impatient fright. 
 
 But Mrs. Dale had not yet come down- 
 
132 He Story of a Child 
 
 stairs from her nap, so Ellen was able to 
 regain her room quite unobserved. There, 
 with a wildly beating heart, she opened 
 her Bible for a look at the verses ; the 
 habit of doing as she was bid made this 
 final study instinctive, but she could hardly 
 see the words, much less feel their mean 
 ing. 
 
 " I will certainly do it," she assured her 
 self ; " and oh, what will Lydia say ? Yes, 
 I will not come back until I am twenty 
 years old. By that time grandmother will 
 know that she can t order me around, and 
 starve me, and treat me so cruelly ; and 
 very likely Betsey Thomas will be married 
 then in nine years." 
 
 The two children had arranged how they 
 were to support themselves during these 
 years of absence, in which their families 
 were to repent. " We 11 go to a city," 
 Effte had said vaguely. And once there, 
 they were to be milliners. There had been 
 a moment s wavering in favor of a candy- 
 shop, but reflection upon the amount of 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 money Mrs. Temple paid for her bonnets 
 decided them, for, as Ellen pointed out, if 
 they sold a dozen twenty-five-dollar bon 
 nets a day, they could well afford to buy 
 candy, instead of serving behind a counter 
 for the chance to eat it. Effie explained 
 incidentally that her reason for including 
 herself in these delightful plans was that 
 her aunt Jane made her life a burden, and 
 tried all the time to make Mrs. Temple 
 "cross." 
 
 Everything being thus arranged, it only 
 remained for Ellen to have firmness in the 
 coming interview with her grandmother. 
 It occurred to the child to consider as an 
 interesting possibility, what she should do 
 if her grandmother were to have a change 
 of heart before the carefully planned ret 
 ribution could fall upon her. Suppose 
 Mrs. Dale should say she were sorry ? It 
 would be disappointing, but such things 
 had been, and it was well to be prepared. 
 Suppose she were to say, " Ellen, I was 
 very unkind, and Betsey Thomas shall beg 
 
134 The Story of a Child 
 
 your pardon. And what would you like 
 me to do for you ? " 
 
 Ellen put her cheek down on the open 
 Bible and meditated. She would like to 
 have all the pin-wheels and fire-crackers 
 that she wanted ; also torpedoes, those 
 little white bags of flame and noise; with 
 these she would give an exhibition to the 
 village, especially to the tannery hands. 
 The thought of her own importance and 
 beneficence, in thus officiating, filled her 
 with a glow of self-approval which seemed 
 to fade into a blur of general satisfaction, 
 and the next thing she knew, she heard 
 Betsey Thomas saying, " Waken up, Ellen ; 
 your grandmother is waiting down on the 
 porch to hear you say your verses. Wake 
 up, and let me brush your hair and tidy 
 you up a bit." 
 
 Betsey was very much affected by ob 
 serving that Ellen had fallen asleep upon 
 the open page of her Bible, and she made 
 haste to report it to Mrs. Dale, who was 
 likewise somewhat impressed by it. It 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 made her ready to forgive the child at 
 once, and to hope that Ellen had been 
 seeking a higher forgiveness. 
 
 Ellen gathered up her courage, and 
 went slowly downstairs ; and then, in her 
 fresh white apron, her brown hair tucked 
 smoothly behind her little ears, and her 
 hands folded in front of her, she stood be 
 fore Mrs. Dale, and repeated quite perfectly 
 the half dozen verses she had been told 
 to learn. With downcast eyes she listened 
 in dutiful silence to her grandmother s ad 
 monitions. " And now, Ellen," Mrs. Dale 
 said, with a sigh of relief that this trying 
 day was ended, " now, Ellen, I hope that 
 you will always remember your duty as a 
 little Christian child, and never forget that 
 a lady is as courteous to those whom God 
 has placed in a different station as to 
 her own friends. You may kiss me good 
 night, my child, and then go and tell 
 Betsey Thomas that you are sorry. To 
 morrow morning you will turn over a new 
 leaf and start out fresh." 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 Ellen was quite pale. " No m," she said 
 briefly. 
 
 " You mean it shall never happen 
 again ? I am very glad, my dear. And I 
 am sure you have asked your Heavenly 
 Father to forgive you, also?" 
 
 Ellen s response of silence to appeals 
 of this kind always confused Mrs. Dale ; 
 like one who pronounces a magic formula 
 and sees no result, she was vaguely dis 
 turbed. It had happened many, many 
 times, but she never grew accustomed to 
 the pain of it. " Now go to Betsey 
 Thomas," she said, with the sternness 
 which means embarrassment. 
 
 " No m," Ellen said. " I don t want to, 
 grandmother." 
 
 In the explanation which followed this, 
 and in the order that she was to go to bed 
 without any supper, and spend the next 
 day, until she apologized to Betsey, in her 
 own room, it seemed to the child as 
 though she could hear her heart beat. It 
 did not occur to Mrs. Dale, grieved and 
 
The Story of a Child 137 
 
 anxious, and viewing the situation with 
 a seriousness of which it was not worthy, 
 that some patient reasoning might have 
 brought the suggestion of apology from 
 the child s own lips, although she would 
 have been the first to realize that such an 
 impulse from within would have counted 
 more in character than when it was the 
 result of insistence from without. 
 
 Perhaps the whole difficulty was in Mrs. 
 Dale s lack of imagination ; but, besides 
 that, it must be admitted that it is not 
 easy for a righteous and inflexible will to 
 concede a point. Indeed, it would be in 
 teresting to know how much the sense of 
 personal dignity is responsible for mistakes 
 made in the training of children ; mis 
 takes which apparently do not injure the 
 children very much, for, after all, we 
 most of us turn out pretty well, but 
 from which the characters of the elders 
 certainly suffer. 
 
MISS JANE TEMPLE was strangely 
 distrait that afternoon. She forgot 
 her sister-in-law s beef tea at four, and 
 glass of sherry at six. She told Effie, 
 briefly, that she would not play backgam 
 mon with her after tea. " I have some 
 writing to do," she explained, in answer 
 to the child s impatient protest, and there 
 was something in her voice that made 
 Mrs. Temple look up and say, 
 
 "Is there anything the matter, Janey?" 
 
 " Oh, no, dear sister," she answered. 
 
 " Come, Effie ; I 11 play just one game ; 
 
 but I really am too busy to play any more 
 
 than that." 
 
 Effie ran for the board, but she was as 
 138 
 
The Story of a Onld 
 
 nervous as her aunt, and the single game 
 was more than enough for her. Her im 
 patience worried her mother, so that she 
 was sent to bed, stamping her foot as she 
 went, to Mrs. Temple s further annoyance. 
 
 " I don t know why Effie is n t like that 
 dear little Ellen," said Mrs. Temple, with 
 a sigh. " Now she has gone, Janey, write 
 down here, won t you ? Who are you go 
 ing to write to ? " 
 
 Miss Jane s face flushed suddenly and 
 painfully. "I well I have to write to 
 a friend," she stammered. 
 
 Mrs. Temple raised herself on her elbow, 
 and looked at her with undisguised curios 
 ity. " Why, Janey, one would think you 
 were a girl writing to her lover." 
 
 Miss Jane s laugh was so forced and 
 conscious that Mrs. Temple was fairly 
 breathless with astonishment. " Why, 
 Jane Temple ! " she said. But the younger 
 woman had hurried upstairs for her writ 
 ing materials. Mrs. Temple fell back 
 among her cushions with a puzzled face. 
 
140 The Story of a Child 
 
 "Why," she said to herself, "what does 
 it mean ? Who can she be writing to ? 
 That Dove man ? Is it possible ? " 
 
 But when her sister-in-law came back 
 with her little old rosewood writing-desk, 
 which folded over on itself, and was lined 
 with faded purple velvet, Mrs. Temple 
 was quite apologetic. " I did n t mean to 
 seem curious, Janey ; I did not know that 
 you had any secrets of that kind. I m 
 sure I beg your pardon ? " She could not 
 help the question in her voice, nor an in 
 jured look. 
 
 " Of course, dear Euphemia, I know 
 that. I I only just have a letter of 
 no importance, to write. I thought I 
 would write it to-night, though." 
 
 " It is to Mr. Dove," said Mrs. Temple 
 to herself. " Dear me ! I would not have 
 thought that of Janey ! Still, I don t 
 know why she should n t be friendly to 
 the poor little man ; he would never dare 
 to presume upon it. And Janey never 
 would leave us." Mrs. Temple grew 
 
The Story of a Child 141 
 
 tearful at the thought, but Miss Jane was 
 too absorbed in the composition of a very 
 brief letter to notice the invalid. That 
 love develops selfishness is readily granted 
 by those who are not lovers. 
 
 Miss Temple wrote a line, and paused ; 
 then she made some straight marks on her 
 blotting-paper, and looked at them thought 
 fully ; after that, she mended her pen, and 
 took a fresh sheet, and began her letter 
 again ; but stopped a moment to press 
 down the curling corners of the worn 
 velvet lining of her desk. 
 
 " You don t write very much," Mrs. 
 Temple observed, with something like 
 malice in her voice ; and certainly, in a 
 half hour, it was not unreasonable to sup 
 pose that more than half a page should 
 be written. 
 
 " There is my stamp box, Janey, dear," 
 she ventured, a little later, and Miss Jane 
 thanked her, but said she had stamped her 
 envelope. 
 
 " So it is n t to anybody in Old Ches- 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 ter," Mrs. Temple assured herself. " Yes, 
 it must be to Mr. Tommy ! " Mrs. Temple 
 was growing interested and amiable. 
 
 " I m sure I don t want to seem to pry," 
 she said, with a little cough behind her 
 thin white hand, as; with a quickened 
 breath, Miss Jane suddenly put down her 
 pen, and folded her letter ; " I don t want 
 to pry, but it seems to me that a letter 
 that puzzles one to write, as that has evi 
 dently puzzled you, should be well, I 
 should think you would want advice. Not 
 that I want to give advice. I should be 
 quite unwilling to advise ; only I d give 
 it a good deal of thought, if I were you," 
 she ended weakly. 
 
 " I have, " answered Miss Temple gently. 
 Then the determination with which she 
 had folded the letter seemed to desert 
 her, and for a moment she held it with 
 tremulous hesitation. " I have thought," 
 she repeated, absently. And then she 
 seemed to come to herself and remem 
 ber her duties. " Are n t you ready now 
 
The Story of a Child 143 
 
 for your gruel, dear sister ? " she said. 
 " I 11 go and get it." She put the letter 
 in her pocket and rose. 
 
 Mrs. Temple shut her eyes and whim 
 pered, " I m sure I did n t mean to be im 
 pertinent. You re very unkind to me, 
 Janey." 
 
 Miss Jane was full of protestations ; 
 " Why ! of course nothing you could say 
 would be impertinent. Indeed, I m al 
 ways grateful for your interest. Now, 
 won t you sit up and take this gruel?" 
 Her voice was nervous with unspoken 
 excuses. 
 
 She slipped her arm under the invalid s 
 head and held the bowl to her lips, and 
 said she was sure Mrs. Temple was a little 
 stronger, and she did think that gray silk 
 wrapper was so becoming. 
 
 But she did not mention the address of 
 the letter. 
 
XI 
 
 HPHE next morning Ellen was awake 
 A and staring, wide-eyed, at the dawn, 
 long before the maids, in the faint light, 
 went yawning down to the kitchen. 
 
