How It Happened | Page 2

love and laughter and eager for all that is lovely in life, dimmed with hot tears, and with a half-sob she turned and threw herself face downward on the rug-covered cot on the opposite side of the room.
"O God, please don't let Father know!" The words came in tones that were terrified. "Please don't ever let him know! I wasn't born good, and I hate bad smells, and dirty things, and ugly clothes, and not enough to eat, but until I am big enough to go to work please, please help me to keep Father from knowing! Please help me!"
With a twisting movement the child curled herself into a little ball, and for a moment tempestuous sobbing broke the stillness of the room, notwithstanding the knuckles of two little red hands which were pressed to the large sweet mouth. Presently she lifted the hem of her skirt and wiped her eyes, then she got up.
"I wish I could cry as much as I want to. I never have had a place convenient to do it all by myself, and there's never time, but it gets the choked things out and makes you feel much better. I don't often want to, just sometimes, like before Christmas when you're crazy to do a lot of things you can't do--and some people make you so mad! If I'd been born different and not minding ugly things and loving pretty ones, I wouldn't have hated that hat so. That's gone, anyhow. I've been wanting to see how high I could kick it ever since Miss Cattie sent it to me, and now I've done it. I've got a lot of old clothes I'd like to send to Ballyhack, but I can't send."
She stopped, smoothed her rumpled dress, and shook back the long loose curls which had fallen over her face. "I must be getting sorry for myself. If I am I ought to be spanked. I can't spank, but I can dance. If you don't head it off quick it goes to your liver. I'll head!"
With a swift movement Carmencita sprang across the room and from the mantel took down a once beribboned but now faded and worn tambourine. "You'd rather cry," she said, under her breath, "but you sha'n't cry. I won't let you. Dance! Dance! Dance!"
Aloft the tambourine was shaken, and its few remaining bells broke gaily on the air as with abandon that was bewildering in grace and suppleness the child leaped into movement swift and light and amazing in beauty. Around the room, one arm akimbo, one hand now in the air, now touching with the tambourine the hard, bare floor, now tossing back the loose curls, now waving gaily overhead, faster and faster she danced, her feet in perfect rhythm to the bells; then presently the tambourine was thrown upon the table, and she stopped beside it, face flushed, eyes shining, and breath that came in quick, short gasps.
"That was much better than crying." She laughed. "There isn't much you can do in this world, Carmencita, but you can dance. You've got to do it, too, every time you feel sorry for yourself. I wonder if I could see Miss Frances before I go for Father? I must see her. Must! Those Beckwith babies have got the croup, and I want to ask her if she thinks it's awful piggy in me to put all my money, or 'most all, in Father's present. And I want to ask her--I could ask Miss Frances things all night. Maybe the reason I'm not a thankful person is I'm so inquiring. I expect to spend the first hundred years after I get to heaven asking questions."
Going over to the mantel, Carmencita looked at the little clock upon it. "I don't have to go to the wedding-place for father until after six," she said, slowly, "and I'd like to see Miss Frances before I go. If I get there by half past five I can see the people get out of their automobiles and sail in. I wish I could sail somewhere. If I could see some grandness once and get the smell of cabbage and onions out of my nose, which I never will as long as the Rheinhimers live underneath us, I wouldn't mind the other things so much, but there isn't any chance of grandness coming as high up in the air as this. I wonder if God has forgot about us! He has so many to remember--"
With a swift turn of her head, as if listening, Carmencita's eyes grew shy and wistful, then she dropped on her knees by the couch and buried her face in her arms. "If God's forgot I'll remind Him," she said, and tightly she closed her eyes.
"O God"--the words came eagerly, fervently--"we are living