“And why should your granny be angry?” she asked.
“Bess took some soap one day,” said he, “and scrubbed my face, and it turned very red, and then very white, and granny came home from the town, and she beat me for it with her cane, and shut me up for a great many days. It was very long ago, but I have not forgotten.”
“Never mind,” said Rosebud; “if shut up, you can still hear the dashing of the waves, and I will sit and sing beneath your window. And you would have no wood to fetch. Come, here is a spring, and pray be in haste.”
Then Grump began scrubbing. And his face first became red and then white, and at last a beautiful red and white. His eyes were blue, like Rosebud’s, but darker. There was a color in his cheeks, like Rosebud’s, but brighter. His curls were shorter than Rosebud’s, and thicker and browner, and were pushed back from his broad white forehead, while hers drooped in ringlets about her face. He had a round, rosy mouth, and two pretty rows of white teeth, the same as Rosebud.
“Now, that is good,” cried Rosebud. “And you look much too pretty to be called Grump. I must think of some nicer name than that for so nice a boy. What shall I call you?”
“Call me something that goes well with Rosebud,” said Grump; “for now that you are come, I shall work with you more than anybody, and play with you more than anybody, for I like you more than anybody. Rosebud, I like you very much indeed.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Rosebud. “I wonder what we shall call you. What does go well with Rosebud?”
Grump couldn’t think of anything that went so much with rosebuds as thorns. But that would not do, for Rosebud said he was not in the least like a thorn. At length she remembered a very pretty song she had heard about the rose and the myrtle. Suppose he should be called Myrtle. How would he like that? O, very much, very much indeed. And thus it was agreed that he should be called Myrtle.
But granny did not shut the boy up or even notice him at all. She probably had other matters to trouble her. For every day she came home very cross from the town, and sat crouching in the corner, muttering, and poking the ashes with her cane. Perhaps some prisoner had escaped from her stone cage. Or perhaps she had heard that the owners of the stolen jewels she had hidden were in search of them. No one could tell.
So Myrtle grew cleaner and prettier and happier every day. And strangers, walking upon the beach, often stopped to wonder at the strange loveliness of the little barefoot boy and girl, as they ran pattering along the sands with their wood-baskets. Rosebud, with her pleasant face and gentle ways, soon became a favorite with the children of the shore. They were all eager to play with her, to help her pick up wood and moss among the rocks, to show her where the birds built, and often coaxed her to their huts, that the family at home might know this lovely little stranger. Thus she never lacked for company.