 It seemed, when she awoke, as though 
 some terrible dream had oppressed her, 
 and she felt for a moment that sense of 
 wondering relief, which grown persons 
 know too well, and that fades so in 
 stantly into miserable certainty. Ellen, 
 with a frightened sigh, remembered ; and 
 then buried her face in her pillow, and 
 felt the tears behind her eyes, though no 
 tears came. Older persons know this 
 pain, too. For relief, the child began to 
 think of what she had promised to do. 
 144 
 
The Story of a Child 145 
 
 It was impossible ! How had she ever 
 dared to think of such a thing ? Yet 
 how could she break her promise to Effie ? 
 The honesty of that thought drove her 
 into planning the details of this impos 
 sible action. She must make her arrange 
 ments, even though she might not be able 
 to carry them out. First she must pack 
 her " things " up in something. She be 
 gan to think of a certain leather bag 
 which had belonged to her grandfather ; 
 she saw it in her memory, the sole 
 leather worn and shabby, and the " Eben 
 Dale " in fat black letters on one side. 
 She must get that bag. She must 
 steal it! Well, she had nothing else, 
 she could n t help it ; it was n t her fault ; 
 she had to have a bag ; poor little Ellen ! 
 She was knowing the confusion of older 
 sinners : self-blame and self-pity. 
 
 The bag was in the spare room across 
 the hall. She was afraid of this rarely 
 used room, it was so dark and silent, and 
 once her grandfather had lain dead in it ! 
 
146 The Story of a Child 
 
 No one guessed what terrors had shaken 
 the child whenever she had had to enter 
 it. She used to run past its closed door, 
 flinging a scared look over her shoulder ; 
 it seemed to her that some time the door 
 would open, and something stand on the 
 threshold ; she never said what would 
 stand there, her terror needed no detail of 
 words. Oh, how hard it was that the bag 
 should be in that room ! 
 
 She crept out of bed, and without wait 
 ing to dress stole across the hall and 
 softly pushed the spare room door open ; 
 the shutters were bowed, and one thin 
 line of the sweet morning light came in 
 from the dawn outside, touching, like a 
 pointing finger, the great bed, draped in 
 its white valance and coverlet. Its four 
 mahogany posts made Ellen think of the 
 obelisk which marked Dr. Dale s grave 
 in the churchyard. The noiseless, lifting 
 line of the sunbeam lay upon the white 
 matting, almost at her feet ; she stopped, 
 then stepped across it, with a gasp. After 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 that, though the tide of resolution rose 
 and fell, the deed was practically done ; 
 in the child s mind arose confusedly the 
 vision of the sword of tremulous flame out 
 side the gate of Paradise. The morning 
 sunbeam and the little child made the pic 
 ture of a human heart s profanity. Ellen 
 felt, but did not understand, this critical 
 moment created by her imagination. 
 
 Suddenly she thought the valance about 
 the bed fluttered, and she almost cried out, 
 and then stood with staring eyes. Oh, 
 what if there were something under that 
 awful bed ? There was a moment of 
 strained silence ; then, on tiptoe, looking 
 sideways at the valance, she glided across 
 the room ; never once did she turn her 
 back upon the bed ; it seemed as though, 
 if she glanced away for an instant, she 
 should see, when she looked back, the 
 long straight lines of the sheet, as she 
 had seen them three years before. When 
 at last she held the bag in her hand, and 
 crept towards the door, a glimpse of her- 
 
148 The Story of a Child 
 
 self in the glass, in her white night-gown, 
 with wide, terrified eyes, startled her so 
 that she almost dropped it. 
 
 When the first fright was over, Ellen 
 began to pack her dearly bought valise. 
 How silent the house was ! The wet leaves 
 of the woodbine outside her window be 
 gan to shine as the sun looked around the 
 corner of the house ; some birds twittered ; 
 she heard a latch lift and fall, and knew 
 that the women were going downstairs. 
 It was very exciting. She must hurry 
 with her packing, she thought, or Betsey 
 Thomas might discover her. 
 
 What should she take with her? Her 
 best dress, certainly ; but she found, on 
 squeezing it into the smallest possible bun 
 dle, that there would be little room for 
 anything else in the bag, and drew it out 
 again, meshed with wrinkles. In its place 
 she put a small china vase, and then sat 
 down upon the floor to reflect upon what 
 else was necessary. Her Sunday hat, of 
 course. The soft leghorn, with its white 
 
The Story of a Child 149 
 
 ribbons, was easily rolled up and pushed 
 into the yawning jaws of the bag. Boots, 
 she should need boots ? " I might get 
 my feet wet," she considered, proud to find 
 how practical she was. So, hastily, she 
 dropped a pair of shoes in beside the hat ; 
 and then, with a quick impulse, tucked her 
 Bible in one corner. This gave her tor 
 tured little conscience a momentary relief ; 
 it was so good to take her Bible ! Her 
 bank ? She had almost forgotten her 
 bank. That would have been, indeed, a 
 serious omission. And here she came 
 to an end of her packing ; there was 
 really nothing else to take ; money, boots, 
 a hat, and a Bible, what else was needed 
 for a journey? So she pushed the bag 
 under the bed, that it might escape Bet 
 sey s eyes when she should enter with 
 the tray and breakfast. But Betsey, when 
 she came, did not glance about the room, 
 nor speak to Ellen ; following Mrs. Dale s 
 directions, she put the tray down, silently, 
 and went away. 
 
/ 50 The Story of a Child 
 
 Ellen debated within herself whether 
 she should eat her breakfast or put it in 
 her bag. She decided on the former course, 
 for, as the food was to be eaten some 
 time, as well now as later. Breakfast over, 
 came the waiting until nine o clock, when 
 she was to escape by means of the back 
 stairs. She was greatly excited, and when, 
 suddenly, her bedroom door opened, she 
 started so violently that Betsey Thomas 
 tried to reassure her, before delivering a 
 message from Mrs. Dale. 
 
 " Don t be scared, Ellen ; law, it s only 
 me. And Ellen, why don t you be a 
 good girl ? I don t mind nothin ! You 
 just say you 11 apologize, child. Do, now, 
 Ellen," she said anxiously. 
 
 Ellen did not answer. " Anyway, your 
 grandmother says you are to go out of 
 doors for an hour and walk ; and then she 
 says well, says she, Ellen can come 
 and see me, if she s anything to say ! Do, 
 Ellen. I wish t you would, child ? " 
 
 Ellen looked out of the window to hide 
 
The Story of a Cbild 75; 
 
 the tears that were trembling on her 
 lashes. 
 
 " Your grandmother has a headache, 
 she ain t up yet," Betsey ended signifi 
 cantly, her hand upon the door-knob ; and 
 then she turned back to add, " I m to 
 leave your dinner on the chest of drawers 
 in the back entry, Ellen, and you re to 
 get it yourself, your grandmother says." 
 
 The little girl looked scared ; had she 
 made her grandmother ill ? She had prom 
 ised Effie, she must not break her word ; 
 but how dreadful if she had made her 
 grandmother ill! Oh, how unhappy she 
 was ! She kept saying over and over to 
 herself that she had "promised Effie ; " 
 and so she must go. But when, with her 
 bag in her hand, she started, ostensibly 
 for the hour s walk in the garden, it was 
 still incredible to her that she should be 
 able to keep her word. She stopped a mo 
 ment in the upper hall to wipe her eyes, 
 and then, feeling very homesick, she crept 
 to her grandmother s door, and, kneeling 
 down, kissed the knob, softly. 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 There was no sound behind the closed 
 door, for Mrs. Dale had had her coffee and 
 dropped into a nap ; but the lack of any 
 response to her burst of affection made 
 Ellen s old bitterness come back ; the 
 sense of being badly treated put her mind 
 again into the comfortable grooves of habit, 
 and an unreal wretchedness made her so 
 much happier, that she was able to be in 
 terested in the situation, and say to herself 
 that she was "escaping!" She actually 
 sauntered through the gooseberry bushes 
 of the kitchen garden, taking the exercise 
 which her grandmother had permitted her. 
 The lawful prelude to an unlawful event 
 had its charm for Ellen. 
 
 She said to herself that her absence 
 would not be discovered until the after 
 noon, for Betsey Thomas would not go 
 for the tray before three o clock, at the 
 earliest. 
 
 Effie was waiting for her on the sum 
 mer-house steps, looking quite pale. Be 
 fore Ellen reached her she began to talk 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 in an agitated way. " Ellen, do you know, 
 I believe I I can t. I m not going to. 
 I m awfully sorry but aunty wants 
 me to have a dress fitted this afternoon. 
 And, don t you see, I can t ? I m awfully 
 sorry." Effie was very much embarrassed. 
 
 Ellen was out of breath ; the bag, with 
 all that money in the iron bank, was heavy. 
 She stopped, and put it down on the step, 
 and looked up at Effie silently. Effie was 
 very nervous. 
 
 " Well, you see, I can t help it ; I ve 
 got to have my dress fitted. It is n t my 
 fault. And you can do it just the same." 
 
 " Do you mean," said Ellen in a low 
 voice, "that you ve backed out ?" 
 
 Effie began to cry. " Well, what s the 
 use ? I m not like you ; my papa s not 
 dead, and he d catch me right off. Be 
 sides, he s awfully fond of me. So what s 
 the use ? " 
 
 " All right." 
 
 " Oh, Nellie, you re not mad ? You can 
 go, all the same. I ve brought you lots of 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 food to take. Only you must n t tell that 
 I did ; they d scold me." 
 
 " Of course I shall go all the same. If 
 you don t tell, you won t be scolded." 
 
 " Oh, I won t tell," Effie promised with 
 a gasp ; " only, don t you think they might 
 find out ? They 11 think I ought to have 
 told on you." 
 
 Ellen s lip quivered. " I guess they 
 won t find out," she said ; "but I did n t 
 suppose it was right to break your word, 
 Effie Temple." 
 
 " Oh, well, if you are going to get mad," 
 said Effie, " I would n t go for anything ! 
 I hate people that get mad." 
 
 Ellen swallowed hard, and, turning away 
 from Effie, blinked several times. 
 
 " What have you got in your bag ? " 
 Effie began, softening a little. "Any cake ? 
 And, Nellie, I thought I d just say, / 
 dorit think you ought to go Now, I m not 
 to blame ; so let s plan. See the things 
 I brought : eggs they are not boiled 
 and cake. Look ! is n t that nice ? " 
 
The Story of a Child 755 
 
 "I don t want your cake," said Ellen, 
 her little red lower lip quivering, " and I 
 don t want to make any more plans with 
 you. I m going now ; good-by, Euphe- 
 mia Temple. I 11 never speak to you 
 again." 
 
 Effie was divided between interest and 
 anger, in which there was also a little fear 
 that Ellen would not go, and so all this 
 excitement would come to an end. " It s 
 real mean to talk that way just because I 
 can t go. I have awfully pretty dresses, 
 not like yours ; and they have to be fitted. 
 I won t tell and don t you, either, 
 when you come back. I mean, if you come 
 back. And write to me, Nellie. Oh, my 
 goodness, I wish I was going. Gracious ! 
 it s splendid ! " 
 
 Such admiration touched Ellen, who 
 had already reached the lower step. " Yes, 
 I ll write to you," she said, "though I 
 don t think you are a very good friend." 
 It did not occur to Ellen that here was her 
 opportunity to " back out." Somehow, 
 
1 56 The Story of a Child 
 
 this deflection only strengthened her pur 
 pose ; very likely, had Effie been faithful, 
 and urged her, she would have had some 
 wholesome hesitation. 
 
