But after a while Other-Sheila became less acquiescent and more assertive. And for the first time in her life, Sheila felt within her the troubling spirit of discontent. She wanted something, wanted it desperately as the very young always do, but she did not know what that something was. It was a tantalizing experience, and she saw no end to it.
"If I could only find out what I want, I might get it," she mused. And then, "Don't you know what it is, Other-Sheila?" But Other-Sheila was provokingly unresponsive, though it was probably her desire that fretted the objective Sheila's mind.
Mrs. Caldwell saw the unrest in the young girl's face and recognized it for what it was—the unrest of growth. It was a look of unborn things stirring beneath the surface, stirring and quivering as flowers must stir and tremble beneath the ground before they break their way through to the sun. But though she watched eagerly from day to day, ready to do her part when the hour for it should come, Mrs. Caldwell was too wise a gardener to hasten bloom.
"Peter," said she one day, when he had paused in an indolent stroll to chat with her over her garden hedge, "Peter, it's a terrible thing to be young!"
"Is it?" he laughed. "Why?"
"So many things have to happen to you!" And out of the security of her placid years Mrs. Caldwell spoke with an earnest pity.
Peter laughed again. "Well, I'm young—at least, I suppose I would be so considered. And nothing ever happens to me!"
Mrs. Caldwell surveyed him with mischievous eyes. "No, Peter," she contradicted, "you're not young—yet. You're not even alive yet. You're too lazy to really live! But you'll have to come to it some day. We all have to be born finally."
He chuckled at her comprehension of him. Then a disturbed look fluttered across his face: "Do you actually mean that there's no escape?"
"None! It's better to yield gracefully—and have it over. And if you don't hurry a bit, Sheila will be through her growing pains while yours are still before you!"