“i wonder when maida’s coming back?” said rosie brine as she approached the trio of children who sat on the lathrop lawn.
the three were laura lathrop; her brother, harold lathrop; their friend, arthur duncan. rosie did not join them on the grass. she seated herself in the hammock behind them and began to swing, first slowly, then so violently that her black curls swept back and forth with her swift progress and her speech came in jerks. “i wouldn’t mind—how long i had to wait—if i only knew—when she was coming.”
nobody answered. rosie had only asked a question that they all asked at intervals, hoping against hope that somebody would make a comforting guess.
“i don’t believe she’s ever coming back,” rosie answered herself, recklessly swinging almost over their heads.
arthur duncan, a big broad-shouldered boy with tousled thick brown hair beating down over his forehead and almost veiling eyes as steady as they were black, answered this. “oh maida’s coming home some time. she promised and she always keeps her promises.”
“when we were going to school,” put in laura lathrop, “it was bad enough. but we didn’t have time to miss her so much then. but now that school’s over and there’s nothing to do—oh, how i wish she were here!”
“well, what good would it do?” harold lathrop asked. harold and laura looked much alike although laura was slim and brown-haired and harold flaxen and a little stout. but both had blue eyes and small, regular features.
“we wouldn’t see anything of her,” harold continued, “she’d he going away somewhere for the summer and we wouldn’t have a chance to get to know her until fall.”
“maida’d never do that,” rosie brine declared emphatically. “she’d manage some way to be with us for a while.” she brought the hammock to a stop for a moment with the swift kick of a determined foot against a tuft of grass. “there’s one thing i am sure of and that is that maida would never forget us[pg 9] or want to be away from us. she says that in every letter i’ve got from her.”
“well, what are we going to do to-day?” harold demanded. “i should think from the way we sit here that we had not been counting up the days to vacation for a month. why laura’s even had the hours all numbered out on her calendar, so’s she could draw a line through them every night.”
“i wanted to have the minutes marked out too,” laura admitted, “but it took too much time.”
“what are we going to do?” harold persisted. “here it is the first day of vacation, and we sit here saying nothing. you think of something, arthur, you always can.”
arthur duncan rolled over face downwards on the grass. “i can’t think of anything to do this morning,” he admitted. “it’s so hot ... and i feel so lazy ... seems to me i’d just like to lie here all day.”
it was hot that late june day in charlestown. not a breeze stirred the shrubs of the lathrop lawn. the june roses drooped; the leaves seemed wilting; even the blue sky looked thick and sultry. huge white clouds moved across it so lazily that it was as though they too felt the general languor. the children[pg 10] looked as children generally look at the close of school, pale and a little tired. their movements were listless.
just outside the gate of the lathrop place was primrose court; a little court, lined with maples and horse-chestnuts with shady little wooden houses set behind tiny gardens, in their turn set within white wooden fences. at one corner of primrose court and warrington street, set directly opposite a school house, was a little shop. and over the shop printed in gold letters against a background of sky blue, hung a sign which read:
maida’s little shop
in primrose court, the smaller children were playing as briskly as though there were no such thing as weather. brown-eyed, brown-haired, motherly molly doyle, quick, efficient but quiet, was apparently acting as the wife and mother of an imaginary house. smaller and younger, timmie doyle, her brother, a little pop-eyed, brownie-like boy, slow-moving and awkward, was husband and father. there were four children in this make-believe household. quite frequently, little betsy hale, slim, black-eyed and rosy-cheeked [pg 11]and little delia dore, chubby and blonde with thick red curls, attempted to run away; were caught and punished with great thoroughness. apparently dorothy and mabel clark, twin sisters, one the exact duplicate of the other, with big, round blue eyes and long round golden curls, were the grown-up daughters of this make-believe family. they were intent on household tasks, thrusting into an imaginary stove absolutely real mud pies and sweeping an imaginary room with an absolutely real dust-pan and brush.
aside from this active scene, everything was quiet. farther down the court, doves had settled; were pink-toeing about feeding busily; preening and cooing.
“sometimes,” laura said thoughtfully, “i feel as though i had dreamed maida. if the little shop were not here with her name over the door and all of you to talk about her with me, i should believe i had just waked up.” she stopped a moment. “if it had been a dream how mad i should be to think i had waked up.”
“do you remember how exciting it was when maida first came to live over the little shop?” rosie exclaimed.
“i should say i did!” it was laura who[pg 12] answered her. “wasn’t it wonderful when all that pretty furniture came for their rooms?”
“yes, and the canaries and the great geraniums for the windows,” rosie added eagerly.
“the most wonderful thing though,” arthur went on, “was when the sign went up. it was such a pretty sign—maida’s little shop in gold painted on blue. and—”
“gee, how wild we all were to see maida!” harold said.
“i don’t know what i expected,” rosie’s voice was dreamy, “but i certainly was surprised when maida appeared—”
“lame,” arthur concluded for her, “like dicky. but they’re both all right now. dicky certainly is and maida was when she left for europe.”
“i often think,” harold began again after a little pause, “of when we first met her and she used to talk of the things her father gave her, we thought she was telling lies.”
“i never thought she was telling lies,” rosie expostulated. “i loved her too much for that. i knew maida wouldn’t tell lies. i thought she’d just dreamed those things. i remember them all—her mother’s mirror and brush and comb of gold with her initials in diamonds....[pg 13] and the long string of pearls that she used to wear that came to her knees.... and a dress of cloth of gold trimmed with roses and a diamond, like a drop of dew, in the heart of every rose.”
“yes, and the peacocks at her father’s place, some of them white,” arthur interrupted.
