In the Morning Glow: Short Stories

When Lizbeth loved you, there were stars in her brown eyes; when you looked more closely, so that you were very near their shining, you saw in their round, black pupils, smiling back at you, the face of a little boy; and then in your own eyes, Lizbeth, holding your cheeks between her hands, found the face of a little girl.

"Why, it's me!" she cried.

And when you looked again into Lizbeth's eyes, you saw yourself; and "Oh, Mother," you said afterwards, for you had thought deeply, "I think it's the goodHarry that's in Lizbeth's eyes, 'cause when I look at him, he's always smiling." That was as far as you thought about it then; but once, long afterwards, it came to you that little boys never find their pictures in a sister's eyes unless they are good, and love her, and hold her cheeks between their hands.

Lizbeth's cheeks were softer than yours, and when she played horse, or the day was windy, so that the grass rippled and the trees sang, or when it was tub-day with soap and towels up-stairs, her cheeks were pink as the roses in Mother's garden. That is how you came to tell Mother a great secret, one evening in summer, as you sat with her and Lizbeth on the front steps watching the sun go down.

"I guess it's tub-day in the sky, Mother."

"Tub-day?"

"Why, yes. All the little clouds have been having their bath, I think, 'cause they're all pink and shiny, like Lizbeth."

But once Lizbeth's cheeks were white, and she stayed in bed every day, and you played by yourself. Twice a day they took you as far as the bedroom door to see her.

"H'lo," you said, as you peeked.

"H'lo," she whispered back, very softly, for she was almost asleep, and she did not even smile at you, and before you could tell her what the Pussy-cat did they took you away – but not till you had seen the two glasses on the table with the silver spoon on top.

There was no noise in the days then. Even the trees stopped singing, and the wind walked on tiptoe and whispered into people's ears, like you.

"Is it to-day Lizbeth comes down-stairs?" you asked every morning.

"Do you think Lizbeth will play with me to-morrow?" you asked every night. Night came a long time after morning in the days when Lizbeth could not play.

"Oh, dear, I don't think I feel very well," you told Mother. Tears spilled out of your eyes and rolled down your cheeks. Mother felt your brow and looked at your tongue.

"I know what's the matter with my little boy," she said, and kissed you; but she did not put you to bed.

One day, when no one was near, you peeked and saw Lizbeth. She was alone and very little and very white.

"H'lo," you said.

"H'lo," she whispered back, and smiled at you, and when she smiled you could not wait any longer. You went in very softly and kissed her where she lay and gave her a little hug. She patted your cheek.

"I'd like my dollies," she whispered. You brought them to her, all four – the two china ones and the rag brunette and the waxen blonde.

"Dollies are sick," she said. "They 'most died, I guess. Play you're sick, too."

Mother found you there – Lizbeth and you and the four dolls, side by side on the bed, all in a little sick row. And from the very moment that you kissed Lizbeth and gave her the little hug, she grew better, so that by-and-by the wind blew louder and the trees sang lustily, and all Our Yard was bright with flowers and sun and voices and play, for you and Lizbeth and the four dolls were well again.

Our Yard

The breadth of Our Yard used to be from the beehives to the red geraniums. When the beehives were New York, the geraniums were Japan, so the distance is easy to calculate. The apple-tree Alps overshadowed New York then, which seems strange now, but geography is not what it used to be. In the lapse of years the Manhattan hives have crumbled in the Alpine shade, an earthquake of garden spade has wiped Japan from the map, and where the scarlet islands lay in the sun there are green billows now, and other little boys in the grass, at play.

In the old days when you sailed away on the front gate, which swung and creaked through storms, to the other side of the sea, you could just descry through a fog of foliage the rocky shores of the back-yard fence, washed by a surf of golden-rod. If you moored your ship – for an unlatched gate meant prowling dogs in the garden, and Mother was cross at that – if you anchored your gate-craft dutifully to become a soldier, you could march to the back fence, but it was a long journey. Starting, a drummer-boy, you could never foretell your end, for the future was vague, even with the fence in view, and your cocked hat on your curls, and your drumsticks in your hand. Lizbeth and the dolls might halt you at the front steps and muster you out of service to become a doctor with Grandmother's spectacles and Grandfather's cane. And if the dolls were well that day, with normal pulses and unflushed cheeks, and you marched by with martial melody, there was your stalled hobby-horse on the side porch, neighing to you for clover hay; and stopping to feed him meant desertion from the ranks, to become a farmer, tilling the soil and bartering acorn eggs and clean sand butter on market-day. And even though you marched untempted by bucolic joys, there lay in wait for you the kitchen door, breathing a scent of crullers, or gingerbread, or apple-pies, or leading your feet astray to the unscraped frosting-bowl or the remnant cookies burned on one side, and so not good for supper, but fine for weary drummer-boys. So whether you reached the fence that day was a question for you and the day and the sirens that beckoned to you along your play.

