Aarons Rod | Page 6

back with resentment.
"Don't, Millicent!--Don't!" came the childish cry. But Millicent's
fingers itched.
At length Marjory had got out her treasure--a little silvery bell with a
glass top hanging inside. The bell was made of frail glassy substance,
light as air.
"Oh, the bell!" rang out Millicent's clanging voice. "The bell! It's my
bell. My bell! It's mine! Don't break it, Marjory. Don't break it, will
you?"
Marjory was shaking the bell against her ear. But it was dumb, it made
no sound.
"You'll break it, I know you will.--You'll break it. Give it ME--" cried
Millicent, and she began to take away the bell. Marjory set up an
expostulation.
"LET HER ALONE," said the father.
Millicent let go as if she had been stung, but still her brassy, impudent
voice persisted:
"She'll break it. She'll break it. It's mine--"
"You undo another," said the mother, politic.
Millicent began with hasty, itching fingers to unclose another package.
"Aw--aw Mother, my peacock--aw, my peacock, my green peacock!"
Lavishly she hovered over a sinuous greenish bird, with wings and tail
of spun glass, pearly, and body of deep electric green.
"It's mine--my green peacock! It's mine, because Marjory's had one
wing off, and mine hadn't. My green peacock that I love! I love it!" She
swung it softly from the little ring on its back. Then she went to her
mother.

"Look, Mother, isn't it a beauty?"
"Mind the ring doesn't come out," said her mother. "Yes, it's lovely!"
The girl passed on to her father.
"Look, Father, don't you love it!"
"Love it?" he re-echoed, ironical over the word love.
She stood for some moments, trying to force his attention. Then she
went back to her place.
Marjory had brought forth a golden apple, red on one cheek, rather
garish.
"Oh!" exclaimed Millicent feverishly, instantly seized with desire for
what she had not got, indifferent to what she had. Her eye ran quickly
over the packages. She took one.
"Now!" she exclaimed loudly, to attract attention. "Now! What's
this?--What's this? What will this beauty be?"
With finicky fingers she removed the newspaper. Marjory watched her
wide-eyed. Millicent was self-important.
"The blue ball!" she cried in a climax of rapture. "I've GOT THE
BLUE BALL."
She held it gloating in the cup of her hands. It was a little globe of
hardened glass, of a magnificent full dark blue color. She rose and went
to her father.
"It was your blue ball, wasn't it, father?"
"Yes."
"And you had it when you were a little boy, and now I have it when I'm
a little girl."

"Ay," he replied drily.
"And it's never been broken all those years."
"No, not yet."
"And perhaps it never will be broken." To this she received no answer.
"Won't it break?" she persisted. "Can't you break it?"
"Yes, if you hit it with a hammer," he said.
"Aw!" she cried. "I don't mean that. I mean if you just drop it. It won't
break if you drop it, will it?"
"I dare say it won't."
"But WILL it?"
"I sh'd think not."
"Should I try?"
She proceeded gingerly to let the blue ball drop, it bounced dully on the
floor-covering.
"Oh-h-h!" she cried, catching it up. "I love it."
"Let ME drop it," cried Marjory, and there was a performance of
admonition and demonstration from the elder sister.
But Millicent must go further. She became excited.
"It won't break," she said, "even if you toss it up in the air."
She flung it up, it fell safely. But her father's brow knitted slightly. She
tossed it wildly: it fell with a little splashing explosion: it had smashed.
It had fallen on the sharp edge of the tiles that protruded under the
fender.

"NOW what have you done!" cried the mother.
The child stood with her lip between her teeth, a look, half, of pure
misery and dismay, half of satisfaction, on her pretty sharp face.
"She wanted to break it," said the father.
"No, she didn't! What do you say that for!" said the mother. And
Millicent burst into a flood of tears.
He rose to look at the fragments that lay splashed on the floor.
"You must mind the bits," he said, "and pick 'em all up."
He took one of the pieces to examine it. It was fine and thin and hard,
lined with pure silver, brilliant. He looked at it closely. So--this was
what it was. And this was the end of it. He felt the curious soft
explosion of its breaking still in his ears. He threw his piece in the fire.
"Pick all the bits up," he said. "Give over! give over! Don't cry any
more." The good-natured tone of his voice quieted the child, as he
intended it should.
He went away into