The Wishing Moon

E-text prepared by Peter Vickers, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Illustrated by EVERETT SHINN
Garden City New York DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1916
Copyright , 1916, by Louise Dutton All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian
COPYRIGHT, 1916, THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY
A little girl sat on the worn front doorsteps of the Randall house. She sat very still and straight, with her short, white skirts fluffed daintily out on both sides, her hands tightly clasped over her thin knees, and her long, silk-stockinged legs cuddled tight together. She was bare-headed, and her short, soft hair showed silvery blonde in the fading light. Her hair was bobbed. For one miserable month it had been the only bobbed head in Green River. Her big, gray-green eyes had a fugitive, dancing light in them. The little girl had beautiful eyes.
The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Randall. She was eleven years old, and she felt happier to-night than she remembered feeling in all the eleven years of her life.
The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of lilac and syringa bushes, with one great, spreading horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house did not stand far back from the street. The little girl could see a generous section of Main Street sloping past, dark already under shadowing trees. The street was empty. It was half-past six, and supper-time in Green River, but the Randalls did not have supper, they dined at night, like the Everards. To-night mother and father were dining with the Everards, and the little girl had plans of her own.
Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the library. Mother was dressing in her big corner room upstairs, with all the electric lights lighted. The little girl could see them, if she turned her head, but mother was very far away, in spite of that, for her door was locked, and you could not go in. You could not watch her brush her long, wonderful hair, or help her into her evening gown. Mother's evening gown was black this summer, with shiny spangles—a fairy gown. Mother had to be alone while she dressed, because she was going to the Everards'.