His restless eyes wandered all over the place. "Oh, yes, sir," I answered, "I often get them for my mother, and for other people, too!"
"Quite right, yes, yes, quite right, quite right!" responded the old gentleman, then added, reflectively: "Yes, she's a female, but females receive letters, though they don't vote, yes, yes! Well, my child, I want you to help me in a great and good work. You know people are taught from their earliest infancy the necessity of minding their P's and Q's, and that they don't do it! Now you and I will mind the P's and Q's of this great city, won't we, my dear? So, you just go to the window there and get all the letters there are for Parker, Purley, Prentiss, and Porter, and I'll come after you and get all the letters for Pixley, Pratt, Prince, and Pettigrew, and to-morrow, my dear, we'll come down and get all the Q's—the Quigley, Quinn, and Quiller crowd—and—and we'll take all the letters over to the fountain and throw them in the basin of water, and if they float we'll pitch bricks at 'em! Now, now's your time, go ahead, and get all the P's you can—it's a great scheme, great!" and then he stopped, for an almost breathless voice called out: "Here he is, Hank! confound him!" And as two men hurried toward my chipper old reformer, one said, reproachfully: "Now, look-a-here, Mr. Peiffer, if you don't keep your word no better nor this, Hank and me'll have to keep hold of you on your walks, and you won't like that!"
"No," meekly murmured the old man, "I—er—I won't like that, I'm sure."
Then Hank turned to me and asked, suspiciously: "Has he been filling you full of P's and Q's?"
I nodded. "Then," said the other man, "we'd better get him back quick, that's the way he begins. Come on, now, Mr. Peiffer, come on!" and between them they led away the poor white-haired old madman, who looked back as he passed me, and whispered: "Pitch 'em in the fountain, I'll get the Q's to-morrow!"
There, too, was the old, old grave-yard that the city had crept up to, cautiously at first, then finding them quite harmless—the quiet dead—had stretched out brick and mortar arms and circled it about. A network of streets had tangled about it, and turbulent life dashed against its very gates on the outside, but inside there was a great green silence.
How well I knew the quiet place—the far, damp corner where, in lifting bodies for removal to a new cemetery, one had been found petrified; the giant sycamore-tree that guarded the grave of a mighty Indian chief, the lonely hemlock blackened nook where a grave had been cruelly robbed, the most expensive tomb, the most beautiful tomb, the oldest tomb, I knew them all. But the special attraction for me was a plain white headstone that happened to bear my own name. Whenever my mother boxed my ears, or was too hasty in her judgment to be quite just, I went over to my silent city and sat down and looked at the tombstone, and thought if it were really mine how sorry my mother would feel for what she had done. And when I had, in imagination, seen her tears and remorse, I would begin to feel sorry for her and to think she was punished enough, especially if it was rather late, and the shadows of tombstones and trees all fell long upon the sunny walks, all pointing like warning black fingers toward the gate. Then, indeed, I was apt to forgive my mother and flee to her—and supper.
And so, up and down, smiling and sighing, I went, taking congé of the city that had been home to me all my life, save just two years. I even paused at the little old cottage whose gate was the only one I had ever swung on, and I had hated the swinging, but I was six and was passionately enamoured of a small person named Johnnie, who lived there and who wore blue aprons; so I swung on the gate with him and to please him, and then, being like most of his sex, fickle of fancy, he deserted me for a new red dress worn by another. And when he spilled milk on it (his mother sold milk) and spoiled its glory, she scratched his face, and he wanted to return to me; but my love was dead, so dead I wouldn't even accept sips of milk out of the little pails he had to carry around to customers. And, so cruel is life, there I stood and laughed as I took leave of the small gate.
At last all was done, my trunks were gone, I sat in my empty room waiting for the carriage. I had to make my journey quite alone, since my mother was to join me only when I had found a place to settle in. I was very sad. Mr. Ellsler was ill, for the first time since I had known him, and I had been over to his home, three or four blocks away, and bade good-by to Mrs. Ellsler and gentle little Annie—the other children were out. And finding I had no fear of contagion from a bad throat, she showed me into Mr. Ellsler's room. I was shocked to see him so wasted and so weak, and not being used to sickness I was frightened about him. Judge, then, my amazement, when, hearing a knock on my door and calling, "Come in," instead of a bell-boy, there entered, pale and almost staggering, Mr. Ellsler. A rim of red above his white muffler betrayed the bandaged throat, and his poor voice was but a husky whisper.
"I could not help it," he said; "you were placed under my care once by your mother. You were a child then, and though you are pleased to consider yourself a woman now, I could not bear to think of your leaving the city, at this saddest hour of the day, to begin a lonely journey, without some old friend being by for a parting God-speed."