Seven O'Clock Stories Part 21

"Aw, just playin'," he answered his mother.

Then his mother asked a very strange question:

"Where's the party?"

Jehosophat _was_ surprised. "Party" sounded fine.

"What party, Mother?" he asked.

"I don't know," his mother replied. "I just thought you were dressed up for one."

And he looked down at his clean suit and his Sunday best shoes. And from out the corner of his eye he saw wet places on the floor and muddy tracks, about as big as his feet.

No answer now had Jehosophat. He guessed he would go into the parlour. So he sat down at the marble-topped table, and looked at the picture book which Uncle Roger had given him. It was full of great white s.h.i.+ps sailing the blue sea.

For a moment he almost forgot all his troubles, so interested was he in looking at those great s.h.i.+ps and their sails and all the wonderful fish.

Then suddenly he remembered.

He looked out through the door into the dining-room.

Mother wasn't saying anything. She was just busy. That was all.

But had she forgotten?

Somehow Jehosophat did not like the sad look on her face.

He went and shut the door. He thought he would feel more comfortable if he couldn't see Mother's eyes. Then he sat down to look at the picture book again. But he felt more miserable than ever.

Bang! he shut the book too. It was very strange. The things that usually made him so happy weren't any fun at all just then.

Then he looked up at the mantel.

Above it hung a great picture. There was a man in a c.o.c.ked hat. He had on a fine uniform and he rode a tall white horse. Jehosophat knew very well who that was. It would be _his_ birthday tomorrow--George Was.h.i.+ngton's birthday. The teacher had told them all about it that very afternoon.

She had told them a story, too, about a hatchet and a cherry tree--and--a lie!

The man on the horse looked down from the picture. The eyes were very stern.

A lie!

Yes, that was just what he had told to Mother. He had told a lie, and acted a lie.

Though there was no one else in the room but the great man in the big picture, Jehosophat's cheeks grew very red. A lump came into his throat.

Now he never could be president nor have a sword--and ride a big white horse--and call "Forward March" to the whole army. No--never!

To the window he went, and pressed his nose against the pane. The clouds were grey. It all seemed very dark and not at all cheerful as the world ought to be.

Once more he looked up at the picture.

And as he looked at the eyes of the man in the picture, they told him to do something.

He decided to do it. And as soon as he decided he felt better--not _all_ better--but better.

And out into the dining-room he marched. He had to close his fists tight, for it is very hard sometimes to tell people you've done wrong to them, especially if they are people you love.

"Mother," he said--not very loud.

She looked up.

"Yes?"

"Mother--I----"

He stopped. Mother looked up. She saw his lip tremble a little and wanted to take him in her arms. But she didn't just then. He must tell what he had to tell, first.

"Mother--I told a lie--I got my feet wet--slos.h.i.+n'--and I said I was playin' when I changed my clothes--an' I'm sorry an'--an'--I'll never do it again."

Then Mother did take him in her arms and she kissed him and hugged him too.

"Well--I love my little boy all the more for this. It was very wrong to disobey, worse still to tell a lie. But it was hard to tell me your own self about it and you were brave."

So she kissed him. And her eyes weren't sad any more.

SEVENTEENTH NIGHT

THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN

Mother Green and Father Green were fast asleep in the White-House-with-the-Green-Blinds. The Toyman was fast asleep too. Rover and Brownie and Wienerwurst lay curled up in their kennels, with their eyes tight shut. On their poles in _their_ house all the White Wyandottes perched like feathery b.a.l.l.s, their heads sunk low on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. On the roof cuddled the pretty pigeons, all pink and grey and white. In the barn Teddy, and Hal, and Methuselah, and Black-eyed Susan, and all the four-footed friends of the three happy children, rested from the cares of the day. Hepzebiah never stirred in her crib, and Jehosophat lay dreaming of something very pleasant.

But the crickets, and the katydids, the scampering mice, and the big-eyed owls, and the little stars, snapping their tiny fingers of light up in the sky, and Marmaduke--_they_ were awake.

He had played very hard that day and he had leg-ache. Mother had rubbed it till it felt better and he fell asleep, but now it began to hurt again and he woke up. The Little-Clock-with-the-Wise-Face-on-the-Mantel struck, not seven times but four. It was long past midnight--_it was four o 'clock in the morning_!

But Marmaduke didn't call his mother. He thought that it would be too bad to wake her up from that nice sleep. So he just tried to rub his leg himself.

It was then that he heard that far-off noise like a rumble of thunder. But it wasn't thunder. It was something rolling over the bridge down the road.

Marmaduke sat up in bed and looked out of the window into the dark shadows of the trees.

There was another rumble, and another and another. There must be, oh, so many wagons rolling by in the night. Then he heard the sound of horses'

hoofs on the road, the clank of rings and iron trace chains.