 Effie stood up, shading her eyes with 
 her hand, and watching Ellen s little fig 
 ure flit across the orchard and down the 
 hill to the highway. There, the elder 
 berry bushes that fringed the road hid her 
 for a moment, and then she was swallowed 
 up in a cloud of dust, as a wagon went 
 jogging by. 
 
 So began Ellen s journey into the world. 
 
XII 
 
 THE sun poured hot and white upon 
 the long stretch of sandy road. Ellen 
 had hurried through the village, and, as it 
 chanced, met no one^ Near the post- 
 office, on the main street, she saw a fa 
 miliar figure which gave her an instant s 
 fear. It was Miss Jane Temple ; she had 
 a letter in her hand, and seemed to be 
 reading its address, with absent intent- 
 ness ; she never once looked up. Escaped 
 from those friendly eyes, Ellen was soon 
 beyond Old Chester. 
 
 She walked steadily, and quite rapidly ; 
 
 she passed two or three people ; one man, 
 
 who knew her, said, " Hullo, Ellen ! " in 
 
 a surprised way, but asked no questions. 
 
 157 
 
1 58 The Story of a Child 
 
 After that she walked for a while in the 
 fields along the road, so that she might 
 not be seen. The bag was heavy, and so 
 was her heart. 
 
 It was nearly dinner time. She had 
 rejected Effie s cake and eggs, and those 
 friendly berries, which in story-books offer 
 themselves to wandering children, did not 
 appear. There were locust-trees here and 
 there by the roadside, but they had no 
 thing to give her but a flickering shade. 
 She really wished very much that she had 
 eaten more breakfast. If she could see a 
 shop, she would open her bank, she thought, 
 and buy something. But not only were 
 there no shops in sight ; there were no 
 houses, either. 
 
 She had taken every cross-road and 
 lane and turn, and walked through fields, 
 and skirted meadows, and now had quite 
 lost her bearings, and had no idea where 
 she was. The reaching the railroad at 
 Mercer seemed simple enough when she 
 and Effie talked it over, but where was 
 
The Story of a Child 159 
 
 Mercer? She stumbled a little as she 
 plodded through the dust, and then said 
 to herself that she was so tired she must 
 sit down and rest. 
 
 It was just noon. The mowed fields on 
 either side of the road lay in a hot blur of 
 sunshine ; the long z-z-ing of the locusts 
 seemed to emphasize the stillness. So far, 
 the child had been sustained by excite 
 ment, and anger at Effie, and conscious 
 ness of achievement ; but little by little a 
 dull ache of reality was beginning to make 
 itself felt. She perceived, far off, the 
 moment when resolution would flag. But 
 it was very far off. She would still pre 
 tend to herself that she was going to 
 Mercer. Down the white road a little 
 cloud of dust was creeping along; Ellen 
 could hear a slow creaking jolt before she 
 could distinguish in the dusty nimbus a 
 peddler s cart. It was covered with sun 
 burned canvas, and as all the weight was 
 on the front seat, it tilted up behind and 
 sagged upon the front wheels. The white 
 
160 The Story of a Child 
 
 mule which jogged between the shafts was 
 driven by a large person with a ruddy 
 face ; he wore spectacles, whose round sil 
 ver rims looked like little satellites of his 
 moon-like countenance, which had also a 
 halo about it, made by a fringe of white 
 whiskers under his chin, and a gray felt 
 hat, worn on the back of his head. His 
 elbows were on his knees, and the reins 
 hung loosely between his fingers ; he was 
 humming to himself, and once or twice 
 his head nodded, as though he were half 
 asleep ; indeed, his eyes were closed, and 
 he would not have noticed Ellen, stand 
 ing at the roadside, had not the mule 
 come to a standstill to kick a fly from its 
 gray, shaggy stomach. 
 
 "Hallo!" said the man, opening his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Ellen nervously. 
 
 " Warm day." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Coin my way ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," Ellen said, having not the 
 slightest idea where he was going. 
 
The Story of a Child 161 
 
 " Edward and me 11 give thee a lift ; 
 git in." 
 
 " Oh, no, thank you, sir, I I m go 
 ing to Mercer." Her voice quivered, so 
 that the peddler looked at her with sudden 
 scrutiny. " Hallo, what s this ? " said he. 
 
 "Why, sissy, Mercer is twenty miles 
 off ! Come, thee d better git in ; I m go- 
 in that way." 
 
 There was something so pleasant in the 
 kindliness of his face that Ellen, tired, 
 and afraid of her own thoughts, and 
 dumbfounded at the idea of the twenty 
 miles still before her, found herself say 
 ing, " Thank you, sir," and climbing in 
 over the wheel. 
 
 The white mule pricked up first one ear 
 and then the other, and with reluctance 
 began to move ; his master turned his 
 friendly spectacles upon Ellen. "Thee s 
 a little tot to be going to Mercer by thee- 
 self," he said. 
 
 Ellen did not reply. 
 
 There was a pause, in which the peddler 
 
1 62 The Story of a Child 
 
 seemed to seek a meaning in her silence, 
 and then he said, with clumsy and pains 
 taking gentleness, " Does th folks know 
 thee s going to Mercer, sissy ? " 
 
 " I think I 11 get out and walk," Ellen 
 said agitatedly. The peddler made a lit 
 tle clucking sound, as though to soothe her ; 
 and then he chuckled to himself, but did 
 not stop Edward ; he only said, " Here s 
 a joke ! " Ellen politely tried to call up a 
 smile, but she saw nothing funny. She 
 wished she had not gotten into the cart. 
 
 " I m going to be a milliner," she said, 
 with childish embarrassment at silence. 
 
 " Well, now, ain t that strange ? I m 
 in the millinery way, myself; though I m 
 a literary man. I sell books. There s 
 nothin like literature for improvin folks." 
 He paused, and beamed upon Ellen. " Like 
 books?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I like to read very much," she 
 answered. Ellen was vain of this liking to 
 read. She had often heard Betsey Thomas 
 speak of it with admiration and wonder. 
 
The Story of a Child 163 
 
 The peddler nodded his head ; his spec 
 tacles had a kindly gleam in them. " I 
 can t say that I m particular about readin 
 books, but I like em. And I like to 
 sell em. My house is full of em. Thee s 
 welcome to look at em." 
 
 " Thank you, sir, but I think I must n t 
 stop," returned Ellen, feeling snubbed, for 
 this gentleman was evidently contemptu 
 ous about reading. " I am going on to 
 Mercer." 
 
 "Thee has no call to stop," the man 
 explained. "This is my house, this cart. I 
 sleep in it, and eat in it, and follow my 
 literary pursuits in it. A-puttin th house 
 on wheels don t stop its,bein th house, 
 huh ? " 
 
 "Oh, no, sir," Ellen assured him ner 
 vously. 
 
 " Yes ; look around, look around and 
 make theeself at home. This here seat 
 we re settin on is the front piazza ; that 
 there shelf, back, is my bedroom ; this 
 here roomy space, right behind us, is the 
 
1 64 The Story of a Child 
 
 parlor ; and right behind it see that 
 chalk line ? " (he had fastened the reins 
 on a hook in the wagon frame above his 
 head, so that he could turn and direct 
 Ellen s glances about the cart) "that 
 chalk line is the wall between the kitchen 
 and parlor. When it rains I go in off the 
 piazza and set in my parlor, and Edward, 
 he goes on. Them boxes on the shelf 
 overhead is my garret ; they re full of 
 finery ribbons and such things. The 
 ladies will have them. Now, for me, 
 I d rather have books. There s the li 
 brary under my bed. All convenient, all 
 right to th hand. Honest, I pities the 
 people with them big, uneasy houses. So 
 lonesome in em, they must be ! " 
 
 Ellen was much interested ; she began 
 to think that she would go about in a 
 cart, instead of being a milliner. Perhaps 
 she d better ask this kind gentleman s 
 advice as to where she could get a cart, 
 and a white mule like Edward ? (But all 
 the while, in the background of her heart, 
 she saw herself at home again.) 
 
The Story of a Child 165 
 
 She could not ask her question at once, 
 because the peddler stopped at the door 
 of a farmhouse ; and Ellen, curled up on 
 the seat, watched the ingratiating polite 
 ness with which he enticed a reluctant cus 
 tomer. He looked over his glasses, nodding 
 his head in candid assent to each objec 
 tion that was made, as though he had no 
 personal interest in disposing of his goods. 
 He showed a beguiling sympathy for the 
 purchaser s economical hesitation, a sym 
 pathy which was almost an entreaty not to 
 purchase, and that could not but result in a 
 sale. When they drove away, followed by 
 a barking dog, and leaving a yard of cotton 
 lace in exchange for the money jingling in 
 the peddler s hand, he began to sing to 
 himself ; he seemed to have forgotten El 
 len, who felt neglected. 
 
 " I think perhaps I d like to sell things 
 in a cart," she said, with some dignity and 
 resentment. 
 
 Her host interrupted his singing, and 
 looked at her. Then he chuckled, " It s 
 
1 66 The Story of a Child 
 
 a good business. Course it s some lone- 
 some. Thee might be dyin in th house, 
 lyin there in the parlor, fer instance, 
 and not one ud care ; but thee s free, in 
 this business ; thee s shut of all th friends 
 that boss thee and want th money!" 
 said the peddler, with a sudden seriousness 
 of his own. 
 
 "I think it would be very pleasant to 
 play house in a wagon," said Ellen, strug 
 gling against the depression of possible 
 loneliness, and a little disappointed that 
 no reference was made to the sorrow of 
 deserted friends. 
 
 " Yes ; yes, t is," the peddler admitted. 
 " But nights, now, fer instance. Lyin 
 there in thy bedroom, hoo ! thee don t 
 know what 11 come at thee in the dark ! " 
 
 Ellen was instantly frightened. "I I 
 think I won t," she said faintly. " I guess 
 I 11 be a milliner." 
 
 " Well, that s genteel ; and yet they do 
 say that they starve, the milliners, mostly. 
 Graveyards is full of em." 
 
The Story of a Child 767 
 
 " Why, but," Ellen protested, " bonnets 
 are twenty-five dollars apiece ; I should 
 think they d be rich, the milliners ? " 
 
 Among the peddler s customers, ladies 
 who paid twenty-five dollars for a bonnet 
 were not frequent, but he wisely avoided 
 the discussion. Instead, he remarked, 
 " Yes, and fifty dollars ! But thee sees, 
 the fifties and the twenty-fives comes to 
 gentlemen in my line. The milliners have 
 to get their things from us. They don t 
 make much." 
 
 This was beyond Ellen, but, though she 
 did not understand it, it left her in doleful 
 uncertainty in regard to her plans. She 
 sighed, and turned the subject by asking 
 the peddler if he ever thought that maybe 
 he was dreaming. 
 
 " Huh ? " said the man, slapping a rein 
 on Edward s back, and turning the puzzled 
 benevolence of his mild eyes upon her. 
 
