but when things cleared a little, it was only bonny-gay! and the gray gentleman was supporting mary jane without her crutches—though she didn’t realize that, at first. afterward she was able to look up into his face and smile a welcome, because he and she were already quite close friends.
what had happened was this: the gray gentleman had sent his elderly black “boy” with a note to the vine-covered house in mt. vernon place and had requested “the favor of miss beulah’s company upon a drive, that morning. he intended to visit one of the ‘playgrounds’ in the south-western part of the city, and he felt that the little girl whose society he so greatly enjoyed would find much to interest her, if she might be with him.”
to this he had signed a name which was quite powerful enough to secure mrs. mcclure’s instant and delighted assent; and she had at once returned a very graceful note of acceptance by the “boy.”
then at ten o’clock precisely, the gray gentleman’s carriage had gone around for “miss mcclure,” and she had been lifted into it and to a seat beside her friend. a half-hour’s drive followed; through streets and avenues which bonny-gay had never seen before, and which continually grew narrower and more crowded. even the houses seemed to shrink in size, and the little girl had finally exclaimed:
“why, it’s like the buildings were so little that they just squeeze the folks out of them, upon the steps and through the windows. i never, never saw! will they get to be just playhouses, by-and-by?”
“no, bonny-gay, i’m sure you never did. yet it’s the same city in which is your own big home, and they are just the same sort of human beings as you and i.”
“are they? it doesn’t—doesn’t just seem so, does it? and why do they all stare at us like that?”
“because we do at them, maybe; and it’s not a common thing to see carriages with liveried attendants pass this way. i suppose you, in your dainty clothes, are as much a ‘show’ to them as they to you in their coarse attire, or rags.”
bonny-gay looked thoughtfully at her frock. she would have preferred to wear a simpler one; and a comfortable “tam” instead of the feathered hat which adorned her sunny head. but her mother had decided otherwise; since the gray gentleman had done her the honor of that morning it was but courtesy to show appreciation of it by a good appearance.
after a moment she looked up and observed:
“it’s the queerest thing! i feel as if i ought to get out and walk; and as if i should give this hat to that little girl who hasn’t any.”
the gray gentleman smiled.
“that would be going to the other extreme, my dear, and would help neither you nor them. besides, this is not all we came to see, and here we are!”
then the street had suddenly ended and the carriage had turned in at a big gate, to roll almost silently onward till it stopped before a “mansion,” with ancient wooden shutters and a clematis-draped porch. this was natural and quite suggestive to bonny-gay of her own beloved druid hill, wherein she was accustomed to take her stately drives in her father’s own carriage; and when she heard the shouts and laughter of children from the tree-hidden “playgrounds,” her spirits rose to the normal again and she laughed in return.
dancing along beside him, with her hand in his, she had demanded eagerly:
“is it here i am to see my ‘twin sister?’ oh! i want to find her—quick, quick!”
“yes, it is here, and this is—she;” answered her guide, as they paused behind jimmy and mary jane, toward whom he silently nodded.
this was how the pair met; and while mary jane saw what she fancied was an “angel” that which bonny-gay saw was a girl of her own age, with short, limp legs, very long arms, and a crooked back. but the dark head above the poor humped shoulders was as shapely as the “angel’s” own; the dark eyes as beautiful as the blue ones; and from the wide, merry mouth flashed a smile quite as radiant and winning.
as soon as she saw the smile bonny-gay began to understand what the gray gentleman had meant, and she telegraphed him a glance that said she did. then she laughed and held out her two hands to mary jane.
“i guess you’re the girl i’ve come to see: my ‘twin sister!’ how-de-do?”
“how-de-do?” echoed mary jane, too astonished to say more.
the gray gentleman quietly slipped her crutches under the cripple’s arms, and seizing jimmy’s hand walked swiftly away.
both girls looked after him with regret but he neither glanced back nor expected them to follow. then they regarded each other with curiosity, till mary jane remembered she was the hostess.
“let’s sit down,” she said pointing to the grass.
bonny-gay hesitated, and, seeing this, the other whisked off her apron and spread it for her guest. “you might spoil your dress, that’s so. salt and lemon juice’ll take out grass-stain. my mother uses that when there’s spots on the ‘wash.’”
“does she? i wasn’t thinking of my frock, though, but of that;” answered the visitor, pointing to a “keep off” sign behind them.
“oh! that? nobody minds that. you see, this is our park now. we play where we choose, only on the terraces and slopey places. you’d better use my apron though, it’s such a splendid dress. your mother would feel bad if you smirched it.”