Across the clover prairie the trellis mountains reared their vine-clad heights. Through their morning-glories ran a little pass, which led to the enchanted garden on the other side, but the pass was so narrow and overhung with vines that when Grandfather was a pack-horse and carried you through on his back, your outstretched feet would catch on the trellis sides. Then the pack-horse would pick his way cautiously and you would dig your heels into his sides and hold fast, and so you got through. Once inside the garden, oh, wonder of pansies and hollyhocks and bachelor's-buttons and roses and sweet smells! The sun shone warmest there, and the fairies lived there, Mother said.

"But when it rains, Mother?"

"Oh, then they hide beneath the trellis, under the honeysuckles."

Mother wore an apron and sun-bonnet, and knelt in the little path, digging with a trowel in the moist, brown earth. You helped her with your little spade. Under a lilac-bush Lizbeth made mud-pies, and the pies of the enchanted garden were the brownest and richest in all Our Yard. They were the most like Mother's, Lizbeth said. Grandfather sat on the wheelbarrow-ship and smoked.

"Do fairies smoke, Grandfather?"

"The old grandfather fairies do," he said.

Of all the flowers in the enchanted garden you liked the roses best, and of all the roses you liked the red. There was a big one that hung on the wall above your head. You could just reach it when you stood on tiptoe, and pulling it down to you then, you would bury your face in its petals and take a long snuff, and say,

"Um-m-m."

And when you let it go, it bobbed and courtesied on its prickly stem. But one morning, very early, when you pulled it down to you, you were rough with it, and it sprinkled your face with dew.

"The rose is crying," Lizbeth said.

"You should be very gentle with roses," Mother told you. "Sometimes when folks are sick or cross, just the sight of a red rose cheers them and makes them smile again."

That was a beautiful thought, and it came back to you the day you left Our Yard and ran away. You were gone a long time. It was late in the afternoon when you trudged guiltily back again, and when you were still a long way off you could see Mother waiting for you at the gate. The brown switch, doubtless, was waiting too. So you stole into Our Yard through the back fence, and hid in the enchanted garden, crying and afraid. It began to rain, a gentle summer shower, and like the fairies you hid beneath the honeysuckles. Looking up through your tears, you saw the red rose – and remembered. The rain stopped. You climbed upon the wheelbarrow-ship and pulled the rose from the vine. Trembling, you approached the house. Softly you opened the front door. At the sight of you Mother gave a little cry. Your lip quivered; the tears rolled down your cheeks; for you were cold and wet and dreary.

"M-mother," you said, with outstretched hand, "here's a r-rose I brought you"; and she folded you and the flower in her arms. It was true, then, what she had told you – that when people are cross there is sometimes nothing in the world like the sight of a sweet red rose to cheer them and make them smile again.

Once in Our Yard, you were safe from bad boys and their fists, from bad dogs and their bites, and all the other perils of the road. Yet Our Yard had its dangers too. Through the rhubarb thicket in the corner of the fence stalked a black bear. You had heard him growl. You had seen the flash of his white teeth. You had tracked him to his lair. Just behind you, one hand upon your coat, came Lizbeth.

"'Sh! I see him," you whispered, as you raised your wooden gun.

Bang! Bang!

And the bear fell dead.

"Don't hurt Pussy," said Mother, warningly.

"No," you said, and the dead bear purred and rubbed his head against your legs. Once, after you had killed and eaten him, he mewed and ran before you to his basket-cave; and there were five little bears, all blind and crying, and you took them home and tamed them by the kitchen fire.

But the bear was nothing to the Wild Man who lived next door. In the barn, close to your fence, he lay in wait for little girls and boys to eat them and drink their blood and gnaw their bones. Oh, you had seen him once yourself, as you peered through a knot-hole in the barn-side. He was sitting on an upturned water-pail, smoking a pipe and muttering.

