Somebody\'s Little Girl
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Martha Young >> Somebody\'s Little Girl
SOMEBODY'S LITTLE GIRL
by Martha Young
Dedication
To
Two Little Elizabeths:
Elizabeth Young
and
Elizabeth Magruder
SOMEBODY'S LITTLE GIRL
If I were just to tell the things that Bessie Bell remembered I
should tell you some very strange things. Bessie Bell did not know
whether she remembered them, or just knew them, or whether they just
grew, those strange things in some strange country that never was
wnywhere in the world; for when Bessie Bell tried to tell about
those strange things great grown wise people said: ``No, no, Bessie
Bell, there is nothing in the world like that.''
So Bessie Bell just remembered and wondered.
She remembered how somewhere, sometime, there was a window where you
could look out and see everything green, little and green, and
always changing and moving, away, away--beyond everything little,
and green, and moving all the time. But great grown wise folks
said: ``No, there is no window in all the world like that.''
And once when some one gave Bessie Bell a little round red apple she
caught her breath very quickly and her little heart jumped and then
thumped very loudly (that is the way it seemed to her) and she
remembered: Little apple trees all just alike, and little apple
trees in rows all just alike on top of those and again on top of
those until they came to a great row of big round red apples on top
of all.
Rut great grown people said: ``No, no, Bessie Bell, there are no
apple trees in all the world like that.''
And one time Bessie Bell was at a pretty house and somebody sat her
on a little low chair and said: `` Keep still, Bessie Bell.''
She kept still so long that at last she began to be afraid to move
at all, and she got afraid even to crook up her little finger for
fear it would pop off loud,--she had kept still so long that all her
round little fingers and her round little legs felt so stiff.
Then one, great grown person said: ``She seems a very quiet child.''
And the other said: ``She is a very quiet child--sometimes.''
But just then Bessie Bell turned her head, and though her round
little neck felt stiff it did not pop!--and she saw--something in
a corner that was blue, green, and brown, and soft, and she forgot
how afraid to move she was, and she forgot how stiff she thought she
was, and she forgot how still she was told to be, and she jumped up
and ran to the corner and cried out: ``Pretty! Pretty! Pretty!''
One grown person took up the Thing that was blue, and green, and
brown, and soft, and waved it to and fro, to and fro in front of
Bessie Bell.
And Bessie Bell clapped her hands, and jumped for joy, and laughed,
and cried: ``Boo! boo! boo!''
And Bessie Bell ran right into the Thing that was blue, and green,
and brown, and soft, and she threw out her round little arms and
clasped them about the Thing that was blue, and green, and brown,
and soft!
And she pulled it over her face, and she laughed and cried for joy--
because she remembered--
But the great grown person who had brought Bessie Bell to the pretty
house said: ``Oh, Bessie Bell! Why, Bessie Bell! For shame, Bessie
Bell! How could you do so to the beautiful peacock-feather-fly-
brush!''
So Bessie Bell could only cry--and that very softly--and feel
ashamed as she was bid, and forget what it was that she remembered.
Bessie Bell might have remembered one time when a great house was
all desolate, and when nobody or nothing at all breathed in the
whole great big house, but one little tiny girl and one great big
white cat, with just one black spot on its tail.
The nurse that always had played so nicely with the tiny little girl
was lying with her cheek in her hand over yonder.
The Grandmother who had always talked so much to the tiny little
girl was not talking any more.
The tiny little girl was so sick that she only just could breathe
quickly, just so--and just so--.
If Bessie Bell could remember that, it was only that she remembered
the big white cat like a big soft dream. And she might have
remembered how, now and then, the big cat put out a paw and touched
the little girl's cheek, like a soft white dream-touch.
And that little girl had on a night-gown that was long, and soft,
and white, and on that little white night-gown was worked, oh so
carefully, in linen thread: ``Bessie Bell.''
Then the few people who walked about the world in Fever-time came in
to that big house, and they took up that little tiny girl that
breathed so softly and so quickly--just so!
And they read on her little white night-gown the words written with
the linen thread: ``Bessie Bell.''
And they said: ``Let us take this little girl with us.''
They put a big soft white blanket around the little girl and walked
out of the big house with her, someone carrying her in strong arms.
And the big white cat got down off the big white bed and rubbed
himself against the bedpost, and went round and round the bed-post,
and rubbed himself round and round the bed-post.