 But Ellen found it hard to explain. This 
 thought of the possible unreality of the 
 present had always been a vague terror, 
 
1 68 The Story of a Child 
 
 for it usually haunted her happiest mo 
 ments. Suppose it was all a dream, her 
 pleasant life, her paper dolls, her little 
 teas with Lydia, her garden, and the swing 
 under the front porch, a dream, and she 
 really a poor little beggar, about to awake 
 to hunger and cold and misery ? But now, 
 when she put the question to the peddler, 
 she thought how happy she would be if she 
 awoke and found this a dream ! 
 
 " I only meant," she said, trying to keep 
 her voice from trembling, " that I don t 
 know how we know we re not dreaming. 
 Sometimes I think I 11 waken up and find 
 I m a Laplander, all dressed up in skins, 
 and milking reindeers, and living in a tent ; 
 or " Ellen began to get interested, in 
 spite of the ache in her heart that made 
 talking an effort " or, maybe, a Chinese 
 baby, in a cradle all painted with dragons, 
 and my feet squeezed up." 
 
 "Well, I swan !" said the peddler. He 
 looked at Ellen, curiously; it occurred to 
 him that she was crazy. 
 
The Story of a Child 169 
 
 "Don t you ever think those things?" 
 she asked eagerly. 
 
 " Well, now thee s said it, I dorit" 
 the man admitted gravely. " Poor little 
 tot ! " he said to himself, " she ain t just 
 right, I guess." 
 
 " Oh, I think about it lots," Ellen assured 
 him. " Sometimes I think " this in a 
 lowered voice, for it was a very secret 
 thought, with which she comforted herself 
 when Betsey Thomas was more than usu 
 ally aggravating, and which she had never 
 confided even to Lydia " I think I m the 
 queen s daughter, and when I wake I 11 
 be in a golden palace. And then, other 
 times, I Ve thought that it was n t a 
 dream, but only that it was a secret from 
 me, and people did n t want me to know I 
 was a queen s daughter, yet. They wanted 
 me to be brought up in a republican coun 
 try, you know. But I 11 be sent for when 
 I m eighteen, and all the prime ministers 
 and grand viziers and congressmen will 
 come, and kneel down, and say, You re a 
 
i jo The Story of a Child 
 
 princess, and here s your crown ! El 
 len s face had cleared, as if some morning 
 wind had blown away the clouds of a 
 spring dawn. "Just think!" she cried; 
 " would n t it be splendid ! My ! " 
 
 "Well, well," said the peddler, "I guess 
 th folks don t find the handlin of thee real 
 easy ? There, now, sissy, it ain t healthy 
 to have them dreams. Did n t thy ma 
 ever tell thee so ? " 
 
 " My mother s gone to heaven, and so 
 has my father," said Ellen. "I live with 
 grandmother." She turned her head away 
 with a confused look. The fact that she 
 was an orphan was not at all a grief to 
 Ellen, for she did not remember her par 
 ents, but it was an embarrassment; it 
 meant that she needed the prayers of the 
 Church, and the clause "protect and pro 
 vide for all fatherless children" made her, 
 every Sunday, turn hot and red at the 
 publicity of her condition. She was re 
 lieved when the peddler requested Edward 
 to stop, and observed that it was time for 
 dinner. 
 
The Story of a Child 777 
 
 She brightened, and immediately felt 
 that life was real. It was after three, and 
 she was positively faint with hunger. 
 They drew up on the shady side of the 
 road, and she watched the peddler hang 
 a battered canvas bag full of oats about 
 Edward s neck ; then he went around to 
 the back of the wagon to reach his 
 kitchen. 
 
 " I m goin to cook my dinner," he said. 
 His spectacles had such a friendly gleam 
 that Ellen felt happier, in spite of that 
 weight upon her heart. But the moment 
 of return seemed very near ! 
 
 " There s an open place back in there, 
 under the trees, nice and grassy ; I call it 
 the restaurant. I always cook there when 
 I go by this way. There s a spring, too. 
 Edward, he stays by, to mind the cart." 
 
 He lifted out a queer little stove, and 
 then a frying-pan and a sauce-pan, and a 
 basket in which seemed to be various arti 
 cles of food. " May be thee d like to look 
 at a book for a while," he said, " until thee 
 gits th own dinner ? " 
 
1 72 The Story of a Child 
 
 He handed Ellen a pamphlet bound in 
 yellow paper, and then pushed the bushes 
 aside and disappeared into the woods. 
 Ellen looked listlessly at the cover of the 
 book, on which was a print of a lady in blue, 
 with feathers in her hair, and a gentleman 
 in red, with a sword ; she was wondering- 
 how soon the dinner would be cooked. 
 The peddler did not come back. There 
 was only Edward, flinging up his head oc 
 casionally and crunching his oats, to keep 
 her company. The wagon had been drawn 
 up close to the roadside, so that other 
 vehicles might pass, but there were none 
 in sight ; the woods on either side were 
 thick and still ; a rod away a thread of 
 water fell with a musical sound from a 
 hollowed log into a rusty iron caldron. 
 Edward glanced at it patiently once or 
 twice. It made Ellen thirsty, the faint 
 gleam and drip and bubbling sound, but 
 she dared not leave the cart to get a drink, 
 lest the peddler might return to say that 
 dinner was ready. 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 As she sat there a savory smell of cook 
 ing came through the bushes ; it was really 
 very hard to wait so long. She tried to 
 forget her hunger by reading the little 
 book. It was the story in rhyme of Lord 
 Belchan and Lady Susey Pye. The pic 
 tures were rough prints, in the primary 
 colors, of lords and ladies, parrots and 
 castles, strange ships and battles. " Lord 
 Belchan," she read 
 
 " Lord Belchan was a noble lord, 
 
 A noble lord of high degree, 
 
 And he determined to go abroad, 
 
 Strange countries for to see ! " 
 
 But Ellen was too hungry to be inter 
 ested. She began to wonder whether the 
 peddler had forgotten her. At last she 
 could bear it no longer, and, climbing down 
 from the cart, she went timidly into the 
 woods. It was so dark and shadowy under 
 the trees, that for an instant she did not 
 see the peddler, sitting, his arms clasped 
 about his knees, gazing anxiously in her 
 direction. A look of relief came into his 
 
174 The Story of a Child 
 
 face, followed by an affectation of vast 
 indifference. 
 
 " Well, sissy," he said, " has thee had 
 th dinner ? " 
 
 " My dinner ! " Ellen faltered. " Why 
 I " She stood quite still, looking at him, 
 her little chin quivering and her eyes 
 filling. It was more than those kindly 
 spectacles could stand. " There, now ; 
 well, well ; come, child, eat a bit, he/re. I 
 don t mind givin thee a little ; though it 
 ain t what s done in the world. It s 
 everybody fer themselves when a lady 
 or gentleman don t have no use fer friends, 
 and has left em ! Course, thee knows it 
 ain t nothin to me ef thee s hungry. I 
 only look out for myself." He turned his 
 back upon the child, for he could not 
 bear those slow, rolling tears, and he 
 heaped a tin plate with a queer combina 
 tion of fried meat and potatoes. " Eat 
 that," he said gruffly ; and then, with in 
 stant softening, " There, now, sissy ! But 
 t ain t like home : I was just pointin that 
 out to thee, that s all." 
 
The Story of a Child 775 
 
 Ellen silently took the tin plate and 
 began to eat. 
 
 " Of course," the peddler said, "of 
 course thee must n t expect, after this, 
 folks thee s got no claim on will feed 
 thee, now thee s got shut of th friends. 
 Thee knows the Good Book allows that if 
 a man don t do his own peddling, he ain t 
 to eat. But thee s free, and of course 
 it s fine to be free." 
 
 " I have my bank, sir, and I 11 pay you 
 for my dinner," said Ellen, a trembling 
 dignity in her voice ; " and I guess I 11 go 
 now." 
 
 " Go ? " said the peddler ; " thee means 
 to Mercer ? Well, Edward an I 11 be jog- 
 gin on soon, and we 11 take thee." 
 
 Ellen did not answer. Oh, how could 
 she get away from this dreadful man, who 
 was dragging her to Mercer ? The 
 friendly feeling that had accompanied her 
 confidences, faded ; " I wont go to Mer 
 cer ! " she thought ; and experienced the 
 relief of being angry at somebody else for 
 
ij6 The Story of a Child 
 
 her own wrong-doing, a relief often sought 
 by sinners of more advanced years. 
 
 The peddler had gone out into the road 
 to water Edward, but came back again and 
 sat down on the soft forest grass between 
 the roots of a great chestnut. " We 11 rest 
 a bit on Edward s account," he said, " and 
 then we 11 go on. I believe I 11 just shut 
 my eyes for about five minutes." 
 
 He stretched himself out on the ground, 
 and, putting the felt hat over his eyes, 
 crossed his hands upon his breast. He 
 was chuckling to himself over this adven 
 ture with a runaway child, and planning, 
 with an imagination as fertile as Ellen s 
 own, the delight of her family when he 
 should return her, safe and sound, which 
 he meant to do about six o clock. " I can t 
 shunt off no customer fer the little tot," 
 he reflected, " but I 11 get her home by six. 
 I guess her grandma 11 be a good customer 
 after this." 
 
 The cooking -stove stood in the little 
 plot of forest grass, with the untidy tin 
 
The Story of a Child 777 
 
 plates resting on its cooling top ; a spring, 
 bubbling up between some flat stones, 
 chattered to itself ; a bird piped in the 
 tree overhead, and then came fluttering 
 down into the open space. It looked with 
 bright, quick eyes at Ellen, sitting in her 
 miserable heart-sick silence, and then 
 hopped across the little glade, where the 
 shadows lay like a lattice upon moss 
 and grass, and began to peck at the 
 scraps of food on the plates. Through 
 the bushes Ellen could see Edward s ears 
 twitching now and then, and the rusty 
 canvas of the cart. Into the wood quiet 
 came the sharp sound of trotting hoofs, 
 and then an instant s glimpse of a man 
 on horseback. It brought her heart up 
 into her throat ; he came, whoever he was, 
 from that world which she had left. Oh, 
 if she could catch him, if she could make 
 him take her home ! 
 
 The inevitable moment had come. 
 
 The peddler slept tranquilly. Silently, 
 like a little thief, Ellen rose, and stepped 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 stealthily across the grass. The bird, star 
 tled, dashed up into the greenery over 
 head, but the peddler never stirred. As 
 she gained the road, Edward, standing 
 with patient bowed head, cocked one gray 
 ear at the rustle of the leaves, but, not 
 seeing his master, drowsed again. 
 
 Ellen, terrified lest she might hear a 
 step crashing through the underbrush be 
 hind her, fled like a hare down the road 
 in the direction in which the man on horse 
 back had gone ; she would catch him, she 
 said to herself, and then beg him to take 
 her home. She ran, poor child, until it 
 seemed as though the beating in her 
 throat would suffocate her ; and then, ex 
 hausted, she fell down on the grass beside 
 the road. She had run, of course, a very 
 short distance, but she thought that she 
 had covered miles. As soon as she could 
 get her breath, she remembered that if she 
 stopped, the peddler, assisted by Edward, 
 would quickly overtake her. And yet she 
 could not run any farther. If she crept 
 
The Story of a Child 779 
 
 behind the bushes at the roadside, he 
 surely could not see her, should he pass ? 
 So she pushed through some underbrush, 
 climbed a fence, and reached a wide 
 meadow. There, lying down on the grass 
 near some bushes, she said to herself that 
 she would rest a little while, and then start 
 again for home. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE child was so tired that scarcely had 
 her head touched the grass than she 
 fell fast asleep, too soundly to hear the 
 peddler calling her, anxiously, his voice pa 
 thetic with mortification that he had let 
 her slip away from him ; too soundly, also, 
 even to dream of the dismay and anxiety 
 in the home she had left. 
 
