"Oh, Major!" I cried, excitedly, nodding my head at him, "I'm going to find your little girls and boys for you!"
"My little girls and boys?" he asked, perplexed.
"Yes. The ones that you lost so long ago."
He turned quite suddenly on his way, so quickly that I thought that he was angry, but when he came back he stopped at the gate again. He took my face softly between his hands, and looked down deep into my eyes, into the little circles where there were pictures.
"When you grow up, always remember that the old major loved you," he said, hurriedly, and then went back toward the house from which he had come out so shortly before.
We were great friends after that. We held long conversations over the gate, about my dolls, and the hobby-horse which had lately come to live in the hall. We discussed the best way to raise children, and how convenient it would be if aprons could only be made to button in front. We both had original ideas on things, and often differed, but none of my new clothes ever seemed quite real to me until the major had admired them, and pinched my cheeks with that air of gallantry which showed that I was a woman. He brought me presents, very wonderful things; bright pebbles which he picked up on the street, willow whistles, and a tiny basket carved from a peach-stone, which I hung on a ribbon about my neck. I gave him flowers, and once, when no one was looking, I let him kiss me in the shadow of the pink sunbonnet.
If the major and I met thus on the sunny days, when it rained there came a blank in my life. Then he could not go out at all, but must stay shut up in his house until the weather cleared again. There was something the matter with the major which made this necessary. In some unaccountable way he was different from other people, and to be different from other people was sad, and was, moreover, a thing which never happened in our family.
Now, grandmother had a little red brick house that stood on her mantel-piece which aided me a great deal in the stormy times. A little man and woman lived in this house who were never of the same mind, and carried their lack of sympathy to such an alarming extent that they used separate doors, and, as far as I could see, had never met in the course of their lives. For as sure as the man with the umbrella came out of one door, the little lady with the roses in her bonnet gathered up her skirts, and scurried in as if she were afraid to meet him. With her went the sunshine and the blue look to the sky, and the rain came down heavy and fast. But if the old man went into his house, the old lady sprang out, with a smile on her face, the rain stopped falling, and the sun came out. Then, by and by, the major would walk down the street, and stop to chat awhile.
I used to run into grandmother's room every morning to look at that house.
"Grandma," I cried, eagerly, "has the little lady come out to-day?"