A few more prosperous years and “Little Knights,” who began to be called “Little Old Knights” now, was watching, with proud eyes, the growing train of Rosie’s lovers. She was a charming girl—clever, well-read, an excellent musician, a perfect little housekeeper, and, best of all, tenderly, bravely loyal to her big, illiterate mother and her short-cut, old father.
She was a milk-white blond—a silvery, flaxen blond, and though tints of mauve and clear, pure blue found favor in her eyes, she still wore pink for her old father’s sake. He had used to say of her in baby days: “My Rose is such a vite, liddle Rose—I like dat she be tied up pink ribbons mit—alvays mit pink!” So now, tied up “mit pink,” she received her young friends in that one-time “holy of holies”—the front room; now termed parlor. With a sort of anguished pride big Mrs. Knights saw sunlight streaming through only thin lace curtains across the new carpet—saw other books than the Bible and family album there—saw flowers and open piano, and oh—oh—the chairs all pulled out from their nice, straight rows against the wall! But then—ach Gott! Rosie knew! And the ringing of the doorbell was as music in the ears of the doting, old pair who sat in the inner room—one knitting, the other smoking—both nodding and smiling and putting severe restraint upon themselves to keep from rushing in with refreshments before greetings were hardly over.
That moment of offering refreshments was a moment of joy and of torture. They would willingly have effaced themselves from the life of their “American” daughter (as they proudly called her), but she had neither friend nor acquaintance who did not know—and through her introduction—her father and mother. With regard to the latter, Rosie had worked a miracle. In two years’ time, by faithful and almost desperate effort, she had taught her mother nine simple English words. They were evidently selected by the astute Rosie with a view to future social requirements. So now Mrs. Knights could, with portentous gasps and moistening brow, say: “How do-do?” “Com’ again!” “Good-bye!” “Ver’ glad!” “Ver’ sorry!” and “My!” And when the moment came for the long-necked bottles of sparkling German wine—the fruit—the sandwiches—the cream-cheese, etc., to appear, the old pair, rejoicing in their hospitality, swelling with pride in Rosie and Rosie’s popularity, yet nearly crushed by embarrassment, appeared, too. And Mrs. Knights—“How do-do?” all round—wilted into a big chair in the corner, from whence she smiled most happily and cast a “My!” of excellent pronunciation into the general conversation now and then, for which her Rosie gave her a dozen kisses afterward.
The bright, laughing girl saw that her father had the prettiest visitor in the room to sit by, and that her own choice of the young men should wait upon her mother, and so, with wonderful tact, she led them into her brighter life, instead of shutting them out into the shamed solitude known to so many lowly parents. Rosie was nineteen when she made her choice. Young Randall had been a child of wealth until, at twenty, his father tried to “corner” something and had been cornered himself and ruined. Then the boy went to work and had been working for six years when he fell in love with Rosie. Never had there been such excitement in a Dutchman’s life before! Little Old Knights was a house-building, present-buying, hand-rubbing, amiable, little lunatic! His wife smiled in her very sleep at night, and lived in her Dutch receipt-book all day, while Rosie had to watch the pair with the eyes of an affectionate lynx to prevent them from buying horse-hair furniture for her future parlor, and large chunks of amethyst or big, diamond-set things for ornaments.
But she managed so well that only a few atrocities crept in among her gifts, and her little home was charming. Many thought that now, as Rosie entertained a good deal and had new friends in her new home, she would ignore the old folks. Not she! Whenever she had anything “on,” from a “coffee-drinking” to an “evening party,” she flew down to the old home and laced her mother into shape, crowding her into a stiff, silk gown, that creaked at each labored breath of its wearer, and when she was in full panoply of war, and Little Old Knights had been turned about and looked over as if he were a boy getting ready for Sunday-school, Rosie kissed them both and took them off to her own home, and set them down in two big chairs with a little table between them, for their spectacles and handkerchiefs and other small belongings—and there, like an old pair of children, they sat and enjoyed all that went on; and when there was dancing, “Old Knights” never failed to indulge in one waltz with his ancient wife—the memory of whose youth must have gone into her feet to make her so light on them still. And while Rosie joined in the laughter this waltz always aroused, there would be a tremor in her voice and she would hold her young husband’s hand close and whisper: “Will you love me like that, Hal, when I have grown old?”
So on radiant wings time flew by, until one morning neighbors heard laughing in “Little Knights’” garden—laughing that continued and continued, and when they went over, “Little Knights” was doing the laughing, with tears running down his cheeks and falling on the prodigious Bible open on his short knees. When questioned, he exclaimed: “She has kom’—all safe, she has kom’! I seen her mit mine eyes—I have tooched her mit dese fingers! De liddle daughter of mine own Rose! Ach, de Almighty Gott is a most goot Gott!” and then he bowed his white head and muttered: “Now let Thy servant depart mit peace!” And so poor, “Little Old Knights” found his cup of joy full to the brim!
And what happens to any cup held in human hands if filled to the brim? It runs over—and there is cruel loss! And so it came to pass that Rosie’s little one stayed with them just long enough to smile a recognition of her girlish mother’s face, and then some sweet, strong call came from the “beyond” that baby had heard and answered—and they were left to wonder at the awful void that small absence made in all their lives.
Poor, Old Knights! Tight in his arms he held the tiny, coffined dead—moaning over and over: “My liddle pud—my Rose’s liddle pud!”—until that sad moment when, by sheer force, they took the wee, dead thing from him, to hide it away beneath the flowers and the grasses.
Time passed slowly now. Rosie, very gentle—very tender of others—was sad, so sad. That was not natural to her—so all rejoiced when hope once more shone in her face—and all was thankful when Little Old Knights trotted from door to door with the news that his Rose had “anodder liddle daughter—so like—ach Gott! so like de first—as never yet dey saw!”
Rosie’s joy was great, but it was not the laughing, unthinking joy of other days. She felt anxieties and fears. She dreaded this and that, but her silvery blond baby was so strong and well, and grew so fast, and “crowed” and laughed, and romped with father and grandfather, and stood so strong upon her little legs that fears had to give way to confidence, and her heart bounded with triumph when she heard the baby voice, cry imperatively; “Ma—ma! ma—ma!”