The Fortunate Island, and Other Stories

by Charles Heber Clark

She had never seen so many beautiful things before. There were toys of all kinds, some of which she understood and some of which were all the more fascinating for the mystery that surrounded them. There were wagons and horses, and miniature tea-sets, and pop-guns, and baby houses, and jumping-jacks, and railroad cars, and tin steamboats, and make-believe soldier caps; and these were mingled with clusters of glass balls of various colors, which glittered in the gaslight in a most wonderful manner. But the glory of the window was a huge waxen doll dressed as a bride, in pure white, with a veil and a wreath and the loveliest satin dress. She had real golden hair and the softest blue eyes, that stared and stared as though they were looking into some other surprising show-window over the way.

Jinnie trembled when she saw this marvellous doll. She had no idea that anybody ever wore such wonderful clothing as that. She had never dreamed that anything could be so beautiful. She thought she would be perfectly happy if she could stand there and gaze at it during the remainder of her life. Oh, if Kris Kingle would come and leave her such a doll as that! No, that could not be; it was impossible that she should ever have such a joyful experience. But maybe he might bring her a doll like some of the smaller and less splendid ones which surrounded the bride in swarms. Yes, she would be satisfied with the very poorest one of them. She would hide it somewhere, under her bed covering, perhaps, where Mrs. Tyke could not see it, but where she could find it and kiss it and hug it and take it close in her arms when she went to sleep at night.

The thought of Mrs. Tyke came to her like a blow in the midst of her delight. She remembered that she must hurry homeward, and so taking a last, long look she turned and ran along the pavement, her heart filled with a wild, passionate longing that Kris Kingle would come to her and bring her something she could love.

Of course Mrs. Tyke greeted her with angry words and two or three savage thumps. She expected that. But Mrs. Tyke was not content with this. When she sat down to supper she told Jinnie that as she had been unusually idle and bad that day she should go hungry to bed. Then Mrs. Tyke ate a particularly hearty meal, with the child watching her; and when she had finished she sat by, growling and threatening, while Jinnie cleared away the tea-things preparatory to being marched off to bed.

Jinnie missed her supper sadly, but she did not mind the hunger so much on that night, for her mind was busy with new delights.

It was dark in her room, but she knew where the chimney was; and before she undressed she went over and felt it. There was a hole there for a stove-pipe, but it had paper pasted over it.

“Perhaps,” said Jinnie, “Kris Kingle did not come because the hole was shut.”

He would not come down the chimney and out into the dining-room, she knew, because he would have to go through the stove; and that would burn him, and his toys, too, perhaps. She thought it might be an inducement for him to come if she should punch a hole through the paper. She was afraid to tear it off, afraid of Mrs. Tyke’s vengeance; so she pushed her finger through it. Then she undressed, and went hopefully to her bed upon the floor.

But not to sleep; she was too greatly excited. She began to wonder why it was that life was so terrible. She never imagined that her life differed from those of other children. It is the peculiar infamy of brutality to a child that the victim does not know how to sound the cry for the help that is almost always near to it. It accepts its lot as a thing of course; it does not know that there are perhaps within a few short steps of its house of suffering hearts that would stir with wrath for its wrongs, and that there is within reach a law which would bring retribution upon the head of its oppressor.

Jinnie believed that all childhood was a time of punishment and misery. She saw other children playing in the street who seemed merry and joyous, and she could not understand why they were so. She remembered the Brown girl, also, and how she had heard her sometimes laughing and singing. Jinnie could not laugh and sing in her house with Mrs. Tyke near her. She thought the other children might be happy because they had dolls, and because they could have their stockings filled at Christmas time. She knew that grown-up people were not abused as she was, but it seemed such a long, long time to wait until she was grown up. She felt that when she was she would be kinder to children, and not strike them with the poker, at any rate, as Mrs. Tyke sometimes struck her.