He was backward both in walking and in talking. Twenty months had passed over his curly head before he could fairly stand alone; and then his vocabulary was much more limited than is usual with children of that age. But Edward construed this into a favorable sign. "Your precocious children rarely amount to anything," he said. "They wear themselves out before they come to the real work of life. I should really feel disappointed if Little John should grow up a model school-boy. He would be sure to develop into a pedagogue, or a book-worm, or something of the sort. Thanks to Providence, he promises better."
His foster-parents rarely thought of him as an adopted child, so effectually had he possessed himself of their love. From time to time, however, in some moment of enthusiasm, Edward would declare that the more he thought about it the more he was led to believe that it was better to have found Little John than to have had a child of their own. "You see, Ellen," he would say, "we both have an active, nervous temperament. A child would be very apt to inherit this in an exaggerated degree, and consequently to lead a life unhappy in itself, besides causing us a great deal of sorrow and disappointment. But what a wonderful reserve of nerve-force Little John has! Whether he turns out a judge, an artist, or a sailor, it will count for more than his physique, and that is priceless." And then Ellen would smile contentedly. In those days the Lindsays were very happy indeed.
The charms of Marant are well known, and it is not surprising that the Lindsays should have protracted their stay to the utmost, and that autumn should have arrived before they turned their faces westward. Doubtless Little John would have strongly protested against quitting the sea-side, had he been aware that he was about to do so. For several days after returning to St. Louis he was certainly almost inconsolable. He begged constantly, in his peculiar, abbreviated language, for the beach and the ocean, with especial earnestness whenever he was taken for a promenade in his perambulator. But in time, of course, the grand impression faded from his memory,—to the secret delight of Ellen, who had never become quite reconciled to his adoration of the sea.
As the child acquired words and accomplishments, he lost nothing of his sweetness and strangely mature dignity. When the tan disappeared from his cheeks, he looked a little less robust; but this was to have been expected. Such confidence had the Lindsays in the invulnerability of his constitution that they were not alarmed when he experienced his inevitable first indisposition of a serious character. Mrs. Doly and Ellen agreed that it was a natural consequence of the change in his diet and mode of life since they had come back to the city, and Dr. Kreiss, who was at once summoned, substantiated the theory. But the next day Little John was no better, and at night so decidedly worse that Edward sent for the doctor again. The man of medicine looked grave this time. He stayed with the little sufferer for several hours. Before midnight he came once more; and when he went away Little John was dead.
The blow fell upon the Lindsays with the more crushing force from its terrible suddenness. Among all the contingencies to which they had looked forward they had never seriously considered the possibility of this. They had prepared themselves for disappointment, but not for bereavement. For the first time they realized how thoroughly their adopted child had become a part of their life. Hours that had been the brightest in the day now dragged along wearisomely, and they often sat in silence together, because they knew that if they spoke at all It must be of Little John. After a time they saw, as many young parents have seen after their first great loss, that the world could never be quite the old world to them again. But they felt their love for each other to be all the stronger, and they tried hard to lighten each other's sorrow by being cheerful and brave. It was saddest, of course, for Ellen. All day she was alone in the house, and, though she might busy her hands over a watercolor or an etching, her thoughts would often stray away and send the tears to her eyes. Occasionally she yielded to impulse and paid furtive visits to the nursery, where, with a little dress or some other memento of her lost child laid upon her knees, she would sit in long revery. By and by Edward noticed that her face had taken upon itself a constant expression of sadness, which even her smiles could not disguise. He began to think about a European tour. From girlhood Ellen had looked forward to spending a year in study abroad, and it seemed to him that no time could be better than the present. It would be hard to leave his business; he could not do so before spring anyway; but everything should be sacrificed to Ellen's happiness, and, with her assent, he resolved, they should go at that season. Just now his business was unusually exacting. He became every day more alive to the fact that, unless he chose to lose a valuable portion of his client?, he must spend a few weeks in the Southwest. Many St. Louis capitalists were anxious to buy land in Texas at this unparalleled period of her prosperity, and many commissions as well as opportunities for private investment in the State demanded his attention at once. But could he and ought he to leave Ellen now? He could not decide. When he was at home he refused to consider the question at all; but at his office it constantly forced itself upon his attention. Finally, after a great deal of exasperatingly unsatisfactory correspondence with agents in Austin and Galveston, he went to Ellen.
"I will give the whole thing up, if you say so," he declared.
"But you think it very necessary for you to go?" she asked.
"From a business point of view, absolutely necessary. It is a question of improving or failing to improve a chance to make a good many thousand dollars. There is no middle course: I can't send anybody who could do the business for me. Still, if you are as unwilling to have me go as I am to leave you, I shall stay at home."
This was hardly fair, and Ellen was sorely tempted; but she was too brave and too true to yield to what she believed a selfish impulse. She wound her arms about her husband's neck and effectively testified her reluctance to permit the separation. She declared, however, that she would not countenance his staying at home,—that it was plainly his duty to go. She begged only that he would return at the earliest moment he could do so conscientiously. He earnestly assured her that she need have no doubt of that, and that a word from her would bring him home at any time.
"But if I am to go," he continued, "you must have somebody to stay with you while I am away. Why not ask Bertha Terry? You used to be always out sketching together, and I know she would be delighted to come."