The Child had it all reasoned out in her own way. It was only lately she had got to the end of her reasoning and settled down. At first it had not been very satisfactory, but she had gradually, with a child’s optimism, evolved from the dreary1 little maze2 a certain degree of content.
She had only one confidant. The Child had always lived a rather proscribed3, uneventful little life, with pitifully few intimates,—none of her own age. The Child was eight.
The confidant, oddly, was a picture in the silent, awe-inspiring company-room. It represented a lady with a beautiful face, and a baby in her arms. The Child had never heard it called a Madonna, but it was because of that picture that she was never afraid in the company-room. Going in and out so often to confide4 things to the Lady had bred a familiarity with the silent place that came to amount in the end to friendliness5. The Lady was always there, smiling gently at the Child, and so the other things did not matter—the silence and the awe-inspiringness.
The Child told the Lady everything, standing6 down under the picture and looking up at it adoringly. She was explaining her conclusions concerning the Greatest Thing of All now.
“I didn’t tell you before,” she said. “I wanted to get it reasoned out. If,” rather wistfully, “you were a—a flesh-and-bloody lady, you could tell me if I haven’t got it right. But I think I have.
“You see, there are a great many kinds of fathers and mothers, but I’m only talking of my kind. I’m going to love my father one day and my mother the next. Like this: my mother Monday, my father Tuesday, mother Wednesday, father Thursday—right along. Of course you can’t divide seven days even, but I’m going to love them both on Sundays. Just one day in the week I don’t think it will do any harm, do you?— Oh, you darling Lady, I wish you could shake your head or bow it! I’m only eight, you see, and eight isn’t a very reasonable age. But I couldn’t think of any better way.”
The Child’s eyes riveted7 to the beautiful face almost saw it nod a little.
“I haven’t decided8 ’xactly, but perhaps I shall love my mother Sunday mornings and my father Sunday afternoons. If—if it seems best to. I’ll let you know.” She stopped talking and thought a minute in her serious little way. She was considering whether to say the next thing or not. Even to the Lady she had never said why-things about her father and mother. If the Lady knew—and she had lived so long in the company-room, it seemed as if she must,—then there was no need of explaining. And if she didn’t know—suddenly the Child, with a throb9 of pride, hoped that the Lady did not know. But perhaps some slight explanation was necessary.
“Of course,” the Child burst out, hurriedly, her cheeks aflame,—“of course it would be nice to love both of ’em the same day, but—but they’re not that kind of a father and mother. I’ve thought it all over and made the reasonablest plan I know how to. I’m going to begin to-morrow—to-morrow is Tuesday, my father’s day.”
It was cold in the company-room, and any moment Marie might come and take her away. She was always a little pressed for time.
“I must be going,” she said, “or Marie will come. Good-bye. Give my love to the baby.” She always sent her love to the baby in the beautiful Lady’s arms.
The Child’s home, though luxurious11, had to her the effect of being a double tenement12. An invisible partition divided her father’s side from her mother’s; her own little white room, with Marie’s alcove13, seemed to be across the dividing line, part on one side, part on the other. She could remember when there had not been any invisible partition, but the intensity14 of her little mental life since there had been one had dimmed the beautiful remembrance. It seemed to her now as a pleasant dream that she longed to dream again.
The next day the Child loved her father, for it was Tuesday. She went about it in her thorough, conscientious15 little way. She had made out a little programme. At the top of the sheet, in her clear, upright hand, was, “Ways to Love My farther.” And after that:
“1. Bringing in his newspaper.
“2. Kissing Him goodmorning.
“3. Rangeing his studdy table.
“4. Putting flours on " "
“5. Takeing up His male.
“6. Reeching up to rub My cheak against his cheak.
“7. Lerning to read so I can read His Books.”
There were many other items. The Child had used three pages for her programme. The last two lines read:
“Praing for Him.
“Kissing Him goodnight.”
The Wednesday programme was almost identical with this one, with the exception of “my mother” instead of “my farther.” For the Child did not wish to be partial. She had always had a secret notion that it would be a little easier to read her mother’s books, but she meant to read just as many of her “farther’s.”
During the morning she went in to the Lady and reported progress so far. Her cheeks were a delicate pink with excitement, and she panted a little when she spoke16.
“I’m getting along splendidly,” she said, smiling up at the beautiful face. “Perhaps—of course I can’t tell for sure, but I’m not certain but that he will like it after he gets used to it. You have to get used to things. He liked the flowers, and when I rubbed my cheek ’gainst his, and when I kissed him. How I know he did is because he smiled—I wish my father would smile all the time.”
The Child did not leave the room when she had finished her report, but fidgeted about the great silent place uncertainly. She turned back by-and-by to the Lady.
“There’s something I wish you could tell me,” she said, with her wistful little face uplifted. “It’s if you think it would be polite to ask my father to put me to bed instead of Marie—just unbutton me, you know, and pray me. I was going to ask my mother to-morrow night if my father did to-night. I thought—I thought”—the Child hesitated for adequate words—“it would be the lovingest way to love him, for you feel a little intimater with persons when they put you to bed. Sometimes I feel that way with Marie—a very little. I wish you could nod your head if you thought it would be polite.”
The Child’s eyes, fastened upon the picture, were intently serious. And again the Lady seemed to nod.
“Oh, you’re nodding, yes!—I b’lieve you’re nodding yes! Thank you ve-ry much—now I shall ask him to. Good-bye. Give my love to the baby.” And the little figure moved away sedately17.
To ask him in the manner of a formal invitation with “yours very truly” in it appeared to the Child upon thoughtful deliberation to be the best way. She did not feel very intimate yet with her father, but of course it might be different after he unbuttoned her and prayed her.
Hence the formal invitation:
“Dear farther you are respectably invited to put yore little girl to bed tonite at ½ past 7. Yores very truely
Elizabeth.
“R s v p.
P.s. the little girl is me.”
It was all original except the “R s v p” and the fraction. The Child had asked Marie how to write “half,” and the other she had found in the corner of one of her mother’s formal invitations. She did not know what the four letters meant, but they made the invitation look nicer, and she could make lovely capital “R’s.”
At lunch-time the Child stole up-stairs and deposited her little folded note on top of her father’s manuscript. Her heart beat strangely fast as she did it. She had still a lurking18 fear that it might not be polite.
On the way back she hurried into the company-room, up to the Lady. “I’ve done it!” she reported, breathlessly. “I hope it was polite—oh, I hope he will!”
The Child’s father ate his lunch silently and a little hastily, as if to get it over. On the opposite side of the table the Child’s mother ate hers silently and a little hastily. It was the usual way of their meals. The few casual things they said had to do with the weather or the salad. Then it was over and they separated, each to his own side of the divided house.
The father took up his pen to write—it seemed all there was left to do now. But the tiny folded note arrested his hand, and he stared in amazement19. The Child had inadvertently set her seal upon it in the form of a little finger-print. So he knew it was hers. The first shock of hope it had awakened20 subsided21 into mere22 curiosity. But when he opened it, when he read it—
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