CHANNOAH
BY EDWARD LUCAS WHITE
The garden had been overgrown these three years. As the house was tenantless nothing was ever trimmed or cut and the paths skinned over with the green of intrusive weeds. The shrubs expanded into masses of high dense leafage, the roses had run into long stems that covered the walls or wound under the tall wavy grass, the annuals had seeded themselves till they mingled in every bed, and the whole was a delightful wilderness, more flowery than any wood and more woodland than any garden. Milly and Jack regarded the place as their own special domain. The house belonged to Milly’s father and they were left to enjoy the garden unwatched and undisturbed. Because their fathers were partners in business they had made up their minds to marry when they grew up and they announced their intention with the preternatural seriousness of a boy of five and a girl of three. As they were really fond of each other they never wearied of being together and as a part of their precocious program they cared nothing for other playmates. The garden was theirs and they were each others’ and they lived in a community where children were little overseen or tended. So they spent day after day in games of their own invention, with no companion except a black kitten. Milly, who was proud of her French, had named it Channoah and would have been deeply grieved if anyone had insinuated that her pronunciation was far from Parisian. Channoah was able to do without his mother when they first began their games in the spring and was still a kittenish cat when the autumn merged into winter. He entered into their sports with almost a human interest and those long happy summer days made a background for both the boy and the girl, which loomed up behind all their future memories and where there were endless pictures of each other, in long processions, punctuated and divided by various postures and contortions of a coal-black kitten. As they grew older and their companionship continued they had passwords all for themselves and jokes that no one else entered into, all full of allusions to the same pet.