Lydia of the Pines | Page 3

put the string of her balloon into the dimpled hand. "I had the circus--you can have the balloon," she said.
Lydia jerked the string away and held it out to the owner.
"We're no cheerity charities, Margery," she said. "I'll get Patience a balloon."
"You're an awful liar and a cruel beast, Lydia!" cried Margery. She snatched the string and tied it about the baby's wrist. "You know you can't buy her one and you know she'll cry herself sick for one, now she's seen mine, and I guess I love her as much as you do."
Lydia looked from the cherub in the perambulator, crowing ecstatically over the red bubble that tugged at her wrist, to the defiant Margery.
"I'll let her have it, Margery," she said reluctantly. "I'll make you a doll's high chair."
"All right," said Margery, nonchalantly. "Face tag! So long!"
Lydia ran the perambulator along the board walk. The street was macadamized and bordered with thrifty maple trees. Back of the maple trees were frame houses, of cheap and stupid construction. Before one of these Lydia paused. It was a dingy brown house, of the type known as "story and a half." There was a dormer window at the top and a bow window in the ground floor and a tiny entry porch at the front.
Lydia opened the gate in the picket fence and tugged the perambulator through and up to the porch.
"There, baby mine, shall Lydia take you in for your supper?"
"Supper," cooed little Patience, lifting her arms.
Lydia lifted her to the porch with surprising ease. The little two year old should have been no light weight for the little mother of twelve. She stood on the porch, watching Lydia arrange Florence Dombey in her place in the perambulator. Her resemblance to Lydia was marked. The same dusty gold hair though lighter, the square little shoulders, and fine set of the head. The red balloon tugging at her wrist, her soiled little white dress blowing in the summer breeze, she finally grew impatient of Lydia's attentions to Florence Dombey.
"Baby eat now," she cried with a stamp of her small foot.
Lydia laughed. She ran up the steps, took the baby's hand and led her through the entry into a square little room, evidently the parlor of the home. It was dusty and disorderly. The center-table of fine old mahogany was littered with pipes and newspapers. A patent rocker was doing duty as a clothes rack for hats and coats. A mahogany desk was almost indistinguishable under a clutter of doll's furniture. The sunset glow pouring through the window disclosed rolls of dust on the faded red Brussels carpet.
Lydia disgorged the contents of her blouse upon the desk, then followed little Patience into the next room. This was larger than the first and was evidently the dining-room and sitting-room. A huge old mahogany table and sideboard, ill kept and dusty, filled the bow window end of the room. Opposite the sideboard was a couch, draped with a red and green chenille spread. The floor was covered with oil cloth.
A short, stout old woman was setting the table. She had iron gray hair. Her face was a broad wreath of wrinkles, surrounding bespectacled black eyes and a thin mouth that never quite concealed a very white and handsome set of false teeth.
"See! Liz! See!" cried little Patience, pattering up to the old woman with the tugging balloon.
"Ain't that grand!" said Lizzie. "Where'd you git the money, Lydia? Baby's milk's in the tin cup on the kitchen table. Your father's home. You'd better fry the steak. He complains so about it when I do it."
Lydia left the baby clinging to Lizzie's skirts and went on into the kitchen. Her father was washing his hands at the sink.
"Hello, Dad!" she said. The child had a peculiar thread of richness in her voice when she spoke to little Patience and it was apparent again as she greeted the man at the sink. He turned toward her.
"Well, young woman, it's about time you got home," he said. "Baby all right?"
Lydia nodded and turned toward the litter of dishes and paper parcels on the kitchen table. Amos Dudley at this time was about forty years old,--a thin man of medium weight, his brown hair already gray at the temples. Lydia evidently got from him the blue of her eyes and the white of her teeth. He began to peel off a pair of brown overalls.
"What's for supper?" he asked.
"Round steak," said Lydia.
"For heaven's sake, don't let Liz touch it."
"I won't," said the child, piling up dishes deftly. "I'm going to give baby her cup of milk, and then I'll fix it in my patent way."
Amos nodded. "You're a natural cook, like your mother." He paused, one leg of his overalls off, disclosing his shiny black trousers. Lydia carried the