“i suppose she would. she’s very particular.”
“so’s mine. they say she’s the very neatest woman in dingy street. the neighbors say it.”
“and our cook says mine is the ‘fussiest’ one in the place. that might be some of the ‘sister’ part, mightn’t it?”
“it might. only, course, he’s just fooling.”
“i don’t believe the gray gentleman ever fools. he means things. he’s made us children think a lot. more’n we ever did before. and he says things mean things, too, every single one. even ‘father george,’ and the lion, and max, and—and everything.”
after this exhausting speech bonny-gay removed her hat and laid it upon the grass, where mary jane regarded it admiringly. it was so pretty she would have liked to touch it, just once. the hat’s owner saw the admiration, and remarked:
“put it on, mary jane. see if it will fit you.”
“oh! i daren’t!” gasped the other. “i might hurt it.”
bonny-gay lifted the hat and placed it upon the cripple’s dark head, which was held perfectly motionless, while the face beneath the brim took on an expression of bewildered happiness.
“my! ain’t it lovely! i should think you’d want to wear it all the time!”
“i don’t, then. i like my ‘tam’ better, and nothing best of all. you can wear it as long as i stay, if you wish.”
“that’s good of you. some of the other girls wouldn’t even let me touch their best hats, they wouldn’t.”
“must be selfish things, then. how old are you, mary jane?”
“how’d you know my name? and what’s yours?”
bonny-gay stated it and explained:
“i heard that jimmy boy call you. how old did you say?”
“i didn’t say, but i’m eight, going on nine.”
“why, so am i. i’m a ‘sunday’s bairn’.”
“and i!” cried mary jane, breathlessly.
after that confidences were swift; and, presently, each little girl knew all about the other; till, in one pause for breath, the cripple suddenly remembered the baby. then she caught up her crutches, swung herself upon them, and started off in pursuit of him.
bonny-gay watched her disappear in the midst of the crowd of children, who had all shyly held aloof from herself, saw how they clung about her and how some of the tiniest ones held up their faces to be kissed. she saw her stoop to tie the ragged shoe of one and button the frock of another; saw her pause to listen to the complaint of a sobbing lad and smartly box the ears of his tormentor. then another glimmering of the gray gentleman’s meaning, when he called these two “sisters,” came into bonny-gay’s mind.
“she has to take care of the children down here just as i do in our park. i suppose we two are the only ones have time to bother, but how can she do it! her face is so pretty—prettier, even, than nettie’s, but i dare not look at the rest of her. i just dare not. poor little girl, how she must ache! supposing i was that way. my arms stretched way down there, and my feet shortened way up here, and my back all scrouged up so! oh! poor, poor mary jane! it hurts me just to make believe and she has it all the time. but here she comes back and i mustn’t let her see i notice her looks. i mustn’t, for anything. it’s bad enough to have her body hurt, i mustn’t hurt her feelings, too.”
however, there was no sign of suffering about the little cripple as she returned to the side of her guest, dragging the soap-box wagon behind her and recklessly rolling the baby about in it, so eager was her advance. there were tears in bonny-gay’s eyes for a moment, though, till she caught sight of the baby and heard mary jane exclaim:
“did you ever see such a sight? what do you s’pose mother will say? the teacher set him in the sand-box and somebody gave him a stick of ’lasses candy, and he’s messed from head to foot. but isn’t he a dear?” and dropping to the ground she caught the little one to her breast and covered his sandy, bedaubed countenance with adoring kisses.
“he’s the funniest thing i ever saw!” laughed bonny-gay, so merrily that the gray gentleman drew near to join in the fun. after him trailed an army of young “farmers” and in another moment the visitor had ceased to be a stranger to anybody there.
“let’s see-saw!” cried joe stebbins, seizing her hand and drawing her to the playground. then somebody swung mary jane and the baby upon the beam beside her, some other girls took the opposite end, and they all went tilting up and down, up and down, in the most exciting manner possible. then there was the maypole, furnished with ropes instead of ribbons, from the ends of which they hung and swung, around and around, till they dropped off for sheer weariness. and here bonny-gay was proud to see that mary jane could beat the whole company. her arms were so long and so strong, they could cling and outswing all the others; and when she had held to her rope until she was the very last one left her laughter rang out in a way that was good to hear.
“seems to me i never heard so much laughing in all my life!” exclaimed bonny-gay to the gray gentleman when, tired out with fun, she nestled beside him as he rested on a bench.