You and Lizbeth stole out to look at him. Hand in hand you tiptoed across the clover prairie where the red Indians roved. You scanned the horizon, but there was not a feather or painted face in sight to-day – though they always came when you least expected them, popping up from the tall grass with wild, blood-curdling yells, and scalping you when you didn't watch out. Across the prairie, then, you went, silently, hand in hand. The sun fell warm and golden in the open. Birds were singing in the sky, unmindful of the lurking perils among the tall grass and beyond the fence. Back of you were home and Mother's arms, and in the pantry window, cooling, two juicy pies. Before you, across the clover, a great gray dungeon frowned upon you; within its walls a creature of blood and mystery waiting with hungry jaws. Hushed and timorous, you approached.

"Oh, I'm afraid," Lizbeth whimpered. Savagely you caught her arm.

"'Sh! He'll hear you," you hissed through chattering teeth. A cloud hid the sun, and the ominous shadow fell upon you as you crouched, trembling, on the edge of the raspberry wood.

"Sh!" you said. Under cover of the forest shade you crept with bated breath, on all-fours, stealthily. Oh, what was that? That awful sound, that hideous groan? From the barn it came, with a crunching of teeth and a rattle of chain. Lizbeth gave a little cry, seized you, and hid her face against your coat.

"'Sh!" you said. "That's him! Hear him!"

Through wood and prairie rang a piercing cry —

"Mother! I want my mother!"

And Lizbeth fled, wailing, across the plain. You followed – to cheer her.

"Cowardy Calf!" you said, but you did not say it till you had reached the kitchen door. And in hunting the Wild Man you never got farther than his groan.

Mornings in Our Yard the clover prairie sparkled with a million gems. The fairies had dropped them, dancing in the moonbeams, while you slept. Strung on a blade of grass you found a necklace of diamonds left by the queen herself in her flight at dawn, but when you plucked it, the quivering brilliants melted into water drops and trickled down your hand. Then the warm sun came and took the diamonds back to the fairies again – but your shoes were still damp with dew. And by-and-by you would be sneezing, and Mother would be taking down bottles for you, for the things that fairies wear are not good for little boys. And if ever you squash the fairies' diamonds beneath your feet, and don't change your shoes, the fairies will be angry with you, and you will be catching cold; and if you take the queen's necklace – oh, then watch out, for they will be putting a necklace of red flannel on you!

Wide-awake was Our Yard in the morning with its birds and wind and sunshine and your play, but when noonday dinner was over there was a yawning in the trees. The birds hushed their songs. Grandfather dozed in his chair on the porch. The green grass dozed in the sun. And as the shadows lengthened even the perils slept – Indians on the clover prairie, bear in the rhubarb thicket, Wild Man in the barn. In the apple-tree shade you lay wondering, looking up at the sky – wondering why bees purred like pussy-cats, why the sparrows bowed to you as they eyed you sidewise, what they twittered in the leaves, where the clouds went when they sailed to the end of the sky. Three clouds there were, floating above the apple-tree, and two were big and one was little.

"The big clouds are the Mother and Father clouds," you told yourself, for no one was there to hear, "and the little one is the Little Boy cloud, and they are out walking in the sky. And now the Mother cloud is talking to the Little Boy cloud. 'Hurry up,' she says; 'why do you walk so slow?' And the Little Boy cloud says, 'I can't go any faster 'cause my legs are so short.' And then the Father cloud laughs and says, 'Let's have some ice-cream soda.' Then the Little Boy cloud says, 'I'll take vaniller, and make it sweet,' and they all drink. And by-and-by they all go home and have supper, and after supper the Mother cloud undresses the Little Boy cloud, and puts on his nighty, and he kneels down and says, 'Now I lay me down to sleep.' And then the Mother cloud kisses the Little Boy cloud on both cheeks and on his eyes and on his curls and on his mouth twice, and he cuddles down under the moon and goes to sleep. And that's all."

Far beyond the apple-tree, far beyond your ken, the three clouds floated – Father and Mother and Little Son – else your story had been longer; and in the floating of little clouds, in the making of little stories, in the sleeping of little boys, it was always easiest when Our Yard slumbered in the afternoon.

