And yet how dear to us are their mischievous ways, and how blank and drear would childhood be without them! The sunshine of their presence is always brightest when flecked by little clouds of annoyance. And when your tenderest bud has been plucked by the Reaper, your heartstrings throb saddest o’er the toy that’s broken, and your tears fall in torrents o’er the little torn garment, while the clothes neatly folded pass unnoticed by.
Early Monday morning I hurried over to tell Lulie. As I entered her gate I discovered her at play, near a large rose bush, but was surprised and troubled to see a strange boy with her. I had somehow, in my own mind at least, assumed a kind of proprietorship over her, and the presence of any one else, in whom she could take any interest whatever, was excessively annoying. I managed to creep up quite near, without being discovered, and stood for some time watching them, and feeling, in my jealousy, an almost irresistible desire to try a stone on the strange head. They were busy arranging a doll house, which consisted of rows of dirt piled up like fortifications, with lumps of moss for chairs and sofas, and an array of dolls that seemed to have been taken from the hospital, so much were they maimed in their legs and arms.
The strange boy and Lulie seemed very intimate, and bent their heads together, and talked in delighted and animated accents; he suggesting, and she listening and adopting his suggestions. And then he had on such new clothes, such a jaunty cap, such a blue jacket with bright buttons, and such boots with heels! In him I recognized a formidable rival, and concluded to retreat and give up all thoughts of the invitation. As I endeavored to slip away unobserved, I overturned a little tea set that was placed to one side, awaiting the completion of the house. At the noise they both turned around and saw me, and Lulie’s face flushed a little as she exclaimed:
“There, now! see what you have done! turned over all my tea cups and broken I don’t know how many!”
I offered, with all earnestness, the child’s universal apology, “I didn’t go to do it,” but felt that it was not accepted, and that I, Lulie’s acknowledged sweetheart, was not welcome. But boys are not oversensitive, and as I knew that to retire then would only make matters worse, I swallowed my confusion and joined in their play. Lulie did not introduce me to her companion, but I soon learned that his name was Frank, and that he was fast supplanting me in her favor. All my suggestions in regard to the disposition and arrangement of the furniture were at once overruled and disregarded for what he thought best.
All her questions and remarks were addressed to him, and they both seemed oblivious of my presence, save when they wished me to perform some office for them. Then Frank, as she called him, had such an insolent way of staring at me, and walking around with his hands stuck contemptuously into his trousers’ pockets. And when we had completed the house, and were cleaning up, he raked away the earth with his boots, and made little ditches around the walls with his heels, and stamped the walks level; in short, made such a display of his morocco that I felt quite ashamed of my plain copper-tip shoes, and tried to hide them as much as possible by standing in the grass. After awhile it was proposed to get the doll’s dinner ready, and then I thought of my errand. Without a moment’s consideration for Frank’s feeling, I broke out with: “Oh! Lulie, I forgot; you must come to our house to-morrow; we are going to have a dinner, and have got lots of good things cooked. There won’t be any other girls there but you, and your pa and ma are coming, too. Won’t you come?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, tying an apron on a very red-faced doll, with china feet, wooden legs, and her hair rubbed off the back of her head; “I don’t want to go much, ‘cause me and Frank are going to have a doll wedding to-morrow. Frank, let me tell you”—— breaking off suddenly, and putting the doll down with her face on the ground, and her wooden limbs very much exposed, she took Frank aside to whisper something to him. I inferred it was a proposal to invite me to their dinner, as he replied loud enough for me to hear:
“No, let’s have it all by ourselves.”
Lulie seemed to assent, and as I had become rather incensed at the whole proceedings, I turned off without another word, and went home. Children suffer as keenly, if not as long, in their little loves and jealousies as older people; and I was as unhappy during the remainder of the day as was Octavia while Anthony was in Egypt. Many were the castles I had built in the air, in all of which Lulie reigned as queen. My favorite dream was to imagine her and myself wrecked, and playing Robinson Crusoe on some desert island. I had loved to think how we would sit together by the beach and watch the frightened billows fleeing to the shore, or stroll through shadowy forests in search of fruits; and how I would defend her from the wolves and bears, and how tender and confiding she would be when she had no one but me to look to. And then, at night, how cosy and snug we would be in our cave, which would be always warmed and lighted by some means. And when the savages came how we would shut the great stone door, and be safe and secure. But I had now found in the sand, not the naked foot print Robinson saw, but a boot track, which conjured up more fears and suspicions than Defoe ever conceived; for it told of the presence of a cannibal for my heart.