The Little White Bird | Page 5

who knows that the God to
whom little boys say their prayers has a face very like their mother's.
I may mention here that David is a stout believer in prayer, and has had
his first fight with another young Christian who challenged him to the
jump and prayed for victory, which David thought was taking an unfair
advantage.
"So Mary is twenty-six! I say, David, she is getting on. Tell her that I
am coming in to kiss her when she is fifty-two."

He told her, and I understand that she pretended to be indignant. When
I pass her in the street now she pouts. Clearly preparing for our meeting.
She has also said, I learn, that I shall not think so much of her when she
is fifty-two, meaning that she will not be so pretty then. So little does
the sex know of beauty. Surely a spirited old lady may be the prettiest
sight in the world. For my part, I confess that it is they, and not the
young ones, who have ever been my undoing. Just as I was about to fall
in love I suddenly found that I preferred the mother. Indeed, I cannot
see a likely young creature without impatiently considering her chances
for, say, fifty-two. Oh, you mysterious girls, when you are fifty-two we
shall find you out; you must come into the open then. If the mouth has
fallen sourly yours the blame: all the meannesses your youth concealed
have been gathering in your face. But the pretty thoughts and sweet
ways and dear, forgotten kindnesses linger there also, to bloom in your
twilight like evening primroses.
Is it not strange that, though I talk thus plainly to David about his
mother, he still seems to think me fond of her? How now, I reflect,
what sort of bumpkin is this, and perhaps I say to him cruelly: "Boy,
you are uncommonly like your mother."
To which David: "Is that why you are so kind to me?"
I suppose I am kind to him, but if so it is not for love of his mother, but
because he sometimes calls me father. On my honour as a soldier, there
is nothing more in it than that. I must not let him know this, for it
would make him conscious, and so break the spell that binds him and
me together. Oftenest I am but Captain W---- to him, and for the best of
reasons. He addresses me as father when he is in a hurry only, and
never have I dared ask him to use the name. He says, "Come, father,"
with an accursed beautiful carelessness. So let it be, David, for a little
while longer.
I like to hear him say it before others, as in shops. When in shops he
asks the salesman how much money he makes in a day, and which
drawer he keeps it in, and why his hair is red, and does he like Achilles,
of whom David has lately heard, and is so enamoured that he wants to
die to meet him. At such times the shopkeepers accept me as his father,

and I cannot explain the peculiar pleasure this gives me. I am always in
two minds then, to linger that we may have more of it, and to snatch
him away before he volunteers the information, "He is not really my
father."
When David meets Achilles I know what will happen. The little boy
will take the hero by the hand, call him father, and drag him away to
some Round Pond.
One day, when David was about five, I sent him the following letter:
"Dear David: If you really want to know how it began, will you come
and have a chop with me to-day at the club?"
Mary, who, I have found out, opens all his letters, gave her consent,
and, I doubt not, instructed him to pay heed to what happened so that
he might repeat it to her, for despite her curiosity she knows not how it
began herself. I chuckled, guessing that she expected something
romantic.
He came to me arrayed as for a mighty journey, and looking unusually
solemn, as little boys always do look when they are wearing a great
coat. There was a shawl round his neck. "You can take some of them
off," I said, "when we come to summer."
"Shall we come to summer?" he asked, properly awed.
"To many summers," I replied, "for we are going away back, David, to
see your mother as she was in the days before there was you."
We hailed a hansom. "Drive back six years," I said to the cabby, "and
stop at the Junior Old Fogies' Club."
He was a stupid fellow, and I had to