Observations of a Retired Veteran | Page 9

that would have covered the top of a barrel. The crown had given away and her little blue eyes would be oftener looking out through the gap than from under the brim. Her stockings were never both tied up at the same time, except when her mother turned her over, fresh dressed, in the morning to the Major, or when she put on her "tose" in the evening to walk with him. How the Major had gotten such possession of her, I think even her father and mother hardly knew, but certain it was that she had become his personal property. They went the rounds of the town stores every day, and took long walks from which the little lady always came back tired and asleep in the arms of the "Mady," as she called him. I suppose sometimes the Major had carried her for miles, and he would mount the steps of the hotel veranda in those sultry days, mopping his face wet from fatigue. And then he would unload his pockets of all the shells and rocks and sticks and strings that the little one had gathered in the waking part of her walk, and put them away for her carefully. One day the usual load had a marked variety in the shape of a large watermelon and three kittens. In managing all of which the little lady was assisting by bringing one kitten tail foremost under each arm. Much time was spent by the little tyrant in directing the Major as to where each article of that remarkable load was to go. If she had become, the Major's property, I think I may say that the Major had also become her property. I think that on rainy days from his vest to his heels, the Major's clothing was marked with little muddy foot prints; that his hat was used as a carryall for all manner of toys and sweetmeats; that his watch was demanded at all hours of the day to see if it was "bekfus time" yet, and that his cane served as an Arab steed for races around the porch without limit. The "Mady" and all he had were the undisturbed possession of the little one.
It was the close of the summer that, one morning, the little one did not appear. She was sick of fever, they said. At breakfast, the Major looked disturbed. But in a hotel we are not apt to think seriously of the troubles of our neighbors, even if they are next door to us, and few of us thought to ask about the baby. One night coming in late from the theatre, I saw a large rocking chair at the end of the floor on which the baby slept, and I was astonished on looking closer to see the Major in it. His gentle face had a worn and weary look on it, and the waiter told me next morning that the Major had walked the hall pretty much all night for several nights, and that he had carried the chair there for him to rest in. The baby, the waiter said, was not likely to live. As I went up after breakfast, I stopped to inquire, and the little one's mother, whose eyes were red with weeping, said I could come in, adding, "It would hardly make any difference, now." There sat the Major by the bed, with all manner of toys and dolls spread out on the coverlet, before the sick child's eyes. Like a man's idea of doing something, he had bought them. Poor fellow! it was all he could think of to do. The little blue eyes were changed and the thin little hands were restless. They would pick out a toy and lay it aside, and then the dear old Major would arrange them freshly, so as to attract her attention. I think she was delirious, for she asked that her "tose" be given her, that she might talk with the "Mady." And then the poor fellow would look up to the mother, and say: "I think she can to-morrow, madam; I think she can to-morrow, don't you?"
I think he hardly knew what he said it for, except with the vague idea of giving somebody hope. Anyhow, his voice seemed to arouse the little one, and she drew her little thin hand over his face, and said, in an inquiring tone, "Mady?" I think the world was floating out of sight and she wasn't certain. The Major turned, with a look of alarm, to the mother at the window, and said, "Oh, do you think--" But whatever he was going to ask was answered before he asked it, for the mother leaned her head against the window pane and sobbed. He looked around the room