“Well, He ain’t never promised to make ‘em fat,” returned Susan dryly; “but as for happy—! Louis, I’ve been through a lot, and I know what I’m talkin’ about. Them that come to Him, He don’t never cast out, you remember that. He ain’t never forsook me yet, and He ain’t a-goin’ to. Ef I begin to doubt Him and fret about not bein’ of no use no more, then He sends an angel to visit with me; that’s what He does, Louis!”
“Does He really?” said George, who had listened open-mouthed to all this conversation.
“Well,” said Susan, laughing, though with the tears in her eyes, “p’raps I’d oughter said two angels; but, to tell you the truth, George, I forgot you slick and clean.”
Männerchor Hall stood about midway between Metzerott’s shop and the residence of Dr. Richards, which stood, as Mrs. Randolph had often regretfully remarked, in an old and unfashionable quarter of the town. Louis was therefore able to find his way thither alone; for, though he was but five and a half, children younger than he were left much more to their own guidance, all around him. In fact, one neighbor of the shoemaker’s, whose six-year-old daughter was nightly obliged to fetch him home from the corner saloon, had long ago prophesied that Metzerott would ruin that boy by over-care, and advised the inculcation of habits of self-reliance.
But there was no lack of self-reliance about the small figure in the fur cap and brown overcoat, with mittened hands rammed tightly into the pockets of the same, that stepped along so carefully over the icy sidewalks, and watched so keenly at the crowded crossings for a chance to get over. There was, indeed, even a tinge of self-importance; was he not the bearer of knowledge? For the idea had come to Louis that he could “’vide” the letters he had learned with Freddy, and that they could learn to read “togevver;” which plan was found to result admirably, assisted by a box of alphabetical blocks.
Learning to read was at least a quiet amusement; and Louis’ visits were found to conduce so greatly to the tranquillity necessary to Dr. Richards’s comfort as to be promoted not only by Alice, but even by Pinkie’s nurse, who had at first been inclined to consider the shoemaker’s son no fit playmate for her little charge. Yet Louis could be noisy enough with George; and was wont to storm in and out of his father’s shop in a way to rejoice his father’s heart, it was only that with Freddy, who was a cripple, and Pinkie, who was a girl, another side of his nature came into play. Besides, all of Freddy’s noisy toys had been put away,—drum, pop-gun, and toy locomotive stood together on a high shelf, with Pinkie’s beloved wheel (or feel, as she called it) leaning against the closet wall beneath it; its sharply, irritatingly, jingling little bell silent perforce. But there remained innumerable books, and the blocks before named, which were probably somewhat amazed at finding themselves considered from a literary rather than an architectural standpoint.
Among the books was a picture Bible for children, which was not without its influence upon the young minds that studied it; for, though the letter-press had only begun to wear a faint look of familiarity to their young eyes, the pictures were numerous; and most of the stories had been told or read to Freddy until he knew them by heart. Pinkie had never in her life been so good, the nurse said, as when she listened with all her eager little ears to the story of the Flood, illustrated by the toy Noah’s Ark; or personated Isaac to Louis’ sacrificial Abraham, while Freddy, aided by a pair of immense paper horns, represented the ram caught in the bushes. During Louis’ intervening absences, Pinkie was her spoilt, mischievous little self; and disputes between her and Freddy, whose spinal column predisposed him to fretfulness, and who was as unaccustomed to contradiction as Pinkie herself, were distressingly frequent; but when one o’clock brought Louis, smiling radiantly, and full of some new idea that he had picked up, or new word that he had learned from Susan Price or a street sign, and was eager to teach the others by means of Freddy’s blocks,—Pinkie’s naughtiness and wilfulness vanished like a dream, and she became the most docile little maid that ever invited the judgment of Solomon, or was slain, as Jephthah’s daughter, among the hills of Palestine.
Their favorite characters, however, were taken from the New Testament; and though nurse—a devout Romanist—averred that “it gave her a turn, to see thim childer playin’ at bein’ the blessed Mother and the dear Saviour,” she was too learned in the ways of children, and of Pinkie in particular, to risk an interruption, when Dr. Richards lay asleep and the house was holding its breath for fear of disturbing him. So the precedent was established, and after that she was powerless to interfere, except at the expense of a general mutiny.
The rôle of the Christ was always taken by Louis; why, it seemed difficult to explain, for he was never unwilling to resign to the others any character to which they specially inclined. Freddy might be Elijah, fed with cake crumbs by wingless ravens at an imaginary Cherith, or King Solomon to Pinkie’s Queen of Sheba; or Pinkie herself might choose any impersonation she liked, regardless of sex and size; from Adam or Noah, to Goliath of Gath. But, without argument or controversy, the part of the Christ invariably fell to Louis. Perhaps he cared more for it than they did; perhaps they felt it was less alien to his nature than to theirs. For indeed the thought of “being a little Christ-child himself,” which his father had half carelessly planted, and Susan Price had watered, had—whether by a Great First Cause or Fors Fortuna—been given increase.
“Would the Christ-child do that?” he sometimes asked. “How did the Christ-child do?” he would say. And in his mornings spent with George, amusing Aunt Susan, or his afternoons passed in keeping Freddy and Pinkie good and quiet, he was living out that holy Life which he had been taught to believe only a fairy-tale.