 Mrs. Dale s headache, which had kept 
 her awake nearly all night, yielded after 
 she had had her coffee and sent her mes 
 sage to Ellen, and faded into an exhausted 
 slumber which lasted until noon. Betsey 
 Thomas, who at first was full of pity for 
 the naughty child, began to resent her 
 obstinacy, fearing that presently she her- 
 180 
 
Tie Story of a Child 181 
 
 self weuld be blamed for a contretemps 
 which would not have come about save 
 for her well-meant interference. This 
 half-frightened resentment made her keep 
 to herself the fact that Ellen s dinner- 
 tray had not been touched. " I ain t a-goin 
 to be blamed if Ellen sets up to be obsti 
 nate about her victuals," she said to her 
 self sulkily. But a little later, when she 
 caught a glimpse of Effie Temple wan 
 dering about in the orchard, her sense of 
 justice, to say nothing of her desire to 
 excuse herself, made her say to the cook 
 that she "had a mind to tell Mrs. Dale 
 that that hateful little girl put our Ellen 
 up to all her badness." She "believed 
 that in her soul," she said ; and she added 
 also her opinion that Effie was "just 
 hanging around to see if she could n t see 
 our Ellen." 
 
 She was quite right. Effie s first inter 
 est in the adventure had worn off, and she 
 was getting frightened ; she tried to com 
 fort herself by the assurance that as soon 
 
182 The Story of a Child 
 
 as it was all "found out " she would say, " I 
 told her not to go ! " She had a faint hope 
 that Ellen s resolution had given out and 
 she had returned, so sent a note over the 
 " telegraph," which had often borne more 
 harmful messages ; but there was no an 
 swer. Then she grew angry ; she said to 
 herself that she hated Ellen. Thoroughly 
 frightened, she felt a frantic desire to 
 blame some one, so it was a comfort to see 
 Lydia Wright walking sedately along the 
 gravel path away from Mrs. Dale s front 
 door. 
 
 Effie hailed her imperiously, but with 
 some mystery in her manner. " Stop ! I 
 want to speak to you," she said. 
 
 It was half past two. Lydia, looking 
 like a little clove pink in her white sun- 
 bonnet, which pressed her shining curls 
 close against her round cheeks, had come 
 over to say to Mrs. Dale, " Mother s love, 
 and may Ellen come and spend the after 
 noon and take tea ? " She stopped at Ef- 
 fie s command. " I came to invite Ellen to 
 
The Story of a Child 183 
 
 tea," she explained, nervously rolling the 
 strings of her sunbonnet, " but Betsey 
 Thomas says she is n t allowed to go out." 
 Euphemia Temple had never seemed to 
 Lydia more alarming. 
 
 " I guess Betsey Thomas does n t know 
 what she s talking about ! And I guess 
 if you d been nicer to Ellen it would n t 
 have happened." Effie was almost in 
 tears. Lydia was too astonished to defend 
 herself or ask an explanation. " If you 11 
 promise never to tell, I 11 tell you some 
 thing," Effie ended ; "will you promise ? " 
 
 "Yes," Lydia answered. "Only 
 don t." 
 
 Effie s imperative agitation terrified her 
 so that her only thought was flight. 
 "You ve got to hear; it s your fault," 
 Effie said sternly. " Promise you 11 never 
 tell ? " 
 
 <l I promise," said Lydia, shaking. 
 
 " Say, hope I may die if I do. " 
 
 " Hope I may die/ " Lydia stammered. 
 
 "Ellen has run away ! " 
 
184 Th e Stow f a 
 
 Lydia gazed at her with horrified eyes, 
 speechless. 
 
 " You promised not to tell," Effie threat 
 ened. 
 
 I I I won t," said Lydia. 
 
 " Now go home ! " cried Effie, with sud 
 den rage. " If you d been nicer to her, 
 she would n t have It s your fault ! " 
 
 Lydia turned and fled, appalled at the 
 news and at the responsibility of know 
 ledge, but never doubting that she must 
 keep her promise. 
 
 Effie, meantime, experienced no relief 
 from her burst of confidence. 
 
 That there was something on her mind 
 might have been guessed, had it not been 
 that other members of the family seemed 
 to have something on their minds, also ; 
 her aunt was nervous and absorbed; her 
 mother plainly irritable. 
 
 " Everybody s crazy !" Effie decla red, 
 when Miss Dace assured her that she had 
 never seen such a troublesome little girl ; 
 " everybody s crazy ! You make such a 
 
The Story of a Child 185 
 
 fuss about your old declensions ; and aunty 
 says she is going down to mail a letter in 
 stead of sending Jim to do it, and coming 
 out to play croquet with me ; and mamma 
 scolds if you look at her ! " 
 
 " Why don t you go and see why Ellen 
 wasn t here this morning?" Miss Dace 
 suggested wearily. 
 
 "Oh, I hate everybody!" Erne re 
 sponded, with angry irrelevance. Then 
 she tried again to coax her aunt to play 
 croquet. 
 
 " I can t, Effie, dear," Miss Jane said 
 nervously. " I must go down to the post- 
 office." 
 
 " You said that an hour ago ; you could 
 have mailed sixty letters by this time. 
 Why don t you make Jim mail your old 
 letter ? or why don t you go, and come 
 back? You just talk! Goodness!" said 
 Effie, and stamped, for want of any better 
 way of expressing her angry fright. 
 
 "Whydfo;/ / I go?" Miss Jane said to 
 herself. Her letter was stamped and ad- 
 
1 86 The Story of a CUld 
 
 dressed, though with nothing more defi 
 nite as a direction than "Philadelphia." 
 " There s nothing really personal in it," 
 she reasoned, thinking of its contents. " I 
 will mail it ! " and she started for the vil 
 lage. She had done as much as start, 
 early in the morning, but she had turned 
 back, and the letter was still unmailed. 
 " I 11 wait and send it by the evening 
 stage," she said. A dozen times that day, 
 she put her hand into her pocket to de 
 stroy it, but each time she touched it she 
 said, " No, there is no harm in sending it ; 
 and probably it won t reach him, anyhow. 
 And if it did, it does n t mean anything. 
 No, there is no harm in sending it. But 
 I won t mail it until to-night." 
 
 Four o clock came, and Miss Jane Tem 
 ple said to herself, " It must not go ; I 11 
 tear it up." She took the letter out and 
 looked at it. " No, not yet. But I won t 
 mail it ; it would be foolish," she sighed to 
 herself, "and it would never reach him." 
 
 Jane Temple s heart beat so fast that 
 
The Story of a Child 187 
 
 she had a suffocated feeling, and went to 
 the window for a breath of air. Effie was 
 on the croquet ground. Miss Jane could 
 hear the sharp click of the balls, as the 
 child knocked them idly about. Somehow, 
 the sight of Effie sent a wave of resolu 
 tion to her heart. There was no reason 
 why she should not send her letter, why 
 she should not have a happiness of her 
 own, have friends and interests of her 
 own. "I have a right to my own life!" 
 she said to herself again. She had a curi 
 ous instant of something like hate for all 
 this comfortable household. She opened 
 the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers 
 and took out the green crape shawl ; as 
 she touched it she felt suddenly cour 
 ageous, and she put it over her shoulders 
 with the thrill of one who buckles on his 
 armor for a battle ; and then she started 
 for the post-office. Perhaps it was the 
 green shawl lying like a vine upon her 
 white dress that caught Effie s eye, for 
 she ran across the lawn to her aunt s side. 
 
1 88 The Story of a Child 
 
 " Why, you ve got that horrid shawl 
 on ! " she commented. She had to say 
 something disagreeable or burst into 
 tears. " It s hideous!" 
 
 " Don t, Effie," said Miss Jane coldly, 
 "don t hang on my hand that way." 
 
 " Where are you going ? Oh, how hor 
 rid everything is ! " 
 
 " To the village ; you had better go and 
 get dressed for tea." 
 
 " I m going to the village with you." 
 
 Miss Jane was silent. She wished she 
 could make Effie obey her, but she was too 
 exhausted to try. 
 
 "Why don t you go to see Ellen?" she 
 said ; she made up her mind not to mail 
 the letter in Effie s presence. 
 
 Effie opened her lips to reply, and then 
 stopped and stamped her foot. "I I 
 I hate her ! " she said. The tears rushed 
 to her eyes. 
 
 " Why, Effie ! how can you speak so ? 
 Have you and Ellen quarreled ? You 
 should never say you hate any one." 
 
The Story of a Child 189 
 
 " I hate, hate, hate her ! " Effie sobbed, 
 with all the pent-up fright of the day. 
 " She s a bad, horrid girl ; she s run away 
 from home. Oh, my ! is n t she wicked ? 
 I should n t think you d want me to know 
 such a girl." 
 
 Miss Jane Temple, with her fingers 
 touching the letter in her pocket, stood 
 still with astonishment. " What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " It is n t my fault. I told her not to. I 
 said, * Ellen, you ought n t to run away. 
 And she was mad because I would n t go. 
 She wanted me to run away, too ! I 
 would n t do such a thing. She s a dread 
 ful girl ! I don t want to live in this awful 
 hole of an Old Chester when she comes 
 back." 
 
 Miss Jane took Efrle s hands from her 
 face and held them in hers. "Tell me 
 every single thing," she commanded. And 
 Effie told her version. 
 
 And so it happened that it was nearly 
 five o clock before Miss Jane Temple, hur- 
 
190 The Story of a Child 
 
 rying through the gardens, came to disturb 
 the peace of the Dale household. She 
 could not stop to mail the letter, and her 
 pang of disappointment showed her how 
 entirely she had meant to do it, despite all 
 those hesitations. 
 
 Mrs. Dale had left her bedroom late in 
 the afternoon ; her head was better, but 
 her heart ached. No word from Ellen ! 
 What should she do with this rebellious 
 child ? Her anxiety was full of self-exam 
 ination. Wherein had she failed, that this 
 extraordinary defiance was possible ? She 
 did not feel strong enough to read ; nor 
 could she put her mind upon anything ex 
 cept this present pain, which held in it all 
 the pain of the past, all the old puzzle and 
 despair. " He had this same persistency 
 in doing what he knew was wrong," she 
 was thinking ; " my remonstrances only 
 made things worse. Perhaps he would 
 have been better without me ? perhaps 
 the child would be better without me ! 
 Oh, how can I meet my son in heaven, if I 
 
The Story of a Child 191 
 
 fail with Ellen ! " Mrs. Dale s hands were 
 lying idle in her lap, and her face was full 
 of the old misery, and the new anxiety, 
 when Miss Jane Temple came breathlessly 
 through the hall, and stood a moment, 
 hesitating, in the doorway. 
 
 " Mrs. Dale," she began, in an agitated 
 voice, " I came to inquire about Ellen. Is 
 she in her room ? I " 
 
 Mrs. Dale was annoyed. " Pray sit 
 down, Jane. You are very good, I m sure. 
 Ellen has been troublesome, and I think 
 it best for her to keep her room." She 
 smiled formally. It was not the habit in 
 Old Chester for one disciplinarian to crit 
 icise another ; perhaps because they all 
 followed the same methods. 
 