“yes, it’s a fine thing, a fine thing. and you see that it doesn’t take big houses or rich clothes to make happiness. all these new friends of yours belong to those tiny homes we passed on our way down.”
“they do! even mary jane, my sister?”
“even in an humbler. dingy street is just what its name implies. but we’ll drive that way back and what do you say to giving mary jane a ride thus far?”
“oh! i’d love it! she’s so jolly and friendly and seems never to think of her—her poor back and—things.”
“you’ll like her better and better—if you should ever meet again. she won my heart the first time i saw her, over a month ago. i met her dragging home a basket of her mother’s laundry work, in that same soap-box wagon she utilizes for the baby. the family chariot it seems to be. i was taking a stroll this way, quite by myself, and thinking of other things than where i was walking when i stumbled and my hat flew off. then i heard a rattle and squeak of rusty small wheels, and there was mary jane hopping up to me on her ‘wooden feet’ and holding out my hat, with the most sympathetic smile in the world. ‘here it is, mister, and i do hope it isn’t hurt; nor you either,’ said she; and in just that one glimpse i had of her i saw how sweet and brave and helpful she was. so i’ve been proud to call her my friend ever since.”
just then arose a cry so sudden and boisterous it could have been uttered by no lips except the baby’s. for a teacher had tapped a bell, and somebody had cried ‘luncheon!’ and he knew what that meant as well as anyone.
so mary jane swung round to where he lay upon his back in the sunshine and set him up against a rock, and thrust a piece of the loaf she had brought into his chubby fists, and cocked her head admiringly while she cried out:
“did anybody ever see so cute a child as he!”
then she remembered the visitors and with the truest hospitality proffered them the broken loaf.
“i ought to have given it to you the first, i know that, but he’d have yelled constant if i hadn’t tended him. it’s wonderful, i think, how he knows that bell!”
“wonderful!” echoed the gray gentleman, as he bowed and gravely broke a tiny portion from the small stale loaf.
bonny-gay was going to decline, but when she saw the gray gentleman’s action, she checked her “no, i thank you” unspoken and also accepted a crumbly crust. after which mary jane distributed several other bits among some clamorous charges and finally sat down with the last morsel to enjoy that herself in their presence.
“i think dinner never tastes so good as it does out-doors here, in our park,” she remarked with a sigh of satisfaction.
“dinner!” cried bonny-gay and looked into the gray gentleman’s face. but from something she saw there she was warned to say no more; and she made a brave effort to swallow her own crust without letting her entertainer see how distasteful a matter it was.
after this the gray gentleman saw a cloud arising and though he did not fear a shower for himself he was anxious that bonny-gay should take no harm from her unusual outing. so he called the coachman to bring up the carriage and had mary jane and the baby lifted in. then bonny-gay sprang after them, and the master himself made his adieux to the teachers and followed, watched by the admiring, maybe envious, glances of many bright eyes.
however, one carriage, no matter how capacious, cannot hold a whole kindergarten, and neither could it carry the pleasant “playgrounds” away; so if there was any envy it did not last long. which was a good thing, too, seeing what happened so soon afterward.
the landau had not progressed far toward dingy street and mary jane was still wearing the feather-trimmed hat, which her new friend had persuaded her to put on just to surprise mrs. bump, when there came a rush, a bark, a series of shrieks, and the high-spirited horses were off at a mad gallop; which grew wilder and wilder, and soon passed quite beyond control of coachman or even the gray gentleman, who had promptly seized the reins as they fell from the driver’s hands, but had been powerless to do more than retain them in his tightly clutched fingers.
it seemed an age that the frantic beasts sped onward, following their own will, before the crash came and they tore themselves free, leaving the hindering vehicle to go to ruin against the great post, where it struck. but it was, in reality, not more than half a moment, and when the reins were wrenched from his grasp the gray gentleman looked anxiously about him to learn if anyone was hurt.
mary jane and the baby were on the floor of the carriage, safe and sound. the terrified footman was clinging to his seat behind; the coachman had either leaped or been thrown out, but had landed upon his feet; but where was bonny-gay?
a white, motionless little figure lay face downward in the dust, a rod away, and over this bent a black, shaggy dog, whining and moaning in a way that was almost human.
“max! max! was it you, was it you! oh! wretched animal, what have you done!”
max it was. but, at the sight of his silent playmate and the altered sound of a familiar voice, a cowed, unhappy max; who crouched and slunk away as the gray gentleman lifted from the roadway the limp figure of his own beloved bonny-gay.