When supper was over a bonfire blazed in the western sky, just over the back fence. The clouds built it, you explained to Lizbeth, to keep themselves warm at night. It was a beautiful fire, all gold and red, but as Our Yard darkened, the fire sank lower till only the sparks remained, and sometimes the clouds came and put the sparks out too. When the moon shone you could see, through the window by your bed, the clover prairie and the trellis mountains, silver with fairies, and you longed to hold one in your hand. But when the night fell moonless and starless, the fairies in Our Yard groped their way – you could see their lanterns twinkling in the trees – and there were goblins under every bush, and, crouching in the black shadows, was the Wild Man, gnawing a little boy's bone. Oh, Our Yard was awful on a dark night, and when you were tucked in bed and the lamp was out and Mother away downstairs, you could hear the Wild Man crunching his bone beneath your window, and you pulled the covers over your head. But always, when you woke, Our Yard was bright and green again, for though the moon ran away some nights, the sun came every day.

With all its greenness and its brightness and its vastness and its enchanted garden, Our Yard bore a heavy yoke. You were not quite sure what the burden was, but it was something about tea. Men, painted and feathered like the red Indians, had gone one night to a ship in the harbor and poured the tea into the sea. That you knew; and you had listened and heard of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Through the window you saw Our Yard smiling in the morning sun; trees green with summer; flight of white clouds in the sky; flight of brown birds in the bush. Wondering, you saw it there, a fair land manacled by a tyrant's hand, and the blood mounted to your cheeks.

"Mother, I want my sword."

"It is where you left it, my boy."

"And my soldier-hat and drum."

"They are under the stairs."

Over your shoulder you slung your drum. With her own hands Mother belted your sword around you and set your cocked hat on your curls. Then twice she kissed you, and you marched away to the music of your drum. She watched you from the open door.

It was a windy morning, and you were bravest in the wind. From the back fence to the front gate, from the beehives to the red geraniums, there was a scent and stir of battle in the air. Rhubarb thicket and raspberry wood re-echoed with the beat of drums and the tramp of marching feet. Far away beyond the wood-pile hills, behind the trellis mountains where the morning-glories clung, tremulous, in the gale, even the enchanted garden woke from slumber and the flowers shuddered in their peaceful beds. On you marched, through the wind and the morning, on through Middlesex, village and farm, till you heard the cannon and the battle-cries.

"Halt!"

You unslung your drum. Mounting your charger, you galloped down the line.

"Forward!"

And you rode across the blood-stained clover. Into the battle you led them, sword in hand – into the thickest of the fight – while all about you, thundering in the apple-boughs, reverberating in the wood-pile hills, roared the guns of the west wind. Fair in the face of that cannonade you flung the flower of your army. Around you lay the wounded, the dead, the dying. Beneath you your charger fell, blood gushing from his torn side. A thrust bayonet swept off your cocked hat. You were down yourself. Tut! 'Twas a mere scratch – and you struggled on. Repulsed, you rallied and charged again … again … again, across the clover, to the mouths of the smoking guns. Afoot, covered with blood, your shattered sword gleaming in the morning sun, you stood at last on the scorched heights. Before your flashing eyes, a rout of redcoats in retreat; behind your tossing curls, the buff and blue.

A cry of triumph came down the beaten wind:

"Mother! Mother! We licked 'em!"

"Whom?"

"The Briddish!"

And Our Yard was free.

The Toy Grenadier

It was a misnomer. He was not a captain at all, nor was he of the Horse Marines. He was a mere private in the Grenadier Guards, with his musket at a carry and his heels together, and his little fingers touching the seams of his pantaloons. Still, Captain Jinks was the name he went by when he first came to Our House, years ago, and Captain Jinks he will be always in your memory – the only original Captain Jinks, the ballad to the contrary notwithstanding.

It was Christmas Eve when you first saw him. He was stationed on sentry duty beneath a fir-tree, guarding a pile of commissary stores. He looked neither to the left nor to the right, but straight before him, and not a tremor or blink or sigh disturbed his military bearing. His bearskin was glossy as a pussy-cat's fur; his scarlet coat, with the cross of honor on his heart, fitted him like a glove, and every gilt button of it shone in the candlelight; and oh, the loveliness, the spotless loveliness, of his sky-blue pantaloons!

"My boy," said Father, "allow me to present Captain Jinks. Captain Jinks, my son."

"Oh!" you cried, the moment you clapped eyes on him. "Oh, Father! What a beautiful soldier!"

And at your praise the Captain's checks were scarlet. He would have saluted, no doubt, had you been a military man, but you were only a civilian then.

"Take him," said Father, "and give him some rations. He's about starved, I guess, guarding those chocolates."