“and don’t you remember,” harold went on, “we all thought she was crazy when she said that once he gave her for a birthday present her weight in twenty-dollar gold-pieces.”
“and a wonderful birthday party,” laura added eagerly, “with a maypole and a doll-baby house big enough to go into and live—”
“i don’t wonder we didn’t believe it all,” rosie declared with conviction, “it sounds like a fairy tale. and then it turned out that she was the daughter of a great millionaire and every word of it was true. do you remember how we asked mr. westabrook at maida’s christmas tree if it was all true and he said that it was?”
“i’d like to see those white peacocks,” dicky said dreamily.
“i’d like to see that doll-baby house,” laura added wistfully.
“i’d like to see the gold comb and brush and[pg 14] mirror with the diamonds,” rosie declared, “and that dress with the roses and the diamond dew-drops. i like to look at precious stones. i like things that sparkle.”
at this thought, she herself sparkled until her eyes were like great black diamonds in her vivid brilliant face.
“i’d like to see that pile of twenty-dollar gold-pieces,” harold said.
“oh i wish she’d come back,” rosie sighed. the sparkle all went out of her face and she stopped swinging.
a door leading into primrose court opened with a suddenness that made them all jump. a boy with big eyes, very brown and lustrous, lighting his peaked face and straight hair very brown and lustrous, framing it, came bounding out. he ran in the direction of the group on the lawn, and as he ran he waved something white in his hand. the doves flew away before him in a glittering v. “hurrah!” he yelled.
“gee, how dicky can run!” arthur duncan exclaimed. “who’d ever believed that one year ago, he was wearing an iron on his leg? he—”
“oh what is it, dicky?” rosie brine called impatiently.
dicky had by this time reached the lathrop gate.
“a post card from maida,” he shouted.
“does she say when she’s coming home?” laura asked quickly.
“no,” dicky answered. he threw himself down among them; handed the post card to rosie who had leaped from the hammock. it passed from hand to hand. harold, the last to receive it, read it aloud. “love to everybody and how i wish i could see you all!” was with the date, all it said.
“nothing about coming home,” exclaimed rosie, “oh dear, how disappointed i am.”
“where’s it from?” arthur asked, as though suddenly remembering something. “the last post card was from paris.”
“london,” dicky answered.
“london,” arthur echoed, “she told me that when she came home, she’d sail from england.”
“did she?” rosie asked listlessly. “she never told me that, but you see, she says nothing of sailing. she’s probably going to spend the summer there. i remember that she told me of a beautiful place they lived in one summer in england. she said that there was a forest not far from the house where robin[pg 16] hood and his men used to meet. probably she will go there.” rosie stopped for a minute and then the listlessness in her voice changed to a kind of despair. “i don’t believe she’ll ever come back.”
“i know she will,” dicky announced with decision. “the last thing maida said was, ‘i’ll come back,’ and she always keeps her promises.”
“i wouldn’t be surprised if she came back this summer some time,” arthur said. “anyway i know she said they’d sail from england.”
“yes but by that time we’ll all be away.” laura’s voice held a disappointed note. “we’re going to marblehead in a week or two for the whole summer and you’re going to weymouth, rosie, aren’t you?”
rosie nodded. “only for two weeks though.”
“where are you going?” laura asked arthur.
“i don’t know. when my father gets his two weeks’ vacation, maybe we’ll take a tramp somewhere, that is if it doesn’t come after school has begun.”
“and where are you going, dicky?” laura went on.
“nowhere. we’re going to stay here in charlestown. primrose court will be my vacation. mother says she will try to take us to city point or revere or nantasket every sunday. now what are we going to do to-day?”
“we might go upstairs in the cupola and play games,” harold suggested.
“no i don’t want to stay in the house the first day of vacation,” rosie announced discontentedly.
“let’s play stunts,” suggested dicky who, since his lame leg had recovered, could never seem to get enough of athletic exercise.
“too hot,” decided laura.
“hide-and-go-seek,” suggested arthur.
“too hot,” decided harold.
“follow-my-leader,” suggested dicky.
“too hot,” decided rosie.
“hoist-the-sail,” suggested arthur.
“too hot,” decided laura.
“prisoners’ base,” suggested harold.
“too hot,” decided rosie.
“tag,” suggested arthur.
“too hot,” decided harold.
laura burst out laughing. “every game anybody proposes is too hot for somebody else. i say let’s all lie face downwards and think[pg 18] and think and think until somebody gets an idea of something new that we can do.”
everybody adopted her suggestion. the four on the grass turned over, lay like stone images carved there. rosie turned over in the hammock.
“i wish maida’d come home!” came from her in muffled accents before she, too, subsided.
* * * * * * *
a whole minute passed. nobody moved. even rosie kept rigid.
into the silence floated the note of a far-away automobile horn. it was not so much a call or warning as a gay carolling, a long level ribbon of sound which unwound itself continuously and, drifting on the soft spring air, came nearer and nearer. it stopped for a moment ... started again ... continued more and more gayly ... ran up and down a trilled scale once more....
the stone images stirred uneasily.
the horn grew louder.... in a moment it would pass primrose court.... the horn ended in a high swift call.... the car stopped....
the stone images lifted their heads.
a girl, lithe but strong-looking with wide-apart big gray eyes gleaming in a little face,[pg 19] just touched in the cheek with pink, with masses of feathery golden hair hanging over her blue coat, was stepping out of the car.
the images flashed upright; leaped to their feet.
“it’s maida!” rosie brine called as she sped like an arrow shot from a bow towards the automobile. “oh, maida! maida! maida! maida!”
“it’s maida!” the others took it up and raced into the court.