 " I am sorry to seem to intrude," said 
 Miss Jane, her words broken with haste, 
 "but Effie has just told me that that 
 I fear you do not know Ellen s frame 
 of mind she Effie " - 
 
 "My dear Jane," said Mrs. Dale, sitting 
 up very straight, a little color coming into 
 
/92 The Story of a Child 
 
 her face, "you are needlessly concerned. 
 And Euphemia ? You know in Old Ches 
 ter a child s opinions are of no possible 
 importance. I really think you make a 
 mistake in encouraging her to talk/ 
 
 "Oh, dear Mrs. Dale," Jane Temple 
 burst out, "Ellen has run away /" Miss 
 Jane was crying, and twisting her fingers 
 together. " I m sure it s all Effie s fault, 
 but oh, what shall we do ? " 
 
 " Ellen ? Nonsense ! " Mrs. Dale almost 
 laughed. " Now, that comes of listening 
 to Effie s talk. Really, it is a mistake. It 
 has never been the practice in Old" 
 
 " Indeed, I m afraid something s wrong. 
 Won t you send upstairs and see ? Effie 
 said she went away this morning at nine, 
 and it s after five ! Oh, do send upstairs 
 and see ! " 
 
 In spite of herself, Mrs. Dale felt sud 
 denly apprehensive. " Of course, if you 
 wish it. Will you touch that bell, if you 
 please ? But it is absurd. Your Euphemia 
 might do such a thing, Jane Temple, but a 
 
TJje Story of a Child 1 93 
 
 child brought up in Betsey Thomas, 
 step upstairs, if you please, and tell Ellen 
 that I say she may go out in the garden 
 for a little walk before tea. Pray, Jane, 
 control yourself ; it is not proper that the 
 child should see you so much agitated." 
 
 Miss Jane sank down upon the sofa, 
 her breath coming quickly, and her eyes 
 fixed upon the parlor door. Mrs. Dale 
 waited in annoyed silence. Really, Eu- 
 phemia Temple was a most objectionable 
 child ; this acquaintance must end at 
 once. It occurred to her, with a vague 
 comfort, that Ellen s naughtiness was 
 owing to Effie s influence. 
 
 " I m sorry to say it, Jane," she began 
 majestically, " but I think I must not allow 
 Ellen to see so much of Euphemia ; Eu- 
 phemia has been brought up so differently 
 that"- 
 
 A door slammed in the upper hall, there 
 was a rush downstairs, and Betsey Thomas 
 bounced into the parlor. "She s not 
 there ! Ellen s not there ! " 
 
XIV 
 
 THE elderberry bushes under which 
 Ellen had fallen asleep fringed a wide 
 meadow. It had been mowed a week be 
 fore, but when she awoke, the faint glow 
 in the west where the sun had set, tinged 
 its rough stubble and made it look as soft 
 as though it were still deep with timothy 
 grass. She sat up, stiff and tired, and 
 wondering for a moment where she was. 
 Oh, yes, she remembered. The peddler ! 
 She listened, breathless, for the sound of 
 wheels and Edward s plodding step. But 
 everything was still. 
 
 The yellow light behind the dark line of 
 the hills was melting into violet dusk ; 
 the long shadows, which had stretched 
 194 
 
The Story of a Child 795 
 
 across the field when she first opened her 
 
 eyes, were fading and fading into the 
 
 great soft shadow of night. Everything 
 
 seemed to be asleep, and she, of all the 
 
 big world, awake. She listened, till her 
 
 own pulses jarred the stillness. Not even 
 
 a rustling leaf spoke beside her ; the 
 
 soundless dark held her in its centre. 
 
 Then, suddenly, at her feet, a cricket 
 
 chirped, and the silence, like a sphere 
 
 of clear black glass, shivered and broke ! 
 
 She heard the grass where she had been 
 
 lying lift itself with a brushing sound ; 
 
 she heard the snap of a twig under foot ; 
 
 she caught the soft nestling of some 
 
 sleeping birds in the bushes behind her; 
 
 the spell of silence was broken, and she 
 
 drew a free breath. How late it was ! 
 
 The thought of her little bedroom flashed 
 
 into her mind ; her white bed, Betsey 
 
 waiting to take the candle away ; a wave of 
 
 home-sickness made her feel faint. She 
 
 must go home ! she must run ; it would soon 
 
 be too dark to see where she was going. 
 
ig6 The Story of a Child 
 
 But in that long, deep sleep she had lost 
 her bearings. She started, keeping in the 
 fields that skirted a road which led, she 
 thought, to Old Chester ; on and on she 
 walked, farther and farther from home. 
 Once or twice, coming upon a marsh or 
 a wide shallow run, she turned into the 
 road ; but she ran then, quivering with 
 fear until she could get back into the 
 meadows, for there the tranquil hush of 
 night did not frighten her. Once, a 
 faint glitter in a dark pool caught her 
 eye, and, glancing up through the birch- 
 trees, she saw the moon looking at her 
 between the leaves ; after that, shadows 
 began to grow out of the darkness, and 
 the field glimmered like a silver shield ; 
 under the trees black caverns seemed to 
 open and yawn ; perhaps there were drag 
 ons in them ! She instantly flew out into 
 the open moonlight, her heart beating 
 fiercely ; she knew there were no dragons 
 in the shadowy lairs, but that did not 
 keep her from being horribly afraid of 
 
The Story of a Child 797 
 
 them. After a while, walking on, well 
 away from trees and bushes and shadows, 
 she grew less frightened ; she became 
 vaguely conscious of the companionship 
 of the kind, silent earth, with its intimate 
 sky clasping it like a dark hand jeweled 
 by the moon and stars. A sense of com 
 fort and security came over her, an 
 ebbing of identity ; fear and penitence 
 fell away from her like heavy weights. It 
 was as though the little human creature 
 vibrated with the sonorous rhythmic 
 march of the whole, and could not know 
 so small a thing as self. 
 
 Once she lay down, and looked up into 
 the clear moon-flooded depths, and into 
 the broad kind face of the moon itself. 
 She thought that children who could lie 
 on their mothers knees must feel as she 
 did, now, lying here in the warm still 
 fields, lying on the earth s friendly lap, 
 safe, and warm, and cared for, swinging 
 among the stars ! she was sure she should 
 be taken care of ; she wondered, with not 
 
198 The Story of a Child 
 
 too keen an interest, what the moon was 
 saying to the listening earth ? She sighed 
 with comfort. It seemed to her that she 
 would never get up, but lie here, like a 
 little mound, that would melt somehow 
 into the field and the grass. Perhaps 
 it was the pagan in the child, this instinct 
 for the Great Mother ; very simply, with 
 out knowing why, there in the silence and 
 peace she knelt down and laid her cheek 
 against the earth, and kissed it softly. 
 Then she rose and trudged on in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 But suddenly she was stung into alert 
 ness ; a house loomed up ahead of her. 
 Then, instantly, she was afraid ! Her 
 heart pounded as, giving one flying look 
 of terror over her shoulder, she ran 
 towards it. A picket fence inclosed the 
 farmhouse from its wider garden, making 
 that small dooryard which country people 
 love. Ellen had a glimpse of the room 
 within : a woman beside a table, sewing ; 
 a man stretched out in a rocking-chair, 
 
The Story of a Child 199 
 
 asleep-; the top of a cradle rocking 
 drowsily to and fro. It was not an espe 
 cially attractive interior, but it was human, 
 and seeing it, Ellen knew once more that 
 she was disobedient and desolate, and 
 with her self-knowledge came back the 
 misery which she had lost in the fields. 
 The hope of being protected and taken 
 home made the weary child sob with joy. 
 She lifted the latch of the gate, when, 
 suddenly, a dog barked ! Ellen s heart 
 stood still ; she tried to cry out, but her 
 voice was so husky with fear that it did 
 not seem to be hers. That was a terrible 
 moment. A strange voice from her own 
 lips ? Who was she ? A beggar at a 
 farmer s gate, nothing to eat, no place to 
 sleep, and a dog barking at her ! She 
 heard the creature running, bounding 
 towards her from the farther side of the 
 house, and she turned and flew back 
 towards the road. The steps followed 
 her, and a quick volley of barks, and then 
 a threatening growl. Ellen sobbed aloud 
 
200 The Story of a Child 
 
 as she ran ; it seemed to her that she 
 could not breathe, and the dog was close 
 upon her, she thought. She caught her 
 foot, and fell headlong on the rough stub 
 ble. She was too exhausted to rise. 
 Every instant she thought she would feel 
 the dog s breath on her neck ; but he did 
 not come. Yet it was some moments be 
 fore she had the courage or the strength 
 to rise. She had bruised her knee on the 
 stiff, newly-mown grass, and it hurt her, 
 which gave her the relief of a new 
 misery. 
 
 She started again, still keeping in the 
 fields, and walked nearly a mile before 
 she saw another light gleam out. She 
 stopped and looked at it. There was a barn 
 near the road, and some haystacks, and a 
 stone s-throw up on the hillside the big 
 balconied farmhouse, with the light in the 
 window ; it stood at the top of its grape- 
 trellised terraces, with its flagged pave 
 ment under the lowest balcony, and its 
 comfortable Dutch exterior inviting her. 
 
The Story of a Child 201 
 
 How the child longed to go and knock at 
 the door ! But she only stood and looked 
 at it with anguished eyes. The remem 
 brance of the dog was too dreadful to let 
 her think for a moment of going any 
 nearer, and yet she could not go quite 
 away. She wondered if a dog at the 
 house could hear her breathing down here 
 by the barn ? As she looked towards the 
 spot of cheerful light, it went out. That 
 meant that the farmer and his wife had 
 gone to bed ; the house was perfectly dark. 
 Ellen turned and looked at the barn ; she 
 might go in there ? If she could once get 
 in, no dog could hurt her. The cows and 
 horses seemed like friends to the desolate 
 child. But when, very softly, she put her 
 hands on the big doors, she found they 
 were barred on the inside ; she heard a 
 long-drawn sigh from within, and a muffled 
 stamp. Oh, how comfortable they were, 
 the cows and horses ! She leaned her 
 cheek against the door for a long time, 
 and listened ; she could not bear to go 
 
202 The Story of a Child 
 
 away from these friendly creatures and 
 be alone again. Once or twice she caught 
 the soft, deep breaths, and once she heard 
 a horse biting at his crib, and a cow strik 
 ing her horns against the stanchions. But 
 after a while she remembered the hay 
 stacks behind the barn, and thought she 
 would go to one of them and rest a little, 
 and then, if she could get her courage up 
 to the point of going off alone into the 
 night, start once more for home. 
 
 It took some minutes to reach the yard 
 behind the barn, for she stopped at every 
 step to listen, but once there, she was 
 glad to sit down and lean against the soft, 
 sweet hay of one of the stacks ; she even 
 dug out a little shelter for herself, and 
 cuddled into the small hole to keep warm, 
 for the August chill had crept into the 
 night. 
 
 The full, still pour of the moon filled 
 the barnyard with vaporous light, in which 
 the shadow of the haystack lay like a 
 black pool. The pain of fright still 
 
The Story of a Child 203 
 
 gripped Ellen s heart ; and when she no 
 ticed that the pasture in front of her was 
 bare and free from rocks, and thought 
 that it would be a good place for fairies 
 to dance, she banished the fancy, with 
 the assertion that she must say her 
 prayers ; perhaps God would take care 
 of her if she said her prayers, but if she 
 thought about fairies He might be angry. 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep," 
 
 she began to repeat rapidly, squeezing 
 her eyes tight shut, 
 
 " I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
 If I should die before I wake, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to take. 
 