So you relieved the Captain of his stern vigil – or, rather, the Captain and his gun, for he refused to lay down his arms even for mess call, without orders from the officer of the guard, though he did desert his post, which was inconsistent from a military point of view, and deserved court-martial. And while he was gone the commissary stores were plundered by ruthless, sticky hands.

Lizbeth brought a new wax doll to mess with the Captain. A beautiful blonde she was, and the Captain was gallantry itself, but she was a little stiff with him, in her silks and laces, preferring, no doubt, a messmate with epaulets and sword. So the chat lagged till the Rag Doll came – an unassuming brunette creature – and the Captain got on very well with her. Indeed, when the Wax Doll flounced away, the Captain leaned and whispered in the Rag Doll's ear. What he said you did not hear, but the Rag Doll drew away, shyly —

"Very sudden," she seemed to say. But the Captain leaned nearer, at an angle perilous to both, and – kissed her! The Rag Doll fainted to the floor. The Captain was at his wits' end. Without orders he could not lay aside his gun, for he was a sentry, albeit off his post. Yet here was a lady in distress. The gun or the lady? The lady or the gun? The Captain struggled betwixt his honor and his love. In the very stress of his contending emotions he tottered, and would have fallen to the Rag Doll's side, but you caught him just in time. Lizbeth applied the smelling-bottle to the Rag Doll's nose, and she revived. Pale, but every inch a rag lady, she rose, leaning on Lizbeth. She gave the Captain a withering glance, and swept towards the open door. The Captain did not flinch. Proudly he drew himself to his full height; his heels clicked together; his gun fell smartly to his side; and as the lady passed he looked her squarely in her scornful eyes, and bore their congé like a soldier.

Next morning – Christmas morning – in the trenches before the Coal Scuttle, the Captain fought with reckless bravery. The earthworks of building-blocks reached barely to his cartridge-belt, yet he stood erect in a hail of marble balls.

"Jinks, you're clean daft," cried Grandfather. "Lie down, man!"

But the Captain would not budge. Commies and glassies crashed around him. They ploughed up the earthworks before him; they did great execution on the legs of chairs and tables and other non-combatants behind. Yet there he stood, unmoved in the midst of the carnage, his heels together, his little fingers just touching the seams of his pantaloons. It was for all the world as though he were on dress parade. Perhaps he was – for while he stood there, valorous in that Christmas fight, his eyes were on the heights of Rocking Chair beyond, where, safe from the marble hail, sat the Rag Doll with Lizbeth and the waxen blonde.

There was a rumble – a crash through the torn earthworks – a shock – a scream from the distant heights – and the Captain fell. A monstrous glassy had struck him fairly in the legs, and owing to his military habit of standing with them close together – well, it was all too sad, too harrowing, to relate. An ambulance corps of Grandfather and Uncle Ned carried the crippled soldier to the Tool Chest Hospital. He was just conscious, that was all. The operation he bore with great fortitude, refusing to take chloroform, and insisting on dying with his musket beside him, if die he must. What seemed to give him greatest anguish was his heels, for, separated at last, they would not click together now; and his little fingers groped nervously for the misplaced seams of his pantaloons.

Long afterwards, when the Captain had left his cot for active duty again, it was recalled that the very moment when he fell so gallantly in the trenches that day a lady was found unconscious, flat on her face, at the foot of Rocking Chair Hill.

Captain Jinks was never the same after that. Still holding his gun as smartly as before, there was, on the other hand, a certain carelessness of attire, a certain dulness of gilt buttons, a smudginess of scarlet coat, as though it were thumb-marked; and dark clouds were beginning to lower in the clear azure of his pantaloons. There was, withal, a certain rakishness of bearing not provided for in the regulations; a little uncertainty as to legs; a tilt and limp, as it were, in sharp contrast to the trim soldier who had guarded the commissary chocolates under the Christmas fir. Moreover – though his comrades at arms forbore to mention it, loving him for his gallant service – he was found one night, flat on his face, under the dinner-table. Now the Captain had always been abstemious before. Liquor of any kind he had shunned as poison, holding that it spotted his uniform; and once when forced to drink from Lizbeth's silver cup, at the end of a dusty march, his lips paled at the contaminating touch, his red cheeks blanched, and his black mustache, in a single drink, turned gray. But here he lay beneath the festive board, bedraggled, his nose buried in the soft rug, hopelessly inarticulate – though the last symptom was least to be wondered at, since he had always been a silent man.