But it was as a weapon of defence that she got in her really fine work. Grasped firmly by the legs and directed by impassioned energy toward a wisely selected point, Dinah was capable of giving a blow as surprising to witness as it was stunning to feel. Practice makes perfect, and so it came about that that vixen, Marie’s, aim was so quick, so steady and so true, that she landed with Dinah right on the intended spot every time. She paid no attention to rules about the belt line, striking below it with as much vigor as above it. There was never any clinching, because no one would come near enough for that, but I have known her to strike a blow with Dinah hard enough to rupture Mrs. Tyler’s agreement with the cook.
Some months after Dinah’s arrival I became recognized as a sort of family lightning-rod, since I had the power of deflecting the fluid wrath and deviltry of Marie’s temper and leading it to comparatively harmless points.
She was very fond of me, partly because I was older than she was, and partly because I found so many new things for her to play. Everything I saw away from home was served up at once as a play for Marie. Oh, that was a great occasion when I saw a lady faint in a store! Dinah had to faint so many times in one day that she was wet clear through her whole body, from her many revivings, and was in such a disgraceful condition from the brandy we gave her that, being utterly unable to stand, she had to hang on the clothes-line several hours before she could be endured in a warm room, and I remember Marie asked me if the lady had smelled like that.
Mr. Tyler was not a very strong man, not sickly—what a hateful word—but rather delicate; in fact, though he never said so, he had nerves, and it must have tried them severely when he came to breakfast and had to face Dinah, sitting in the middle of the table, with her back against the big family castor, and her one straight eye fixed upon his shrinking countenance. The skeleton at the banquet never made half the effect the “peshous ’un” made, for in the first place the skeleton was crowned with roses, and there were bright lights and a small river of wine to help the guests forget the presence of their ghastly companion; but no skull that was ever bleached had a smile to compare with Dinah’s, which crossed her entire face and would have gone on and met at the back of her head had it not been stopped by her side seams, where her front and her back were sewed together. There were no roses on Dinah and no wine to dim her effect, and poor Mr. Tyler chipped his egg and crumbled his roll, but, with that eye upon him, got no further, and merely taking his coffee, he fled. The rest of us got a side or back view, so we did not suffer so much. This went on until dyspepsia developed. I have said before, I was very fond of Mr. Tyler, and I began to look for some way to help him. One day, at table, the uncle had nearly betrayed a surprise that was being prepared for the little Marie, and Mrs. Tyler reached out her foot and pushed him to enforce silence, a movement at once discovered by that acute young person, who thereupon made a scene, and thereafter passed much of her time, at meals, hanging head downward from her chair, trying to see under the table that she might (in her own language), “see who kicked who,” a habit which caused many upsettings of things and much discomfort, but one to which she clung until I made a suggestion which found favor in her eyes.
“Ah!” said I, “if Dinah belonged to me I’d make her do something lovely!” “Oh, what?” cried the little vixen, and after much coaxing I spoke, with the blessed result that for over two weeks, at breakfast, dinner and tea, Dinah, the dreadful, was carefully placed under the table to watch “who kicked who.” “Ah!” cried Marie, “yer can’t wink yer eyes at each other, ’cause I is looking at yer all! Yer can’t kick each other, ’cause Dinah’s looking at yer hard, and if yer spell things, I’ll—I’ll—I’ll just hold my breff and die! so now, I’ll have to know everyfing!”
But Mr. Tyler ate his egg and toast, and smilingly drank a second cup of coffee mornings, and he patted my shoulder and gave me a big, red Canadian penny, which Marie, being jealous, took from me and threw down the well, while the young uncle started the lightning-rod idea, saying “that I had diverted Marie’s deviltry from the top of the table to the bottom, where it was harmless.”
I will mention one episode in Dinah’s life, and that will serve to indicate pretty fairly what the others were like. I always call it the hail-stone episode. Late one afternoon a violent storm had come on. We were all frightened, and poor, little, spoiled Marie was quivering from head to foot with nervous terror. Presently the rain turned to hail, great lumps of ice came dashing against the windows, and “crack!” went a big window-pane, and in fell the pieces of glass. Again came the rushing rain, and the water falling on a table covered with books, the housemaid caught up something and thrust it into the opening in the broken window. Alas, and alas! that “something” was Dinah! The “peshous un”! Dinah the beloved! There she was, her cross-eyes looking at us from between her glove-shod feet, like a contortionist at a circus, while her doubled body was thrust out into the hail and rain outside. And there, all unknown to us, she remained for a long, long time, and the thunder rolled and the house shook till the spoons rattled and tinkled in their holder. And suddenly Marie lifted up a marble-white, little face, and putting out her hand to my mother, said, faintly, “Aunty? (courtesy title only) tell God, please stop! I’m frightened!”
The awful dazzle of lightning followed her words, and again she buried her face, laying her tiny hands over her ears, to keep out the terrifying sounds. A lamp was lighted, and they began to undress her and prepare her for bed, simply to divert her attention from the storm. She was very silent, but she shook violently, and her eyes were strained and wild-looking. Suddenly the heavens seemed to flame! The crash that followed left the ears ringing! We all cried out, but the vixen gave a bound and stood in the middle of the room; her eyes fairly blazed; she raised them to the ceiling, and in a shrill voice she cried, “Stop! stop, I tell you! I’m frightened!”
Again a dazzle of lightning, again a roar of thunder, and in an instant that little bundle of nerves had darted to the hall, and with both hands succeeded in turning the knob (the wind did the rest), and to our unutterable horror, we saw her little, white-robed figure dart down the steps, and standing on the bit of rain-soaked lawn, mad with rage, she lifted her challenging face to the black sky, and stamping her bare, little foot, she cried, against the wind, “How dare you, God? I’m little Marie Tyler, and I told you I was afraid! How dare you? a great big God like you, frighten a little girl like me?” and then she was in her mother’s arms, and was carried into the house dripping as from a river, and spitting and hissing like an enraged cat.
The storm ceased at last, at least the outer storm; there was another coming, for where was my “peshous Dinah”?