Black-Eyed Susan

by Ethel Calvert Phillips

But instead of being pleased and thanking Grandmother, Susan had scowled up her face at sight of it, and had muttered,

“I don’t like the little pie. I want a piece of the big one.”

Now, there is no telling why Susan acted in that way. I don’t believe she could have explained it herself. The words seemed to pop out of her mouth, her face seemed to snarl itself up, and, for no reason at all she suddenly felt very angry at the poor, pretty little saucer pie.

And after this dreadful speech, nobody spoke.

Susan felt Grandfather looking at her over his spectacles. She saw Grandmother take the saucer pie and set it aside. And then, somehow, nobody seemed to remember that Susan was at the table at all. She sat there, the lump in her throat growing bigger and bigger and with a strange prickly feeling in the end of her nose, until the tears began to chase one another down her cheeks. And then Susan slipped from her chair and ran upstairs.

On the floor near the door lay innocent Snowball. Susan pushed her to one side with such force that Snowball flew under the bed and struck the wall with a thump. Then Susan threw herself on the bed beside Flip and clasped her in her arms.

First she cried until she couldn’t cry any more, and then she whispered the whole story into Flip’s ear. “Nobody loves me but you, Flippy,” finished Susan with a gasp. Already she felt comforted, for, no matter what happened, Flippy was always on her side.

After a little, she rolled off the bed, and stood looking out of the window into the hot garden below. There was not a breath of air stirring. The leaves of the fruit trees scarcely moved, the sky seemed to swim and dance before her eyes, and the only sound to be heard was the shrill singing of the locusts in the trees.

It was then that Susan said, “mean, mean, mean,” and she meant Grandmother, and Grandfather, and every one in the whole round world except Flippy Whiting.

Susan twisted the shade cord and sniffed, and tried to think of all the cross and disagreeable things Grandmother and Grandfather had ever done to her.