Mary Olivier: A Life | Page 7

and planted it there.

Papa came out on to the steps and watched them.
"I suppose," he said, "you think it'll grow?"
Mamma never turned to look at him. She smiled because it was her
birthday. She said, "Of course it'll grow."
She spread out its roots and pressed it down and padded up the earth
about it with her hands. It held out its tiny branches, stiffly, like a toy
tree, standing no higher than the mignonette. Papa looked at Mamma
and Mark, busy and happy with their heads together, taking no notice
of him. He laughed out of his big beard and went back into the house
suddenly and slammed the door. You knew that he disliked the sumach
tree and that he was angry with Mark for giving it to Mamma.
When you smelt mignonette you thought of Mamma and Mark and the
sumach tree, and Papa standing on the steps, and the queer laugh that
came out of his beard.
When it rained you were naughty and unhappy because you couldn't go
out of doors. Then Mamma stood at the window and looked into the
front garden. She smiled at the rain. She said, "It will be good for my
sumach tree."
Every day you went out on to the steps to see if the sumach tree had
grown.
VIII.
The white lamb stood on the table beside her cot.
Mamma put it there every night so that she could see it first thing in the
morning when she woke.
She had had a birthday. Suddenly in the middle of the night she was
five years old.
She had kept on waking up with the excitement of it. Then, in the dark
twilight of the room, she had seen a bulky thing inside the cot, leaning

up against the rail. It stuck out queerly and its weight dragged the
counterpane tight over her feet.
The birthday present. What she saw was not its real shape. When she
poked it, stiff paper bent in and crackled; and she could feel something
big and solid underneath. She lay quiet and happy, trying to guess what
it could be, and fell asleep again.
It was the white lamb. It stood on a green stand. It smelt of dried hay
and gum and paint like the other toy animals, but its white coat had a
dull, woolly smell, and that was the real smell of the lamb. Its large,
slanting eyes stared off over its ears into the far corners of the room, so
that it never looked at you. This made her feel sometimes that the lamb
didn't love her, and sometimes that it was frightened and wanted to be
comforted.
She trembled when first she stroked it and held it to her face, and
sniffed its lamby smell.
Papa looked down at her. He was smiling; and when she looked up at
him she was not afraid. She had the same feeling that came sometimes
when she sat in Mamma's lap and Mamma talked about God and Jesus.
Papa was sacred and holy.
He had given her the lamb.
It was the end of her birthday; Mamma and Jenny were putting her to
bed. She felt weak and tired, and sad because it was all over.
"Come to that," said Jenny, "your birthday was over at five minutes
past twelve this morning."
"When will it come again?"
"Not for a whole year," said Mamma.
"I wish it would come to-morrow."
Mamma shook her head at her. "You want to be spoiled and petted

every day."
"No. No. I want--I want--"
"She doesn't know what she wants," said Jenny.
"Yes. I do. I do."
"Well--"
"I want to love Papa every day. 'Cause he gave me my lamb."
"Oh," said Mamma, "if you only love people because they give you
birthday presents--"
"But I don't--I don't--really and truly--"
"You didn't ought to have no more birthdays," said Jenny, "if they
make you cry."
Why couldn't they see that crying meant that she wanted Papa to be
sacred and holy every day?
The day after the birthday when Papa went about the same as ever,
looking big and frightening, when he "Baa'd" into her face and called
out, "Mary had a little lamb!" and "Mary, Mary, quite contrary," she
looked after him sorrowfully and thought: "Papa gave me my lamb."
IX.
One day Uncle Edward and Aunt Bella came over from Chadwell
Grange. They were talking to Mamma a long time in the drawing-room,
and when she came in they stopped and whispered.
Roddy told her the secret. Uncle Edward was going to give her a live
lamb.
Mark and Dank said it couldn't be true. Uncle Edward was not a real
uncle; he was only Aunt Bella's husband, and he never gave