“Aye, aye, sir.”
The coal flew about thick and fast, the commanders shuffled the lumps into place, cheering and encouraging their officers and crews. Ship after ship sank, to rise no more, in a clatter of coal on the hearth.
Under cover of the noise Uncle Frank led them away, silent, through the empty rooms, to where the deserted Christmas tree sheltered only Minna, cooing German cradle-songs to her sleeping baby.
“Now look here,” he said. “Let’s be sensible, dear people. We’ll go on enjoying our presents and sports—and let Bobbert enjoy his. Why not, eh?”
THE HEART OF A CHILD
The sun-glare lies on the road and the field and the house. The beetles buzz and buzz, and the hens chuckle drowsily, half sunk in the gray dust. There are only three little white clouds in all the warm blue sky. It is quite still, except for the hens and the beetles and the occasional flap of the collie’s tail on the warm flags. No one passes up or down the road. It is the hot noon sleep of the country in August.
Suddenly comes the grating sound of something dragged over the floor, and the door opens. The Child pushes out with a little wooden rocking-chair and a great tin pan heaped with unshelled peas. She stands the chair carefully in the coolest patch of shade and squeezes her plump little body between the curved arms. Her blue-checked apron is tied by the waistband around her neck—it is a grown woman’s apron, and covers her and the chair, which is far too small for her, now. But one cannot be always eight years old, and when one is eleven shall one relinquish without a pang the birthday gifts of one’s childhood?
She lays the pan beside her and puts a handful of peas into her blue-checked lap. She presses her brown little thumb against the sharp green edge and drags it down the pod. Out patter the little green balls, and rattle into the pan. Truly, a pleasant sound! Like the rain on the roof. When she was very little and slept with her mother, she woke once in the night, and it was raining hard. The thunder frightened her, and her mother comforted her and sang her to sleep in the bed. And when the lightning flashed and all the room was bright and dreadful, her mother told her to keep her eyes shut and then the flashes would not trouble her. So she screwed her eyes hard together and held her mother’s hand and drifted off to sleep.
That was so long ago! But whenever anything rattles and patters she shuts her eyes quickly, and sees for a moment the dark room and the square white counterpane, and hears her mother singing “Mary of Argyle.” She wonders if when we die and go to heaven we are reminded by little sights and sounds of what we used to do on earth. Of course, we shall do only pleasant things there, but they might remind us of the pleasant things here—the pasture in the early morning, when it is so still and cool and almost strange; the barn, full of sweet piles of hay, musical with pigeons, checkered with amber sunlight, a fairy palace on whose fragrant divans one sits with sultans and slave girls, and listens to Sindbad and Aladdin; the shady porch, where cool white milk and dark shiny gingerbread wait the weary, berry-stained wanderer. In the brown book in the parlor is a poem about a little girl who used to “take her little porringer and eat her supper there.” The Child feels like that little girl when she eats in the porch.
There is another little girl in the brown book—“Sweet Lucy Gray.” She thinks of Lucy when she comes home alone at dusk, and quickens her steps.