And the tiny little girl never saw the big house, or the big soft
white cat any more.
And now when it happened that she remembered something, great grown
people said: ``No, no, Bessie Bell, there is nothing in the world
like that.''
So she just wondered and remembered, and almost forgot what it was
that she did remember.
* * *
* *
*
Sister Mary Felice had all the little tiny girls playing in the
sand: that was the place that was meant for the little girls to play
in.
All the little girls had on blue checked aprons. All the aprons had
straps and buttons behind.
For just one hour every day all the little tiny girls played in the
sand, and while they played Sister Mary Felice sat on a willow-
wrought bench and watched them play.
Then when that hour was exactly passed Sister Angela always came
with a basket of netted canes, an Indian basket, on her arm. In the
Indian basket were little cakes--such nice little cakes--always they
had caraway seeds in them.
One day Sister Mary Felice said: ``Sister Angela, did Sister
Ignatius put too many caraway seeds in the cakes this time?''
Sister Angela said: ``I think not, Sister Mary Felice. Will you try
one?''
Sister Mary Felice said: ``I thank you, Sister Angela.''
Then Sister Mary Felice took one to try.
Then always Sister Angela, with the Indian basket on her arm, took
all the little girls to the long back gallery that was latticed in.
On a low shelf close against the lattice sat a row of white basins.
Then all the little tiny girls washed their little tiny hands in the
white basins. And while they washed their little tiny hands by twos
and by threes together, two little girls washing their hands in one
basin together, three little girls washing their hands together,
they all oftentimes laughed together and said:
``Wash together!
And be friends forever!
Wash together!
And be friends forever!''
Then Sister Angela held a long pink checked towel in her hands while
the little tiny girls came as their tiny hands were washed and wiped
them on the pink checked towel.
Then if two little girls took hold of the pink checked towel at once
they both laughed and sang:
``Don't wipe together,
Or we'll fight
Before night.''
And the other little girls that were still washing their hands in
the white basins on the low shelf by the back-gallery lattice sang
over and over again:
``Wash together! We'll wash together!
And we'll be happy forever!''
When all the pink clean tiny hands were wiped dry, or as nearly dry
as little girls do wipe tiny pink hands, on the pink checked towel
held for them by Sister Angela, then Sister Angela hung the pink
checked towel on the lowest limb of the arbor-vita tree. Then the
little girls all ran to sit down in a row on the lowest step of the
back gallery, with their little feet on the gravel below. Sister
Angela walked the length of the row, and gave to each little girl in
the row a sweet tiny cake, or maybe Sister Angela walked twice down
the row and gave to each little girl two cakes, or sometimes maybe
she walked three times down the row, and then each little girl had
three cakes; but no one little girl ever had more than every other
little girl.
Always Sister Angela sat a little way off from the row of the little
girls. She always sat on a bench under the great magnoliatree and
watched the tiny girls as they ate their tiny cakes.
And always the pink checked towel waved itself ever so softly to and
fro on the lowest limb of the arbor-vitae-tree, for that was the way
that pink checked towels did to help to dry themselves after helping
to dry so many little pink fingers. Often, so often, little brown
sparrows came hopping to the gravel to pick up any tiny crumbs of
cake that the little girls dropped, but you may be sure that they
did not drop so very many, many little brown crumbs for little brown
birds to find.
But if they were dropped, even if by rare chance were the crumbs so
large as to be nearly as large as half of a cake--why then, that
crumb had to stay for those little birds. It was the law! The law
that the little girls had made for themselves, and nobody but
themselves knew about that law--for the good of the birds. But no
little girl cared to disobey that law of their own that nobody but
themselves knew about, for if one had--how dreadful it would have
been--no little girl would have played with her until--oh, so long,
so long--until she might at last have been forgiven!
So all the little brown crumbs that the tiny little girls did drop,
why the tiny little brown birds did pick up,--and they never said
whether they liked caraway seeds or not!
* * *
* *
*
One day when the tiny little girls were all in a row eating cakes,
Sister Angela, sitting on a bench under the magnolia, said quite
suddenly: ``Good morning!''
She rose up from her seat under the great magnolia.
Then the little brown birds fluttered up from the gravel.
Then all the little girls looked up.
There stood two pretty grown-up people.
