Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book | Page 2

confound it," Mac drawled, twisting his pink lips with relish of the forbidden word.
"So should I. Suppose we do. But how old are you?"
"'Most four."
"But little boys like you shouldn't say such words."
"My papa does; I heard him. My mamma puts soap in my mouf, when I do it," he added, with an artless frankness which appeared to be characteristic of him. Then abruptly he changed the subject. "Ve cook has gone, and mamma made such a funny pudding, last night," he announced. "It stuck and broke ve dish to get it out. Good-bye. Vis is where I live." And he clattered up the steps and vanished, hoop and all, through the front doorway, leaving the stranger to marvel at the precocity of western children and at the complexity of their vocabularies.
A week later, they met again, this time however not by accident. The young man had tried meanwhile to find out something about the child; but his sister whose guest he was, had moved to Helena only a month before, and she could furnish no clue to the mystery. His visit was proving a dull one; Mac had been vastly entertaining, so, for some days, the stranger had been watching in vain for another glimpse of the boy. At length, his efforts were rewarded. Strolling past the brown house, one morning, he became aware of a tiny figure sitting on the steps in the bright sunshine and wrapped from head to foot in a plaid horse-blanket.
"Good-morning, Mac!" he called blithely.
"How do you do?" The voice was a shade more subdued, to-day.
"Well. What are you doing?"
"Nofing much." The minor key was still evident.
"Are you sick?"
"No; 'course not."
"Playing Indian?"
Mac shook his head.
"What is the blanket for, then? It isn't cold, to-day."
The lips drooped, and the blue eyes peered out suspiciously from under their long lashes.
"I wants to wear it," he said, with crushing dignity.
"All right. Come and walk to the corner fruit stand with me."
The invitation was too tempting to be refused, and Mac scrambled to his feet. As he did so, the blanket slipped to one side. Swiftly Mac huddled it around him again; but the momentary glimpse had sufficed to show the stranger a dark blue gown and a white apron above it.
"Why, I thought you were a boy!" he gasped, too astonished at this sudden transformation to pay any heed to Mac's probable feelings in the matter.
"So I are a boy."
"But you are wearing a dress."
Mac hung his head.
"I ran away," he faltered. "Vat's why."
The stranger tried to look grave. Instead, he burst into a shout of laughter.
"I think I understand," he said, as soon as he could speak. "You have to wear these clothes, because you ran away, and the blanket is to cover them up. What made you run away?"
"Aunt Teddy."
"Who?"
"My Aunt Teddy."
"Is it--a woman?" The stranger began to wonder if it were hereditary in Mac's family to confound the genders in such ways as this.
"Yes, she is my aunt; she's a woman, not an uncle."
"Oh. It's a curious name."
"Ve rest of her name is Farrington," Mac explained, pulling the blanket closer about his chubby legs, as he saw some people coming up the street toward him.
"And she made you run away?"
Mac nodded till his cheeks shook like a mould of currant jelly.
"What did she do?"
"Talk, and talk some more, all ve time. I want to talk some, and I can't. She eats her eggs oh natural."
"What? What does that mean?"
"'Vout any salt. Vat's what she calls it, oh natural. I like salt."
"Don't you like grapes?"
"Yes."
"Let's get some."
Wrapped like an Indian brave, Mac started off down the street, his yellow and blue toga trailing behind him and getting under his feet at every step. His dignity, nevertheless, was perfect and able to triumph over even such untoward circumstances as these, and he accepted the stranger's conversational attempts with a lofty courtesy which suggested a reversal of their relative ages. Just as the corner was reached, however, and the fruit stand was but a biscuit-toss away, he suddenly collapsed.
"Vere vey are!" he exclaimed.
"Who?"
"My mamma, and Aunt Teddy." And, turning, he scurried away as fast as his blanket would let him.
As he passed them, the young man gave a glance at the two women, swift, yet long enough to take in every detail of their appearance and stamp it upon his memory. The shorter one with the golden hair was evidently Mac's mother, not only because she was the older, but became the child's mischievous face was like a comic mask made in the semblance of her own gentle features. Her companion was more striking. Taller and more richly dressed, she carried the impression of distinctiveness, of achievement, as if she were a person who had proved her right to exist. Gifford Barrett's eyes lingered on her longer,