 " God bless grandmother, and make me 
 a good girl" then all the little form 
 which she had used ever since she knew 
 how to speak. It meant nothing to 
 Ellen ; the kiss in the field had said it all. 
 As she grew warmer here in the hay, 
 fatigue blurred her fear. Vague thoughts 
 of the fairies came unchallenged to her 
 mind, and dim recollections of her old 
 
204 The Story of a Child 
 
 life, lived so long, long ago : her grand 
 mother s step on the stairs while she had 
 been waiting to escape to the summer- 
 house to meet Effie. Effie ? Why, she 
 had forgotten her ! It had all happened 
 so long ago. Yesterday ? The word had 
 no meaning to her. Then she drifted into 
 thoughts of the garden, and the sunshine, 
 and the hollyhock ladies ; she remembered 
 the little teas on the side porch when her 
 grandmother had allowed her to invite 
 Lydia, and had had cakes baked to fit her 
 small dishes ; yes, she and Lydia had 
 played together long, long ago ; they used 
 to meet by the poplar-trees, or swing, and 
 talk, and watch the horse-hairs turning 
 into snakes. Suddenly, the ache and 
 misery of homesickness surged up in that 
 spot below the breastbone where the soul 
 seems to suffer. Ellen cried hopelessly ; 
 she could not imagine that she should 
 ever be at home again. 
 
 The pool of shadow in front of the hay 
 stack lessened, rippling back and back like 
 
The Story of a Child 205 
 
 a falling tide. The moon had climbed up 
 behind the barn, and began to peer over 
 the shoulder of the stack; she had not 
 the same expression she had worn in the 
 fields ; her face seemed smaller, and she 
 looked coldly down on the child s grief. 
 Ellen pulled out some more hay and bur 
 rowed farther into her little shelter. 
 
 Into the midst of her hopelessness 
 came the sound of a wagon rattling along 
 the road. Ellen saw the light of a swing 
 ing lantern, and heard voices, but no 
 words. " It must be robbers ! " she 
 thought, pressing in against the hay to 
 hide herself. It never occurred to her 
 that it might be some one searching for 
 her. 
 
 After a while she slept, and then awoke 
 with a start. There was a soft, slow step 
 in the barnyard. The pool of shadow 
 before her had ebbed quite away ; the 
 indifferent moon was going down, sinking 
 behind the hill ; there was a mist lying 
 like white gauze over the ground. Again 
 
206 The Story of a Child 
 
 that step, and the strange, shuffling noise. 
 Ellen hardly dared breathe ; It was not 
 like a dog. All was quiet for a few 
 moments, and then, again ! Something 
 seemed to loom up in the misty darkness, 
 something big and black; something 
 which sighed, close to Ellen s face ! Per 
 haps the child fainted for a moment in her 
 ghastly fright, for there seemed to be a 
 gap of vacancy ; and then she knew that 
 it was a cow, whose gentle and astonished 
 eyes had looked into hers, and who had 
 drawn back with a frightened snort. 
 
 After that Ellen was awake for a long 
 time ; the moon had quite gone, and all 
 the world was wrapped in crystal dark. 
 The cow did not disturb her again, al 
 though she heard the big creature moving 
 about. Once, far off, a dog barked. "There 
 must be robbers ! " she said to herself, 
 growing cold with fear. Then every 
 thing was still, until from some distant 
 farm came, faint and thin, through the 
 darkness, a cock-crow. 
 
The Story of a Child 207 
 
 Ellen thought with a leap of her heart 
 that it must be nearly morning; but the 
 night still pressed close about her. Oh, 
 would it never end ? Again she slept, 
 and again awoke with a start. 
 
 The sun was up ; above the hill the sky 
 rippled with small white clouds, and then 
 soared into an arc of smiling blue. The 
 barnyard was full of chickens, and there 
 were four cows standing about, chewing 
 their cud, and waiting to be milked ; but 
 right in front of her, staring, open- 
 mouthed, was a boy in blue overalls, with 
 a bucket of foaming milk in each hand. 
 He had no hat on, and his shock of pale 
 hair seemed to be standing on end with 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Oh, may I have a drink of milk ? " 
 said Ellen. She sat up, gazing with 
 anguished expectancy at the milk. The 
 boy nodded, without speaking ; he put 
 down one bucket, and lifted the other to 
 the child s lips. Her hands were trem 
 bling with weakness, and she sobbed as 
 
208 The Story of a Child 
 
 she drank. She did not let go of the 
 bucket when she stopped for breath ; and 
 then she drank again. " Oh, sir, I ve no 
 money," she said, " but " 
 
 " Who are you ? " the boy interrupted. 
 " Are you the little girl that s lost from 
 Old Chester?" 
 
 " May I have a little more milk ? " the 
 child entreated. " My grandmother 11 pay 
 you. Oh, grandmother / " 
 
 " If you come up to the house, they 11 
 give ye some breakfast," said the boy, his 
 eyes big with excitement. " You re the 
 girl, I know you are ! " As he spoke he 
 tilted the bucket for her to drink. " You 
 come on up to the house, now. Don t 
 let on who you are, till I tell em." 
 
 " Oh, no, I m going home ; oh, I m very 
 much obliged to you, but I m going home," 
 said Ellen, rising, and beginning, with un 
 steady hands, to brush the hay from her 
 hair and dress. 
 
 " No, you ain t," said the boy firmly, 
 " not till I ve told the boss ; now you just 
 
The Story of a Child 209 
 
 wait here." With that he picked up his 
 buckets, and walked swiftly in the direc 
 tion of the house. When, ten minutes 
 later, he came running back with a big 
 grizzled farmer, the little nest in the hay 
 was empty. 
 
XV 
 
 THE night which had brought such ex 
 periences to Ellen had been full of 
 dismay and pain to her friends. Perhaps 
 no one suffered more keenly than did poor 
 little Lydia, lying awake with her dreadful 
 secret. At ten, her mother found her 
 staring into the darkness, and sobbing 
 now and then, under her breath. 
 
 "Tell mother what is the matter, 
 Lydia," said Mrs. Wright, who had been 
 careful not to let the child know of the 
 anxiety concerning Ellen. But Lydia had 
 promised " not to tell," and she kept her 
 word. Effie, however, having given her 
 information, and assured everybody who 
 would listen to her, half a dozen times 
 
 210 
 
The Story of a Child 21 1 
 
 over, that she had "told Ellen not to," 
 
 Effie was calmly sleeping. Messen 
 gers were hurried in every direction. Miss 
 Jane Temple stayed with Mrs. Dale until 
 almost midnight, trying to emulate her 
 calmness, but seeing the elder woman s 
 face grow white and haggard as the slow 
 hours found Ellen still away from home. 
 Betsey Thomas s grief was unfeigned, 
 and her anger at herself, Mrs. Dale, Effie 
 Temple, and the peddler who had by 
 that time appeared and told all he knew 
 
 expended itself in sharp words about 
 every one but Ellen ; for the real offender 
 she had nothing but incoherent expres 
 sions of affection and of praise. Mrs. 
 Dale was silent. What her thoughts, her 
 self-reproaches, her most honest and vin 
 dicating judgments may have been no one 
 knew ; not even Miss Jane, sitting beside 
 her as the night wore on. At dawn she 
 lost her pain in an hour s restless sleep, 
 and by that time, fleeing from the boy 
 who had given her the milk, Ellen was 
 
2/2 The Story of a Child 
 
 walking swiftly in the direction of her 
 home. This was really only a fortunate 
 chance, for the child had been so turned 
 around, in all these experiences, that she 
 had no idea where Old Chester lay. Once 
 she dared to stop a man who was driving a 
 clattering and clanging mowing-machine 
 along the road, to ask him if she were 
 near Old Chester, only to be shocked to 
 learn that she was twelve or fourteen 
 miles away. 
 
 " I m goin a good piece in that di 
 rection," he said, slowly, neither specu 
 lation nor kindness in his stolid harmless 
 face ; " I got a field to mow ; an you kin 
 stand up here in front of me, if you want 
 to." 
 
 Ellen was only too glad to avail herself 
 of his aid. Her mind was fastened with 
 such intensity upon the idea of getting 
 home that she felt no fear of the mowing- 
 machine or even of a strange man ; had 
 it been the peddler who made this offer, 
 she would have accepted it ! This con- 
 
The Story of a Child 
 
 centration kept her silent ; she volun 
 teered no information about herself, and 
 the man asked no questions. When at 
 last he drew his horses up before a lane 
 into which he must turn to reach the field 
 to be mowed, he only said, briefly, " Yer 
 not more n nine miles off now, sissy. " 
 And Ellen said, " Yes, sir ; thank you," 
 and plodded on alone. 
 
 She passed several people after that, and 
 one or two carts, but no one offered her 
 a ride ; one man drew up his horse and 
 looked at her curiously, and seemed about 
 to speak, but Ellen s resolute little face, 
 set towards Old Chester, seemed to satisfy 
 him that she could not be the lost child of 
 whom he had heard rumors an hour be 
 fore. It seemed to Ellen, having wakened 
 at five, that it must be at least twelve 
 when she sat down by the roadside to rest ; 
 but really it was only half past eight, and 
 a traveler who had gotten off a train at 
 Mercer three hours before had had ample 
 time to walk leisurely along in the direc- 
 
214 The Story of a Child 
 
 tion of Old Chester and overtake her. 
 Ellen, dozing with fatigue, opened her 
 eyes to see this traveler standing before 
 her. He had a stick over his shoulder, 
 on which he had slung a traveling-bag. 
 He was a little man, with anxious eyes 
 and a timid air. 
 
 "Why, it cant be little Ellen ! " he said. 
 
 Ellen stared at him, her eyes dull with 
 misery, and then a flash of recognition 
 sent the blood surging into her face, and 
 she burst out into passionate crying. 
 
 Mr. Tommy Dove lifted the stick from 
 his shoulder and rested his bag carefully 
 on the ground. 
 
