Baron, seeking for a symbol, believed there was no hope of finding it in this. His mind wandered, and when he brought it back to the child who sat before him she was talking of her own problem in a way which did not touch his at all.
“I think it’s the chance of my life,” she was saying, “my being here with you all.”
“A chance—for what?” he asked.
“Oh, to pick things up. You know I can’t always be a Little Eva. I’ll be too old for that after a while. And then it will be handy for me to have a little—a little class.”
“Class!” exclaimed Baron. “Class?”
He had been arguing that the one thing wrong with his way of thinking and living was that he and his family had attached a silly importance to the class idea, and that it had prevented him from learning to be active and useful in ways that counted in the world in which he had to live.
“It’s a good thing,” defended Bonnie May. “It’s needed in all the best plays. And you can’t get it just by going to the wardrobe mistress, either. It’s something that’s got to be in you. In order to do it right, you’ve pretty near got to have the goods.”
She couldn’t understand why Baron had spoken with such emphasis—with such resentment.
“Class,” mused Baron to himself. He looked intently at this child who did not know where she had been born—who knew nothing even about her parentage.
But she had turned to a happier memory. “You know you can’t play the part of Little Eva very long, even when you begin quite early. And I was just a little bit of a thing when I played it first.” She laughed heartily. “I couldn’t even speak plain. I used to say ‘U’kle Tom’! How they laughed at me! ‘U’kle Tom!’ It’s really a hideous word, isn’t it? ‘Uncle,’ and ‘aunt,’ too. You can see that the man who framed up those words never thought very highly of uncles and aunts. Just compare those words with ‘father’ and ‘mother’! Aren’t they lovely? Father!” she spoke the word musingly. “Father!” Her body drooped forward slightly, and her face was pitched up so that she was gazing into space. “Beautiful words, and mother! ... mother!” Her voice had become a yearning whisper.