And these two grown-up people had no soft white around their faces
like the soft white around the face that Sister Angela wore, and
they had no black veils, soft and long like the black veil that
Sister Angela wore. And they had no little white crosses like the
small white cross that Sister Angela wore on the breast of her soft
black dress.
One of the pretty-grown up folks looked at one of the little tiny
girls and said: ``And what is her name?''
Sister Angela said: ``Bessie Bell was written on her little white
night-gown, done in linen thread.''
And Sister Angela said: ``Yes, we have always kept the little white
night-gown.''
And one of the pretty grown-up people said: ``Yes, that was right.
Always to keep the little white night-gown.''
And the other grown-up person said: ``And how comes that to be all
that you know?''
Sister Angela said: ``Because of the fever.''
And the pretty one said: ``The dreadful fever!''
Sister Angela said: ``Yes. The dreadful fever. It often leaves
none in a house, and even sometimes none in a whole neighborhood to
tell the story.''
If, as Sister Angela and the pretty grown person talked, there came
to Bessie Bell any thought of a great silent house, and a big white
cat, with just one bit of black spot on its tail, why if such a
thought came to Bessie Bell it came only to float away, away like
white thistle seed--drifting away as dreams drift.
When the two pretty grown ones had gone away, then Sister Angela had
nodded her head at the row of little girls, so that they might know
that they might go on eating their cakes, for of course the little
girls knew that they must hold their cakes in their hands and wait,
and not eat, when Sister Angela had shaken her head gently at them
while she talked to the two pretty ones. The little brown birds
seemed to know, too, that they could come back to the gravel to look
for crumbs again.
Then, as the little girls were again eating their cakes, one little
girl said: ``Sister Angela, were they Sisters?''
Sister Angela said: ``No, they are not Sisters.''
Then another little girl asked: ``Sister Angela, what were they,
then?''
Sister Angela said: ``They are only just ladies.''
Then always after that Bessie Bell and the other little girls were
glad when Only-Just-Ladies came to see them.
The sun shone nearly always, or it seemed to the little girls that
it nearly always shone, out in that large garden where they could
play the hour in the sand, and where they could spend one hour
eating their cakes with their feet on the gravel, and where they
could walk behind Sister Justina on all the shell-bordered walks
around the beds (but they must not step on the beds)--just one hour.
If a rain came it always did surprise them: those little girls were
always surprised when it rained! and they did not know exactly what
to do when it rained, though they knew almost always what to do when
the sun shone. One day when it rained it happened that the little
girls were all left over the one hour in the long room where all the
rows and rows of the little arm-chairs sat, and where all the little
girls learned to Count, and to say Their Prayers, and to Tell the
Time, and to sing ``Angels Bright,'' and to know the A B C blocks.
Sister Theckla, who always stayed the one hour in that room, had
gone to say to the Sisters that the one hour was over, and that it
was raining, and what must the little girls do now?
While Sister Theckla was gone, all the little girls went to the
windows, and all the tiny girls looked at the rain coming down,
coming down in drops, so many drops; and so fast the drops came that
they seemed to come in long strings of drops straight from the sky.
Then one little girl laughed and began to beat on the window by
which she stood, to beat all over it as far as her little damp pink
fingers could reach, and to say:
``Rain! Rain!
Go to Spain!
Rain! Rain!
Go to Spain!
Rain! Rain!
Go to Spain!''
And all the little girls thought that was so beautiful that they
began to beat all over the windows, too, just as high and just as
far as their little damp pink fingers could reach, and to sing as
loud and as gaily as they could sing:
``Rain! Rain!
Go to Spain!''
Sister Theckla and Sister Angela came to the door of the room,--and
they were so astonished that they could only look at one another and
say to one another: ``What do they mean? Where did they learn
that?''
And the little girl who had taught the other little girls that much
of the song remembered some more; and so she beat louder than ever
on the window pane and said:
``Rain, rain, rain,
Go away!
And come another day!''
All the little girls laughed more than ever and sang louder than
ever:
``Rain, rain, rain,
Go away!
Come again another day!''
Then Sister Angela looked at Sister Theckla and said: ``Where did
the child learn that, do you suppose?''
And Sister Theckla said: ``She is older than the others. She must
have learned it at home!''
And Sister Angela and Sister Theckla came into the room and they
said: ``See, now, what you have done to the windows!''
Sure enough, when the little girls looked at the windows the glass
was all dim and blurred with little damp finger-prints!
