Suzanna Stirs the Fire | Page 8

the clothes.
"Is your mother well this morning?" asked Suzanna politely.
"Why, you saw her," Maizie cried off guard. "She didn't have a
headache this morning, did she?"
"I'm speaking of your mother," said Suzanna. "You belong to an
entirely different family from me."
"Well," said Maizie after a time, "she's not suffering, thank you."
"Have you any brothers and sisters?" pursued Suzanna in an interested
though rather aloof tone.
"Oh, yes," said Maizie, trying hard to fill her rôle satisfactorily. "We
have a very large family, and once we had twins."
Suzanna looked her pity. "I'm so glad," she said, "that I'm an Only
Child. This morning I was very joyous when I had whipped cream and
oatmeal."
"You just had syrup, Suzanna Procter!" cried Maizie.
Suzanna cast a scathing look at her sister: "I had whipped cream!" she

cried, "because I am an Only Child!" Then falling into her natural tone:
"If you forget again, Maizie, I can't even be a friend of yours." She
continued after a pause, reassuming her Only-Child voice, "That's why
I wear this beautiful satin dress and diamond bracelets and shining
buckles on my shoes."
Now Maizie saw only Suzanna's lawn dress, rather worn Sunday shoes
with patent leather tips; she saw Suzanna's bare arms.
"Maybe you'd like, really, to wear a white satin dress and bracelets and
buckles, but you know you haven't got them, don't you, Suzanna?" she
asked.
Suzanna did not answer, plainly ignoring Maizie's conciliatory tone,
and so finding the silence continuing unbroken, Maizie changed the
subject.
"Will you play school with me this afternoon, Suzanna?"
Suzanna thought a moment: "I don't just know. I may go and play with
some of the other girls today, and, remember, if I do that a friend can't
get mad like a sister can."
Maizie began to whimper.
"All right, if you're going to act that way, I am going off to see
Drusilla," with which statement Suzanna turned and went downstairs.
Maizie came running down after her. "Mother, mother," she called
loudly, "I don't like Suzanna when she's the Only Child."
Mrs. Procter, busy with the baby, looked up. She was a little cross now.
"I wish, Suzanna," she said, "that you would learn to be sensible and
not always be acting in plays you make up."
Suzanna, who a moment before had bounded joyfully into her mother's
presence, now paused, the light dying from her eyes. She looked at her
mother and her mother, uncomfortable beneath the steady gaze, spoke

again with an irritation partially assumed.
"I mean just that, Suzanna," she said. "Maizie can't easily follow all
your imaginings; and I have enough to do without always trying to
keep the peace between you."
Suzanna stood perfectly still. The color rose to her temples, while the
dark eyes flashed. Waves of emotion swept through her. Emotions she
could not express. At last in a tense voice she spoke: "I wish I wasn't
your child, Mother."
"Go at once to your room," said Mrs. Procter, "and stay there till I tell
you you may come down again."
With no word Suzanna turned, went slowly up the stairs again, drew a
chair to the window and sat down. She was flaming under a bitter sense
of injustice. With all the intensity of her nature for the moment she
hated the entire world.
Time passed. She heard sounds downstairs, Maizie going out to play in
the yard with Peter; her mother singing the baby to sleep, and still
Suzanna sat near the window, and still her small heart beat resentfully.
Later, she heard her father's voice. Perhaps he cared for her. But even
of this she was not sure. Then she sat up very straight. Someone was
coming up the stairs.
It was Maizie. The little girl slowly opened the bedroom door, peeped
cautiously in, and then on tiptoes approached Suzanna. "Mother says,"
she began, "that you're to come down to lunch."
"I don't want any lunch," said Suzanna. The bright color still stained
her cheek. "You can just go downstairs and eat up everything in the
house, and be sure and tell mother I said so."
Maizie looked her awe at this defiant sister. Downstairs she returned to
deliver verbatim Suzanna's message.

Suzanna sat on. From bitter disillusion felt against everything in her
world her mind chilled to analysis. Her mother loved her, she believed,
and yet--she did not complete her swift thought; indeed, she looked
quickly about in fear of her disloyalty. She had once thought that
mothers were perfect, rare beings removed worlds from other mere
mortals. Hadn't she, when a very small girl of four, been quite unable to
comprehend that mother was a mere human being? "Mother is just
mother," she had said in her baby way, and that sentence