“He’s too little, he can’t understand, he don’t know any better. It ain’t any use telling him; there’d oughta be somebody after him,” argued Mrs. Shields desperately. “I’m awful sorry, but I just had to make him quit it. I know I hadn’t no right to, but——”
“Yes? Yes!” said Mrs. Gowdy vaguely but forgivingly. The older children stood around in a silence that conveyed a certain clannish hostility toward Mrs. Shields, yet no very lively sympathy for Wilbur. Luella retired sulkily, and Mrs. Gowdy looked after her with something as near anxiety as her placid countenance could express. “I do hope she won’t leave!”
“Mis’ Gowdy, I wouldn’ta done it, only there wasn’t none of you round, and somebody had to!”
“Yes? Well, perhaps it would have been better to telephone in and tell me first. But never mind!” said Mrs. Gowdy kindly.
This episode resulted in a species of armed peace between the two households, or on Mrs. Shields’s side at any rate. The others were either too magnanimous or too irresponsible to hold a grudge; they forgave and forgot even before the last of the chickens had come to its end one way or another, that is, within the next twenty-four hours. Mrs. Shields resolutely ignored their fate; she cleaned, gardened, spread meals for the birds with her back carefully turned on the church premises, and it was only by accident that from an upper window she caught a glimpse one day of another slatted box not far from where the wreckage of the first still lay, and of the family gathered around, peering in, reaching down into it, exclaiming. “Bunny! Bunny!” they chorused. Plainly, another course in humanity was being inaugurated. “My God!” said Mrs. Shields aloud, and turned away with a despairing philosophical shrug. At intervals for a week thereafter, escaping rabbits scudded through her yard, or housed under the shrubbery, proceedings which she unaccountably never witnessed. “Your bunnies? No, I ain’t seen none round here,” she would assure the pursuing children with her meaningless smile; and when the animals were recaptured, exhibited none of the relief that might have been expected. But in a little while the incursions ceased; the rabbits were apparently disciplined to their prison. It stood in the same place, rain or shine, day after day, and the “Bunny, bunny” was heard with less and less frequency.
Perhaps sheer curiosity, perhaps some more creditable feeling at last overcame Mrs. Shield’s self-enforced inhibitions; for one sultry afternoon when the family were all out on a swimming and picnicking expedition, conveyed in a parishioner’s automobile, she guiltily slipped around through the alley into the other yard. There was one rabbit left of the pair; it lay on its side in one corner of the stifling pen, breathing hurriedly. Mrs. Shields cleaned out the pan in another corner and filled it with fresh water; she put a little store of lettuce leaves alongside. The creature turned a lack-lustre eye on her, without stirring. She stood awhile contemplating it, or it might be some purpose slowly forming in her mind. “For two cents I’d let you out,” she remarked finally. “Only you’re so sick and weak you can’t get away. So that wouldn’t be any use!” She pondered awhile longer, then with an air of decision, marched back into her own house and sat down to the telephone. With her hand on the instrument, she seemed to waver, reconsidering; then with a defiant gesture, snatched the receiver off the hook.
A complacent patriot would have looked upon succeeding events as demonstrating conclusively an efficiency in public office which some other patriots are prone to question. Bright and early the next morning there presented himself at the parsonage front door a massive, elderly, decent, badged official, and incontinently agitated rumours filled the air. Luella might be heard declaiming violently; Doctor Gowdy, Mrs. Gowdy uplifted mild, startled argument; everybody united in silencing the children. A caucus was held in the back yard; and then the officer departed. It was most melodramatic and intriguing; there were communicants of Saint Luke’s, not to mention innumerable outsiders, who would have envied Mrs. Shields her proscenium-box location, but she herself took no advantage of it, and it was without alacrity that she answered the doorbell when the officer visited her in turn.
He touched his hat. “Good morning! Is this where the lady telephoned for the Humane S’ciety——?” He stopped short abruptly, staring, seeming to labour vainly with some stupendous fact well-nigh beyond his grasp. “Well, well, well! Look who’s here!” he managed to get out, after a long minute.
Mrs. Shields did not answer; she stood before him, her bearing sullen, hostile, a little frightened.
“Look who’s here!” the officer ejaculated again, apostrophizing the ceiling; then he brought his gaze down, and sent it everywhere, alertly exploring. “You living here?”