His offering was acceptable, and if, on the renewal of an acquaintance destined to grow into a gratifying intimacy, he learned from bitter experience that more than one subject was tabooed, that more than one sudden emotion must expect no answering sympathy, how was he to evade the tribulations of his kind? This cup was prepared for them from the beginning. If earthly bliss were flawless, should we concern ourselves at all with heaven?
That day she met him on her walk, and smiling almost fearlessly, offered him a camel animal cracker! True, the most obvious projection was bitten off, and that process is the best part of animal crackers; but then, she was only seven! It is not an age to which one looks for the most brilliant altruism.
He gave her in return a long-cherished cane-top of polished wood, cut in the shape of a greyhound’s head, with eyes of orange-colored glass. She seemed almost to appreciate it. He had been offered a white mouse for it more than once.
For two long months the Little God led him along the primrose way. The poor fellow thought it was the main road; he had yet to learn it was but a by-path. But the Little God was not through with him.
Her brother, an uninteresting fellow at first, had improved on acquaintance, and though he scoffed at Dicky’s devotion to his sister—thinking her a great baby—he had come to consider him a friend. One day, late in April, he led Dick out to a deserted corner of the grounds, and for the sum of a small red top and a blue glass eye that had been a doll’s most winning feature, consented to impart to him a song of such delicious badness that it had to be sung in secret. He had just learned it himself, and the knowledge of it admitted one to a sort of club, whose members were bound together by the vicious syllables. Dicky was pleasantly uncertain of its meaning, but it contained words that custom has banished from the family circle. They crooned it fearfully, with faces averted from the house, and an exhilarating sense of dissipation.
“’Yelly belly, yelly belly.’”
“Yellow belly, yellow belly, come an’ take a swim!
Yes, by golly, when the tide comes in!”
As he slipped back to the house alone, practising it furtively and foretasting the joys of imparting it to Peter, the stableman, Cecelia appeared suddenly from behind a large tree. She was all smiles—she was not afraid of him any more. Dancing lightly on one foot, she waved her bonnet and began to sing, bubbling with laughter. Horror! What did he hear?