* * *
* *
*
It was one day as the sun shone as it did shine most days, that the
same little girl who knew how to sing that song when it rained was
running on the shell-bordered walk, holding Bessie Bell's hand and
running, when her little foot tripped up against Bessie Bell's
foot,--and over Bessie Bell rolled on the walk with the shell
border.
Then Bessie Bell cried and cried.
And Sister Mary Felice said: ``Bessie Bell, where are you hurt?''
Bessie Bell did not know where she was hurt: she only knew that she
was so sorry to have been so happy to be running, and then to roll
so suddenly on the walk.
Then the little girl said: ``She isn't hurt at all. She is just
crying.''
Sister Mary Felice said: ``But you threw her down. You must tell
her you are sorry.''
Then the little girl said: ``But I didn't mean to throw her down.''
``But,'' Sister Mary Felice said, ``you did trip her up, and you must
beg her pardon.''
Then Sister Theckla came to take all the little girls to the room
where so many chairs sat in so many rows, and she too said: ``Yes,
you must beg her pardon.''
Bessie Bell was listening so that she had almost stopped crying, but
now when Sister Story Felice and Sister Theckla both said to the
little girl, ``Yes, you must beg pardon,'' then the little girl began
to cry, too.
Then Bessie Bell grew so sorry again, she hardly knew why, or for
what, that she began to cry again.
So then both Sisters said again: ``Yes, you should beg pardon.''
But the little girl still cried, and said, ``But I didn't mean to
trip her.'' Then she shook her head at Bessie Bell and said--because
she just had to say it:
``I beg your pardon!
Grant me grace!
I hope the cat will scratch your face! ''
Oh! Sister Mary Felice looked at Sister Theckla, and Sister Theckla
looked at Sister Mary Felice--and they both said: ``Where did she
learn that?''
But Bessie Bell knew that the little girl did not mean to throw her
down, so she said, ``No, you didn't mean to do it.''
She had thought she ought to say that, and she had been getting
ready to say that before the little girl had been made to beg her
pardon, and now that she had gotten ready she said: ``No, you didn't
mean to do it.''
Then the little girl stopped crying, too, and ran and caught Bessie
Bell's hand again and said to her again:
``I beg your pardon!
Grant me grace!
I hope the cat won't scratch your face!''
So they went skipping down the walk together just as they had gone
before. Then Sister Mary Felice and Sister Theckla both said:
``Well! Well!''
* * *
* *
*
One time it came about that Bessie Bell lay a long time in her
little white crib-bed, and she did not know why, and she did not
care much why. She did not get up and play in the sand while Sister
Mary Felice looked one hour at the little girls playing in the sand.
She scarcely wondered why she did not leave the crib-bed to sit on
the long gallery-step in a row with all the other little girls, all
with their feet on the gravel, and all eating the tiny cakes that
Sister Ignatius made, while Sister Angela sat on the bench under the
magnolia-tree and looked at the row of little girls.
If sometimes just at waking from fitful sleep in her crib-bed there
came to her just a thought, or a remembrance, of a great big soft
white cat that reached its paw out and softly touched her cheek, it
came to her only like the touch of fancy in a big soft white dream.
Often Only-Just-Ladies came and talked over her little white crib
with Sister Helen Vincula.
Bessie Bell's little fingers were no longer pink and round now; they
lay just white, so white and small, on the white spread. And Bessie
Bell did not mind how quiet she was told to be, for she was too
tired to want to make any noise at all.
One day it happened that an Only-Just-Lady came and said: ``Sister
Helen Vincula, I want to give you a ticket to carry you away to the
high mountain, and I want you to go to stay a month in my house on
the mountain, and I want you to carry this little sick girl with
you. And when you are there, Sister Helen Vincula, my bread-man
will bring you bread, and my milk-man will bring you milk, and my
market-man from the cove will bring you apples and eggs, and all the
rest of the good things that come up the mountain from the warm
caves.''
``For,'' the Only-Just-Lady said, ``I want this little sick girl to
grow well again, and I want her little arms and legs and fingers to
get round and pink again.''
Bessie Bell thought that that was a very pretty tale that the Lady
was telling, but she did not know or understand that that tale was
about her. Then the Only-Just-Lady said, ``Sister Helen Vincula, it
will do you good, too, as well as this little girl to stay in the
high mountains.
