Little Miss By-The-Day | Page 7

garden and be happy," and that at twilight she would
say, "You look as though you had been very happy in the garden--"
Sometimes Maman wasn't awake when Felicia came in from her long
day in the garden. And the little girl always knew if her mother's door
were closed that she must tiptoe softly so as not to disturb her. There
was a reward for being quiet. In the niche of the stairway Felice would
find a good-night gift--sometimes a cooky in a small basket or an apple
or a flower,--something to make a little girl smile even if her mother
was too tired or too ill to say good-night. She never clambered past the
other niches that she didn't whimsically wish there was a Maman on
every floor to leave something outside for her. So after a time the canny
child began leaving things for herself, tucked slyly back where the
housemaids wouldn't find them. She used to hide her silver mug with
water at the very top stair because she was so thirsty from the climb.
She was always happy in Maman's room and in the garden but she had
many unhappy times in that nursery. It was at the very top of the back
of the house. From the barred windows under the carved brownstone
copings she could peer out at the ships in the harbor and the shining
green of Battery Park. The nursery had a fireplace just opposite the
door that connected with the tiny room in which the old French woman
slept. Both these rooms had been decorated with a landscape paper
peopled with Watteau shepherds and shepherdesses and oft-repeated
methodical groups of lambs. On the cold mornings she was bathed
beside the fire--which she very much hated--and once when she was
especially angry at the sharp dash of the bath sponge against her thin
shoulders she clutched at the flabby dripping thing with all her might
and sent it hurtling through the doorway where it splashed against the
side wall of the tiny room and smudged out the flock of a simpering
shepherdess. And instead of being sorry that she had obliterated the
paper lambs she remembers shaking her fist at the discolored spot and
shrieking "Nevaire come back, nevaire!"
Mademoiselle D'Ormy made her tell Maman. Mademoiselle's

disapproval made it seem an admirable crime until Maman said ever se
gently,
"I'm sorry you were unhappy!"
"_I was happy_," persisted Felicia, "I was proud, proud, proud when I
threw it!"
"But you made Mademoiselle unhappy and you've made me
unhappy--and you can't be truly happy, Felicia, when you're making
some one else unhappy--"
Felicia discovered that she couldn't. Not with Maman's gentle eyes
looking into hers, so she threw herself on her knees and kissed her
mother's hand. Just as she had seen her grandfather kiss it.
"Let's pretend!" she whispered, "Let's pretend I didn't do it! Now let's
pretend I'm Grandy!"
Pretending she was her Grandfather Trenton was one of their most
delicious games. She would tap on the door, delicately, and ask in
mincing imitation of the French woman,
"Madame, will you see ze Major?" Then, with great dignity she would
advance to the bedside.
"Ah! Octavia!" she would say, eloquently, "How charming you look to-
day!"
For that was what Grandy always said when he came into the room to
see Maman.
You'd have liked Major Trenton. You'd have liked him a lot. But you
could have liked him more if he'd been a little kinder to Felice. For by
one of those strange, unexplained twists of human nature this fine
gentleman, who was so tolerant with his uncouth servants and so
admirably gentle with his wee dogs, was unconsciously cruel to the
small grand-daughter who so adored him. She adored his immaculate

neatness, the ruddy pinkness of his skin; she loved his wavy white hair
and the deep sparkle of his dark eyes. She saw nothing droll about the
peaked felt hat and long black coat that he persisted in wearing, or
about the ruffled shirt, with its absurd flaring collar and black satin
stock. She even loved the empty coat sleeve pinned inside his breast
pocket. She thought him the most beautiful human in the whole world.
She lived in constant dread of what Grandy would or would not be
pleased to have her do. And though she was unaware of it, her everyday
behavior was exactly what that silent man had so ordered. She did not
know there was a God because the Major was an atheist--who
out-Ingersolled Robert G. in the violence of his denial of deity. She did
not know there was a world of reality outside the garden because he did
not choose to have her mingle with that world. She was not taught
French because