“What is it, Beth?”
“I want to be some one’s born child,” she said. “I want to be your born child.”
Eliza hesitated. What was conventionality in comparison to the little girl’s peace of mind? She would put aside her own sense of the fitness of some things and make the child happy. “You may be my born child, then,” she said. “You may be born in my love, in my heart. You may be my own little girl, exactly as Helen is her mother’s little girl. Will that please you?”
“Yes, now what about my birthday?” asked Beth. “Every one of the Reeds have birthdays, and they are always talking about pulling ears and what presents they got. They don’t have their birthdays all the same time. They’ve scattered them about so that one comes after each pay-day.”
“Not a bad idea”, said Eliza, “especially when there is a birthday with candles. You may have a birthday, too, just like the other girls. You came to my house the first day of July. We’ll celebrate that; so far as you and I are concerned that day is correct.”
Beth gave a sigh of satisfaction. That was the only trouble she had had in her life. It was nice that it was disposed of so satisfactorily.
“We’ll have a cake too, Adee, with candles. How many candles?”
“Seven,” replied Eliza promptly.
Beth had come to the years when a child questions and begins to reach out for the reason of things. She was not at all stupid. She was quick to see how people conducted themselves; how they spoke and dressed. She was always attracted toward the refined and gentle. Eliza’s heart rejoiced at this. She believed that ‘blood would tell’, and all Beth’s attributes and natural tendencies were proof that her people were self-respecting gentlefolk.
Eliza had long since given up wearing black silk and little bits of bonnets perched on her head, too small for grace or beauty. Beth had not liked them. Beth had declared them not ‘pitty’, and Eliza had accepted her decision. There were white dresses and cheap thin prints, but they were artistic and suited Eliza far better than the dark, somber colors. Perhaps it was easy to follow Beth’s wishes in regard to the matter of clothes, for Eliza’s heart had always hungered after daintiness and brightness. Yet she had never felt herself equal to going against the conventions and unwritten laws of the narrow little hamlet; but with Beth’s encouragement, it was easier to follow the dictates of her own desires.