 " Why, little Ellen Dale ! there, there, 
 don t, my dear, don t ! Where is your 
 grandmother, or Betsey Thomas ? Are 
 you alone, little Ellen ? There, now, 
 there ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Tommy ! " the child said, 
 " Oh, take me home ; won t you please take 
 me home ? " Mr. Tommy, distressed almost 
 to tears, looked this way and that for aid, 
 
ne Story of a Child 2/5 
 
 while he tried to comfort her. " Yes, my 
 little girl ; yes, yes ; directly ! You shall 
 go home directly. But how did you come 
 here? Where is anybody? You are 
 not alone, little Ellen ? " 
 
 "I ll I ll tell you about it," she 
 said, trying to speak, but shaken by these 
 long pent up tears ; " I 11 tell you all 
 about it, if you ll just take me home. 
 Oh, Mr. Tommy, I ran away, I ran away 
 from home ! " The poor child rocked 
 back and forth, and moaned in unchild- 
 like grief. As for Mr. Dove, he was so 
 far from a proper perception of disci 
 pline that he took the little penitent into 
 his arms, and said, " Well, there ! that s 
 no matter; it s all right it s all right. 
 Why, I Ve done it myself ! " said Mr. 
 Dove. But Ellen had reached at last that 
 clear-sighted repentance which knows ex 
 cuses to be false and weak, and will none 
 of them the only repentance which has 
 power to turn the sinner from darkness to 
 light. "Oh no " she said, faintly ; 
 
2i 6 The Story of a Child 
 
 " I m a bad, bad girl. Maybe God will 
 forgive me some day, but grandmother 
 never can," wailed Ellen, with no know 
 ledge of sarcasm, but realizing instinctively 
 how much harder it is to make one s 
 peace with one s kind than with Infinite 
 Goodness ; and then she tried to tell her 
 story : " Effie Temple was going to run 
 away with me. But she was better than 
 I was; she wouldn t. She said Miss 
 Jane wanted her to have a dress fitted, 
 and and so I came by myself ; and won t 
 you please take me home ? Oh, I want 
 to go home ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes, my dear," Mr. Tommy 
 soothed her. " There, we 11 go right 
 home now. And and you say Miss Jane 
 is still in Old Chester ? Well, I knew it ; 
 I thought so ; but I made up my mind 
 to come back. It was weak to stay away." 
 Apparently Mr. Tommy was still weak, 
 for the color came and went painfully 
 in his elderly face. " And is her brother 
 there, too ? " he questioned. 
 
The Story of a Child 2/7 
 
 "Dick?" said Ellen, wiping her eyes. 
 "Oh, no, he went away a good while ago." 
 
 " I meant " explained the other, " I re 
 ferred to to Mr. Temple ; Jier brother." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he s there. Effie said her papa 
 loved her, and so she would n t run away. 
 But my grandmother does love me, so she 
 does. At least, she did. She won t any 
 more ; oh, never any more !" 
 
 Mr. Dove seemed to reflect ; he took off 
 his hat, and then put it on again, thought 
 fully. "We must get a conveyance," he 
 announced. As he spoke, a woman with a 
 basket on her arm passed, and then looked 
 back at Ellen. 
 
 " Are you the little girl that was lost ? " 
 she said, pausing. 
 
 "I ran away," Ellen answered truth 
 fully, hanging her head with shame. 
 
 "She s just going home, ma am, now," 
 Mr. Dove broke in, his mild voice full of 
 comfort and sympathy. " Can you tell 
 me where I can hire a vehicle of any 
 kind ? " 
 
218 The Story of a Child 
 
 The woman considered. " There s the 
 Smith farm, a little piece up the road ; 
 guess they d lend you their carryall ? " 
 
 Mr. Tommy hurried in the direction the 
 woman had indicated, leaving Ellen to her 
 care, and returning in a surprisingly short 
 time with a battered and dusty carriage 
 drawn by a lively young sorrel horse. 
 There was a boy with him, who would, 
 Mr. Tommy explained, bring the carryall 
 back again. 
 
 Ellen was glad to creep into it ; her eyes 
 were downcast and her cheeks burning 
 with shame, for the questions the woman 
 had asked her during Mr. Dove s absence 
 opened up depths of mortification of which 
 she had never dreamed. Her despair 
 had been too dreadful for the smaller pain 
 of mortification. But now she bent her 
 head down sidewise and looked out at the 
 fields past which the sorrel horse was 
 hurrying them at a fine rate ; she sup 
 posed Mr. Tommy would ask the same 
 dreadful questions. But Mr. Tommy 
 
The Story of a Child 2/9 
 
 seemed as conscious and embarrassed as 
 she. He made no reference to her wick 
 edness, and was silent so long that Ellen 
 grew tremulous with apprehension ; his 
 reproof, when it came, would be terrible, 
 she thought, cowering. 
 
 " I recollect," he said at last, coughing 
 a little behind his hand, " I recollect Miss 
 Effie Temple ; she is Her niece." 
 
 Ellen drew a long breath. To talk about 
 Effie was a respite. " Yes, sir," she said 
 vaguely ; and then she saw a sign-post 
 that said, " Old Chester, 7 miles," and she 
 felt, through all her relief at going home, 
 a sudden sinking of the heart that was 
 almost sickness. 
 
 "Miss Effie did not, I think, like me," 
 Mr. Tommy observed. " I did not notice it 
 at first ; she was only a little girl, so I did 
 not notice it. But, upon reflection, I felt 
 that she did not. I felt that she was 
 glad when I was called away from Old 
 Chester." 
 
 Ellen made an effort to seem interested 
 
220 The Story of a Child 
 
 in spite of the misery tugging at her heart. 
 " But Miss Jane was sorry, Mr. Tommy, 
 when you went away. Effie told me so." 
 
 Mr. Tommy started ; he put his hand 
 upon the door-knob. "Oh, no, no, little 
 Ellen ; you are mistaken. I think perhaps 
 I ll not proceed to Old Chester. His 
 voice wavered so that Ellen gazed at him 
 in astonishment. 
 
 " Why, Effie said so, Mr. Tommy," she 
 assured him ; and then the connection in 
 which Effie had said it came back to 
 Ellen s mind, and the child blushed as 
 violently as Mr. Tommy himself. 
 
 The apothecary, however, struggled to 
 regain his composure. " Yes, yes, I see. 
 Always kind, always kind. Yes, I under 
 stand. Sorry ? of course ; for me. But 
 I believe I am not ready to come back 
 yet. I 11 I 11 wait a little longer ; 
 I find it is difficult to return. I I 
 think" 
 
 " Are n t you going to take me home, 
 Mr. Tommy ? " Ellen interposed, alarmed 
 
The Story of a Child 221 
 
 at the prospect of being dropped by the 
 roadside. Mr. Tommy drew a long breath. 
 
 " I 11 take you home, little Ellen ; yes, 
 I 11 do that ; no harm to do that. But you 
 don t understand. No, you couldn t un 
 derstand ; and yet, I have sometimes 
 thought that the other child did." 
 
 " Effie ? " said Ellen boldly. " She knew 
 all about it, Mr. Tommy. She said Miss 
 Jane was mad because you went away. 
 She thought you d come back, Effie said ; 
 but you did n t, and she was mad. Are 
 you going back now, Mr. Tommy?" 
 
 Mr. Dove fell into the corner of the car 
 riage, too deep in thought to answer her. 
 
 " Three miles to Old Chester," a sign 
 board declared, and Ellen forgot Mr. Tom 
 my s interests in her own. Twice they 
 were stopped by excited voices hailing 
 them from the roadside. 
 
 " Oh, there she is ! " " Oh, where were 
 you, child? How did you get lost?" 
 And when the first relief and excitement 
 had been expressed, came astonished ex- 
 
222 Tbe Story of a Child 
 
 clamations that it was Mr. Tommy who 
 had brought the lost child home. 
 
 " Hallo, hallo ! " said one man ; " did you 
 find her, Tommy, or did she find you ? " 
 He was glad to be facetious to hide his 
 agitation. Ellen had made a sensation in 
 Old Chester. 
 
 Once they stopped long enough to let 
 Miss Minns climb on to the carriage step 
 and give Ellen a sounding kiss. Miss 
 Minns was the postmistress, and was tall 
 and pale, and had the reputation of being 
 cross. But now she was almost as gentle 
 as Miss Jane Temple, except in her shrill 
 surprise upon seeing who was escorting 
 the lost child. 
 
 By this time Ellen could scarcely sit 
 still. " Oh, grandmother, grandmother ! " 
 she was whispering to herself. At Mrs. 
 Dale s gate, Mr. Tommy made a gesture 
 to the lad who was driving them. 
 
 "Boy," he said, "you can stop. Here s 
 your money. I shall get out here, little 
 Ellen, but he will drive you on." 
 
Tbe Story of a Child 223 
 
 Mr. Dove got out of the carryall as he 
 spoke, but Ellen instantly followed him. 
 " I d rather walk with you, Mr. Tommy," 
 she said in a frightened voice. And then, 
 a moment later with wildly beating hearts, 
 the apothecary and the child found them 
 selves standing before the great iron gates 
 of Mrs. Dale s garden. 
 
 Beyond, a little farther up the lane, 
 was Mr. Henry Temple s place. Mr. 
 Tommy looked towards it with a wistful 
 sort of fright, and yet a quiet dignity too ; 
 for Thomas Dove, as Mrs. Dale had said, 
 had seen something of the world since 
 that miserable night when Henry Temple 
 ordered him from his house. Even as he 
 looked Mr. Temple s gate swung open, 
 and Miss Jane came with hurrying, anx 
 ious steps down the road. She was has 
 tening to Mrs. Dale s, hoping that she 
 might hear some tidings of Ellen. 
 
 Mr. Tommy, fumbling with the clanging 
 iron latch of the gate, looked about him 
 a little wildly, as though uncertain in 
 
224 The Story of a Child 
 
 which direction to flee ; but Ellen turned, 
 with a cry. " Oh, Miss Jane, I m here. 
 Oh, where s grandmother ? " 
 
 Miss Jane, with eyes only for Ellen, ran 
 towards them and caught the little girl in 
 her arms; "Oh Ellen!" she said, her 
 kind eyes running over. And then she 
 looked up to see who had brought the 
 child back. 
 
 "What! Mr. Dove!" Jane Temple 
 put out her hand, and then turned away, 
 and then looked back again. " Run, El 
 len, run to your grandmother, my dear," 
 she said faintly. But Ellen had not waited 
 to be told. She slipped from Miss Jane s 
 arms, and ran as fast as she could towards 
 that distressed and anxious house where, 
 worn from the night, Mrs. Dale was wait 
 ing and praying for tidings of the one 
 human creature that she loved. Ellen, 
 blind with tears, went stumbling up the 
 front steps, and saw, within the darkened 
 parlor, the figure of her grandmother 
 pacing with insistent composure, up and 
 
Tbe Story of a Child 225 
 
 down, up and down. How she reached 
 her, how her little heart found words, how 
 the agony of all those hours ended, the 
 child never knew. 
 
 As for Miss Jane, she seemed to waver, 
 as she stood there in the morning sun 
 shine before her old lover ; should she 
 go or stay ? should she follow Ellen or 
 her heart ? 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Dove ! " she said, breathing 
 quickly, and looking away from him, but 
 feeling his eyes commanding hers, and so 
 looking back at him again, " Oh, Mr. 
 Dove ! I have n t seen you this summer. 
 Are you well ? " The night of anxiety 
 had been too great a strain ; her self-pos 
 session was gone. " I hope you are very 
 well," she repeated, much agitated. She 
 put her hand in her pocket, and seemed 
 to crush something with nervous haste. 
 
 Perhaps her agitation calmed Mr. 
 Tommy. He took her left hand and held 
 it in his. "I felt I must come back. May 
 I stay, Miss Jane ? Will you let me stay ? 
 
226 The Story of a Child 
 
 You will not say I must go away again ? 
 We have our own lives to live ; please 
 tell me I may stay, ma am ? Oh, I hope 
 you re not angry that I have come back ? " 
 
 " Angry ? " said Miss Jane, her lips 
 trembling and her eyes smiling. " Oh, 
 why should I be, Mr. Dove ? Why 
 I " There was a crumpled letter in her 
 hand, and she put it up to her face to hide 
 her tears, and then laid it in his hands, 
 with a gesture as lovely and as impulsive 
 as a girl s. " I m glad you ve come back ; 
 you must never leave me any more ! " 
 
 They had both forgotten Ellen. 
 
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