Not until all of Bessie Bell's little blue checked aprons, and all
of her little blue dresses, and all of her little white petticoats,
and all of her little white night-gowns, and even the tiny old
night-gown with the linen thread name worked on it, had been put
with all the rest of her small belongings into the old trunk with
brass tacks in the leather, the old, old trunk that had belonged to
Sister Helen Vincula, did Bessie Bell know that it was herself,
little Bessie Bell, who was going away Somewhere.
* * *
* *
*
It was a very strange new world to Bessie Bell, that new world up on
the High Mountain.
She did not think the grand views off the edge of the high mountain
so strange. But she loved to look out on those views as she stood
by Sister Helen Vincula on the graycliff; Sister Helen Vincula
holding her hand very fast while they both looked down into the
valleys and coves. As the shadows of evening crept up to the cliff
whereon they stood, and as those shadows folded round and round the
points and coves, those points and caves lying below and beyond fold
over fold, everything grew purple and violet.
Everything grew so purple, and so violet, and so great, and so wide
that it seemed sometimes to the little girl, standing on the cliff
by Sister Helen Vincula, that she was looking right down into the
heart of a violet as great, as wide--as great, as wide--as the whole
world.
But this did not seem so strange to Bessie Bell, for she yet
remembered that window out of which one could see just small, green,
moving things, and of which great grown people had told her, ``No,
Bessie Bell, there is no such window in all the world.''
So in her own way she thought that maybe after awhile that the big,
big violet might drift away, away, and great grown people might say,
``No, Bessie Bell, there never was a violet in all the world like
that.''
It was the people--and all the people--of that new world that seemed
so strange to Bessie Bell.
There were children, and children in all the summer cabins on that
high mountain.
And those children did not walk in rows.
And those children did not do things by one hours.
And those children did not wash their hands in little white basins
sitting in rows on long back gallery benches.
It was strange to Bessie Bell that those children did not sit in
rows to eat tiny cakes with caraway seeds in them while Sister
Angela sat on the bench under the great magnolia-tree and looked at
the row of little girls.
It was so very strange to Bessie Bell that these children wore all
sorts of clothes--all sorts! Not just blue dresses, and blue checked
aprons.
And Bessie Bell knew, too, that those little girls in all sorts of
clothes could not float away into that strange country of No-where
and Never-was, where, too, the things that she remembered seemed to
drift away--and to so nearly get lost, living only in dimming
memory.
These little girls in all sorts of clothes were real, and sure-
enough, and nobody could ever say of them, ``There are no such
little girls in the world,'' because sometimes when Bessie Bell would
get to thinking, and thinking about the strangeness of them, she
would almost wonder if she did not just remember them. When she
would give one just a little pinch to see if that one was a real
sure-enough little girl, why that little girl would say, ``Don't.''
She would say ``Don't!'' just the same as a little girl in the row of
little girls all with blue checked aprons would say ``Don't,'' if you
pinched one of them ever so little.
There were no Sisters on that high mountain. Sister Helen Vincula
was the only Sister there. That seemed very strange to Bessie Bell.
One day the strangest thing of all so far happened.
One little girl called another little girl with whom she was
playing, ``Sister.''
Bessie Bell laughed at that.
``Oh, she is not a Sister!'' said Bessie Bell.
``Yes, she is; she is my sister!'' said the little girl.
``No,'' said Bessie Bell, just as great grown people said to her when
she remembered strange things, ``No, there never was in the world a
Sister like that!''
Then the smaller of the little girls who were playing together ran
to the larger one, and caught hold of her hand, and they stood
together in front of Bessie Bell--they both had long black curls,
but Bessie Bell had short golden curls--and the smaller girl said:
``Yes, she is my sister!''
And the larger girl said: ``Yes, she is, too. She is my-own-dear-
sister!''
The smaller little girl shook her black curls and said: ``She is my
own-dear-owny-downy-dear-sister!''
In all of her life Bessie Bell had never heard anything like that.
And all the other little girls who were playing joined in and said:
``Bessie Bell doesn't know what she is talking about. Of course you
are sisters. Everybody knows you are sisters!''
Bessie Bell was distressed to be told that she did not know what she
was talking about--and she knew so much about Sisters.
So she began to cry, very softly.
Then she stopped crying long enough to say: ``But I never saw
Sisters like that before!''