The Cromptons

by Mary Jane Holmes

With him was a little girl, three years old or more, clinging to his hand as if in fear. Her garments were all coarse and old-fashioned, except the scarlet merino cloak. The hood was drawn over her head, and from it there looked out a pair of eyes, which, had Peter ever heard of the word, he would have said were uncanny, they were so large, and bright, and moved so rapidly from one object to another. She dropped the hood from her head, and began tugging at the ribbons of her cloak, while her lip quivered as if she were about to cry. It came at last, not like anything Peter had ever heard, and was more like a howl than a cry, for "Shaky; me wants Shaky."

It was loud, and shrill, and penetrated to all parts of the house, bringing Sally, the cook, Jane, the chambermaid, and Sam, the coachman, all into the hall, where they stood appalled at what they saw.

"Shaky, Shaky," the child wailed on, frightened by the strange faces around her, and as he did not come she threw herself upon the floor, and began to bump her head up and down, her last resort when her paroxysms were at their height.

The Colonel had borne a good deal since leaving Savannah, and had more than once been tempted to turn back and either bring Shaky, or leave the child with him. She had cried for him till she was purple in the face, and the stewardess had struck her on her back to make her catch her breath, and then taken her in her arms, and tried to comfort her. Perhaps it was owing to her color that the child took to her so readily that the Colonel said to her, "Keep her quiet, if you can, and I do not care what I pay you."

After that the little girl staid mostly with the stewardess, and was comparatively happy. Judy was a great comfort to her, and she kept it hugged to her bosom through the day, and slept with it at night, and when she reached the Crompton House it was in the inside pocket of her cloak. Becoming detached from the pocket as she rolled on the floor it fell at Peter's feet, making him start, it was so unlike anything he had seen in years.

"Great guns!" he exclaimed, spurning it with his foot, and sending it near the child, who snatched it up with a cry of "Judy, Judy, my Judy."

"Who is she, and where did she come from?" the cook asked, while Jane tried to soothe the excited child.

"Her name is Eudora Harris," the Colonel said. "Her father is a sneaking scoundrel; her mother was a good woman, and my friend. She is dead, and there is no one to care for her child but myself. I have brought her home to bring up as my own. Jaky is the colored man who took care of her with Mandy Ann, a colored girl. She will cry for her by and by."

As if to prove his words true the child set up a howl for Mandy Ann; "me wants Mandy Ann," while the Colonel continued, "She is to be treated in all respects as a daughter of the house. Get her some decent clothes at once, you women who understand such things. Don't mind expense. Give her a pretty room, and I think you'd better hunt up some young person to look after her. Until the girl comes Jane must sleep in the room with her, and don't bother me unless it is necessary; I feel quite used up, and as if I had been through a thrashing-machine. I am not used to children, and this one is—well, to say the least, very extraordinary."

This was a good deal for the Colonel to say at one time to his servants, who listened in wonder, none of them knowing anything except Peter, who kept his knowledge to himself. And this was all the explanation the Colonel gave, either to his servants, or to the people outside who knew better than to question him, and who never mentioned the child in his presence. Gossip, however, was rife in the neighborhood, and many were the surmises as to the parentage of the little girl who for a time turned the Crompton House upside down, and made it a kind of bedlam when her fits were on, and she was rolling on the floor, and bumping her head, with cries for Shaky and Mandy Ann. She was homesick, and cared nothing for the beautiful things they brought her. Against the pretty dresses she fought at first, and then submitted to them, but kept her old one in a corner of her room, and Susie, the girl hired to attend her, sometimes found her there asleep with her head upon it, and Judy held closely in her arms. They bought her a doll-house which was fitted up with everything calculated to please a child, but after inspecting it a while she turned from it with a cry for her "shady" under the palm tree in the clearing. The doll, Mandy Ann, which the Colonel had bought in Savannah, never took the place of Judy, who was her favorite, together with the scarlet cloak, which she would seldom let out of her sight. During the day she kept it round her, saying, "Me's cold," and at night she had it near her bed where she could see it the first thing in the morning.