Suzanna Stirs the Fire | Page 9

spelled all the
devotion and admiration of a pure little heart for one enshrined within
it.
And now mother had fallen short. Mother had disappointed that
desperately loving, intense soul. The tears started to her eyes. It was as
though on this second tucked-in day an epoch had come marking the
day for all time, placing it by itself as containing an experience never to
be forgotten.
After a time she realized she was hungry. So she went quietly to the top
of the stairs, but no sound came up from below.
Some clock struck one, and then Suzanna heard running footsteps
mounting the stairs. She sat straight and gazed out of the window. She
knew the moment her mother entered the room, but she did not turn her
head.
Mrs. Procter approached until she stood close to Suzanna. She looked
down into the mutinous little face. She had come intending to scold, but
something electric about the child kept hasty words back.
At length: "Aren't you going to speak to me, Suzanna?" she said.
Suzanna did not answer immediately. That strange, awful thought that
her very own mother had been unjustly irritable held her tongue-tied.
At length words, short, curt, came:
"You weren't all right to me this morning, Mother," she said, raising
her stormy eyes. "Yesterday you were nice to me when I was a princess.
Today you were cross because Maizie couldn't understand, and she

never understands. You never were cross about that before." She gazed
straight back into her mother's face--"I'm mad at the whole world."
What perfection the child expects of the mother! No human deviations!
Mrs. Procter sighed. How could she live out her child's exalted ideal of
her! She looked helplessly at Suzanna. The eyes lifted to hers lacked
the wonted expression of perfect belief, of passionate admiration. That
this first little daughter, so close to her heart fibers, should in any
degree turn from her, pierced the mother. She put her arms about the
unyielding small figure.
"Suzanna, little daughter," she whispered. "Mother is sometimes tired,
but always, always she loves you."
The response was immediate. With a little cry Suzanna pressed her lips
to her mother's. All her reticence was gone. This mother who enfolded
her stood once more the unwavering star that guided Suzanna's life.
"You see, little girl," Mrs. Procter said after a few moments, "mother
sometimes has a great deal to think about--and baby was cross."
"Oh, mother, dear, I'll help you," cried Suzanna. "I'll always be good to
you and when I'm grown up I'll buy you silk dresses and pretty hats and
take you to hear beautiful music."
Later they went downstairs together. In the kitchen Maizie was
amusing the baby as he sat in his high chair. She looked around as
Suzanna entered: "Are you going to see Drusilla now," asked Maizie.
"Who's Drusilla?" asked Mrs. Procter with interest.
Now Suzanna had not told her mother of her new friend. She had
wished to keep in character, and a princess, she felt, was rather
secretive and aloof. But now the renewed closeness she felt to her
mother opened her heart.
"Yesterday when I was a princess, living my very own first tucked-in
day, I walked and walked, and at last came to a little house with a

garden," she said, "and there was an old lady with no one to call her by
her first name--and so I'm going to call her Drusilla."
"Is she a little old lady with white hair, and curls on each side of her
face?" asked Mrs. Procter.
"Yes," said Suzanna.
"Why, she's Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett's mother, and she's a little--"
Mrs. Procter hesitated believing it wiser to leave her sentence
unfinished.
"A little what, mother?" asked Suzanna anxiously.
"Oh, she has fancies," evaded Mrs. Procter. "For instance, there are
times when she thinks herself a queen."
"What was the word you were going to use, mother?" persisted
Suzanna.
"Well, then, Suzanna, such a person is called a little strange."
"Then I'm a little strange, too," said Suzanna.
"But you're a child, Suzanna," said Mrs. Procter, "and Mrs. Bartlett is a
very old lady."
"Does that make the difference?" asked Suzanna. "If it does, I can't
understand why. I think that an old lady, especially if she's lonely and if
she grieves for her king who went far away from her, has just as much
right to have fancies as a little girl has."
"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Procter, turning a soft look upon
Suzanna.
Maizie, who had been standing near listening intently, now spoke: "A
girl I know had a grandfather who thought he was a cat and every once
in awhile he meowed, and he liked to sit in the sun. He thought he was
a nice,