The Little Colonel | Page 5

and her song.
"It's a world of trouble we're travellin' through, Fa'well, my dyin'
friends."
"Oh, don't, Mom Beck," sobbed the child, throwing her arms around
the woman's neck, and crying as though her heart would break.
"Land sakes, what is the mattah?" she asked, in alarm. She sat down on
a mossy log, took off the white hat, and looked into the flushed, tearful
face.
"Oh, it makes me so lonesome when you sing that way," wailed the
Little Colonel. "I just can't 'tand it! Mom Beck, is my mothah's heart all
broken? Is that why she is sick so much, and will it kill her suah 'nuff?"
"Who's been tellin' you such nonsense?" asked the woman, sharply.
"Some ladies at the hotel were talkin' about it. They said that
gran'fathah didn't love her any moah, an' it was just a-killin' her." Mom
Beck frowned fiercely.
The child's grief was so deep and intense that she did not know just
how to quiet her. Then she said, decidedly, "Well, if that's all that's
a-troublin' you, you can jus' get down an' walk home on yo' own laigs.
Yo' mamma's a-grievin' 'cause yo' papa has to be away all the time.
She's all wo'n out, too, with the work of movin', when she's nevah been
used to doin' anything. But her heart isn't broke any moah'n my neck
is."
The positive words and the decided toss Mom Beck gave her head
settled the matter for the Little Colonel. She wiped her eyes and stood
up much relieved.
"Don't you nevah go to worryin' 'bout what you heahs," continued the
woman. "I tell you p'intedly you cyarnt nevah b'lieve what you heahs."

"Why doesn't gran'fathah love my mothah?" asked the child, as they
came in sight of the cottage. She had puzzled over the knotty problem
all the way home. "How can papas not love their little girls?"
"'Cause he's stubbo'n," was the unsatisfactory answer. "All the Lloyds
is. Yo' mamma's stubbo'n, an' you's stubbo'n--"
"I'm not!" shrieked the Little Colonel, stamping her foot. "You sha'n't
call me names!"
Then she saw a familiar white hand waving to her from the hammock,
and she broke away from Mom Beck with very red cheeks and very
bright eyes.
Cuddled close in her mother's arms, she had a queer feeling that she
had grown a great deal older in that short afternoon.
Maybe she had. For the first time in her little life she kept her troubles
to herself, and did not once mention the thought that was uppermost in
her mind.
"Yo' great-aunt Sally Tylah is comin' this mawnin'," said Mom Beck,
the day after their visit to the hotel. "Do fo' goodness' sake keep yo'self
clean. I'se got too many spring chickens to dress to think 'bout dressin'
you up again."
"Did I evah see her befo'?" questioned the Little Colonel.
"Why, yes, the day we moved heah. Don't you know she came and
stayed so long, and the rockah broke off the little white rockin'-chair
when she sat down in it?"
"Oh, now I know!" laughed the child. "She's the big fat one with curls
hangin' round her yeahs like shavin's. I don't like her, Mom Beck. She
keeps a-kissin' me all the time, an' a-'queezin' me, an' tellin' me to sit on
her lap an' be a little lady. Mom Beck, I de'pise to be a little lady."
There was no answer to her last remark. Mom Beck had stepped into

the pantry for more eggs for the cake she was making.
"Fritz," said the Little Colonel, "yo' great-aunt Sally Tylah's comin' this
mawnin', an' if you don't want to say 'howdy' to her you'll have to come
with me."
A few minutes later a resolute little figure squeezed between the
palings of the garden fence down by the gooseberry bushes.
"Now walk on your tiptoes, Fritz!" commanded the Little Colonel,
"else somebody will call us back."
Mom Beck, busy with her extra baking, supposed she was with her
mother on the shady, vine-covered porch.
She would not have been singing quite so gaily if she could have seen
half a mile up the road.
The Little Colonel was sitting in the weeds by the railroad track,
deliberately taking off her shoes and stockings.
"Just like a little niggah," she said, delightedly, as she stretched out her
bare feet. "Mom Beck says I ought to know bettah. But it does feel so
good!"
No telling how long she might have sat there enjoying the forbidden
pleasure of dragging her rosy toes through the warm dust, if she had not
heard a horse's hoof-beats coming rapidly along.
"Fritz, it's gran'fathah," she whispered, in alarm, recognizing the erect
figure of the rider in its spotless suit of white duck.
"Sh! lie down in