Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings Part 9

"If you think his mother ought to be sent for--I'm afraid I'm in a blue funk!" She had returned and was splas.h.i.+ng the water over the edge of the gla.s.s as she held it out. He laughed rea.s.suringly. His face, turned sidewise up at her, was as reviving as cool water upon a faint. Miss Theodosia "came to."

"I've got over it. Go ahead--tell me precisely what you want done. Write it down somewhere. I can read writing! And I can't forget it. Of course I can rock him?"

He did not answer at once, and she misinterpreted his silence.

"I shall rock him," she said with firmness. "Written down or not written down." And again he laughed, with the same curiously explosive little effect as when she had first heard him do it as a Shadow Man.

It was long after he left before Elly Precious woke. With remarkable presence of mind, Miss Theodosia had darkened the room to make the difference between herself and Evangeline or Stefana as inconspicuous as possible. It helped. Elly Precious, even busy with his measles, might have vigorously refused this strange new ministering. But in the darkness he accepted it with a measure of resignation. He appeared to be looking inward at his own poor little pains instead of outward or upward at Miss Theodosia. She wisely refrained from speech during those first critical moments.

Ten-year-old arms may not be as steady for cradling as thirty-six-year olds. Miss Theodosia's were steady and soft. The baby nestled into them and she rocked him.

She was rocking a baby! She was glad to be alone in the dark. The sensation rather overwhelmed her. Then Elly Precious flung up little hot hands and touched her face, and the sensation was no longer a new one.

Surely she had felt it before. Was it in another incarnation that she had rocked a little child? The small, hot hands tugged at her heartstrings--they must have tugged, just so, at that ancient rocking.

It was a beautiful tune, but not a new tune that the small hands played.

No, no--not new!

Miss Theodosia began to croon softly, no longer afraid of sound. And Elly Precious snuggled deeper.

Shut in together--she and he and the measles--they grew accustomed to each other. After the first, the days went rather fast, with Evangeline's help through the window and under the door. Evangeline helped from the first. Miss Theodosia found little letters emerging through the tight crack under her outside door. The first one she read smilingly:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Evangeline established a stage of action outside the window.]

"He likes jiggy tunes best--please sing him jiggy tunes."

So she sang them to Elly Precious and found he liked them best; Evangeline knew. This method of helping promised to be valuable.

One day there were two little letters under the door.

"When he crys, he'll stop if you distrack him. Like this--_boo_--or make a cow-noise or a horse-noise, but it doesn't always work. Sometimes he keaps right on and then its no use to distrack him. Try tickleing unless tickleing is bad for measles."

This was a long note. Miss Theodosia did not smile this time because of the new sensitiveness in the region of her heart. When she read the second note, she held it a long time in her hand while something wet blistered it in spots.

"Please don't be mad if I worry a little for fear Elly Precious will throw off his cloes. He's a dreadfull throw-offer, so we pin his sides to the cloesbasket but maybe you don't sleep him in a cloesbasket. I couldent sleep last night.

"P.S. With safety pins."

Sometimes they were cheerful little letters that peeped under the tight crack. Evangeline wrote the news to Elly Precious. That Stefana's washes came easier now and Carruthers was good all the time, only they never let him be steam whistles, of course. That they all missed Elly Precious and hoped that they'd be short measles and, mercy gracious, yes, they loved him, and Aunt Sarah was knitting again.

As the baby began to convalesce (they were short measles) and could sit up on Miss Theodosia's lap in front of the window, Evangeline's most important a.s.sistance began. For Elly Precious had very restless occasions and even Miss Theodosia's new skill failed always to "distrack" him.

Evangeline established a stage of action outside the biggest-paned, lowest-silled window, where vision was least obscured from within. On that stage she danced wild, long dances, varying with each performance.

It was amazing how she varied them--sometimes bending and bowing tirelessly, sometimes evolving remarkable skirt dances from legs and toes and whirling petticoats. She grimaced unweariedly as long as Elly Precious would laugh at her faces. When he tired of those, she impersonated a cow--a horse--and made cow-noises and horse-noises at the top of her voice, to carry to Elly Precious.

Day after day she came, and they watched her from the big-paned window--the baby and Miss Theodosia. It was a great help to the measles.

"I never saw such a child!" Miss Theodosia said to the Reformed Doctor.

"She never gets tired of doing it."

"Never was but one Evangeline--but she gets tired all right. Needn't tell me!"

"Then it's--love," Miss Theodosia said gently.

"It is," nodded he.

They had proceeded far in their acquaintance. Elly Precious had been so tiny a thing between them, as they ministered to him! It was not to be wondered at that they had drawn closer. After his professional "call,"

John Bradford fell into the way of lingering till she brought him tea.

"Talk about women loving tea!" she gibed gayly.

"Talk about it being the men that want three lumps!"

"That is queer, isn't it? We're the wrong way about; I like mine sweet and you don't want any sugar. We're the exceptions that prove the rule.

If you'll hold Elly Precious a minute, I'll fill your cup."

"That will make three."

"'And I'll do it again, if you like--and again if you like!'" she quoted.

"Are you making stories now?" she asked him that day.

And he nodded gravely, "One--a love-story."

"Tell me about it! We want to hear it, don't we, Elly Precious? We love love-stories."

"Not yet. Not till it is a little farther along." He set the third cup down untasted. His face, as Miss Theodosia looked smilingly at it across the baby's head, had grown grave. She wondered simply. Miss Theodosia was not making a love-story.

"Will you tell us about it when it's farther along? About the heroine and how she likes being in a love-story? Mercy gracious, it must be exciting!"

"If I can find out how she likes it," was his enigmatic answer. "She may not work out as I want her to. Heroines are women, you know."

"Well, of all things! If you can't make your heroine behave, I don't see who can!"

"I don't," he said slowly. "But I shall do my best."

Another day, she had something to show him, and she made a little mystery of it at first. She and Elly Precious knew! It was something sweet--it could be worn, but you seldom looked at it. It was soft and hard, too. You could--kiss it! When it was empty you wanted to kiss it, and when it was full you had to!

"Show it to me!" he commanded; "think I can guess all that?"

She brought it and laid it in his hands, delighted like a girl.

"Feel of it--isn't it soft? And I never made one before, so it was hard!

You seldom look at it, because it's worn in the dark. You'd like to kiss it now, it's so sweet, but when I put Elly Precious into it, you'll _have_ to kiss it! There, didn't I tell you right?"

It was a little nightgown she had made for Elly Precious. He held it on his two big hands like something wonderful. Its little sleeves dangled over, and she caught one of them and squeezed it in a sort of soft ecstasy.

"It's so little!" she cried in a whisper. "Aren't you going to kiss it?"

"If you'll look away--I'm afraid to when you're looking."