And then it grew altogether dark for Bobby, and the little face against the new-born, heart-broken mother’s cheek felt cold, and would not warm with all her passionate kisses.
Chapter V
The Little Girl Who Should Have Been a Boy
There was so much time for the Little Girl who should have been a Boy to ponder over it. She was only seven, but she grew quite skilful in pondering. After lessons—and lessons were over at eleven—there was the whole of the rest of the day to wander, in her little, desolate way, in the gardens. She liked the fruit-garden best, and the Golden Pippin tree was her choicest pondering-place. There was never any one there with her. The Little Girl who should have been a Boy was always alone.
“You see how it is. I’ve told you times enough,” she communed with herself, in her quaint, unchildish fashion. “You are a mistake. You went and was born a Girl, when they wanted a Boy—oh, my, how they wanted a Boy! But the moment they saw you they knew it was all up with them. You wasn’t wicked, really,—I guess it wasn’t wicked; sometimes I can’t be certain,—but you did go and make such a silly mistake! Look at me,—why didn’t you know how much they wanted a Boy and didn’t want you? Why didn’t you be brave and go up to the Head Angel, and say, ‘Send me to another place; for pity sake don’t send me there. They want a Little Boy.’ Why didn’t you—oh, why didn’t you? It would have saved such a lot of trouble!”
The Little Girl who should have been a Boy always sighed at that point. The sigh made a period to the sad little speech, for after that she always sat in the long grass under the Golden Pippin tree and rocked herself back and forth silently. There was no use in saying anything more after that. It had all been said.
It was a great, beautiful estate, to east and west and north and south of her, and the Boy the Head Angel should have sent instead of the sad Little Girl was to have inherited it all. And there was a splendid title that went with the estate. In the sharp mind of the Little Girl nothing was hidden or undiscovered.
“It seems a pity to have it wasted,” she mused, wistfully, with her grave wide eyes on the beautiful green expanses all about her, “just for a mistake like that,—I mean like me—too. You’d think the Head Angel would be ashamed of himself, wouldn’t you? He prob’ly is.”
The Shining Mother—it was thus the Little Girl who should have been a Boy had named her, on account of her sparkling eyes and wonderful sparkling gowns; everything about the Shining Mother sparkled—the Shining Mother was almost always away. So was the Ogre. Somewhere outside—clear outside—of the green expanses there was a gay, frivolous world where almost always they two stayed.
The Little Girl called her father the Ogre for want of a better name. She was never quite satisfied with the name, but it had to answer till she found another. Prob’ly ogres didn’t wear an eye-glass in one of their eyes, or flip off the sweet little daisy heads with cruel canes, but they were oldish and scare-ish, and of course they wouldn’t have noticed you any, even if you were their Little Girl. Ogres would have prob’ly wanted a Boy too, and that’s the way they’d have let you see your mistake. So, till she found a better name, the Little Girl who had made the mistake called her father the Ogre. She was very proud and fond of the Shining Mother, but she was a little afraid of the Ogre. After all, one feeling mattered about as much as the other.