Eleanor Gates

“ All right! Walk if you want to." She made as if to set out. "Go ahead! But, my dear," (she dropped her voice in fear) "you'll no more'n git to the next corner when somebody'll steal you!"
Gwendolyn was silent for a long moment. She glanced from Jane to Thomas, from Thomas to Jane, and crooked her fingers in and out of her twisted handkerchief.
"But, Jane," she said finally, "the dogs go out walking—and—and nobody steals the dogs."
"Hear the silly child!" cried Jane. "Nobody steals the dogs! Why, if anybody was to steal the dogs what good would it do 'em? ”

“ Gwendolyn went on, the tips of her fingers in the small basin of silver while her face was turned to Jane. "I'm seven and—and I'm grown-up."
"And you're splashin' water on the table-cloth. Look at you!"
"So," went on Gwendolyn, "I'm going to walk. I haven't walked for a whole, whole week."
"You can lean back in the car," began Jane enthusiastically, "and pretend you're a grand little Queen!"
"I don't want to be a Queen. I want to walk.
"Rich little girls don't hike along the streets like common poor little girls," informed Jane. ”

“ And when Thomas had turned a key in the base of the cabbage, the rabbit gave a sudden hop, lifted a pair of long ears, munched at a bit of cabbage-leaf, turned his pink nose, now to the right, now to the left, and rolled two amber eyes.
"And look! Look!" shouted Jane "The eyes light up" For each was glowing as yellowly as the tiny electric bulbs on either side of Gwendolyn's dressing-table.
"Now what more could a little lady want!" exclaimed Thomas. "It's as wonderful, I say, as a wax figger." ”

“ Won't you hire...! Quack! Quack! Quack!"
After him hurried the others in an excited group. The Piper led it, his plumbing-tools jangling, his pig-poke a-swing. And Gwendolyn saw him grin back over a shoulder craftily—then lay hold of her father and tighten a strap.
She trudged in the rear. She had found her father—and he could see only the candles he sought, and the money in his grasp! She was out in the open with him once more, where she was free to gambol and shout—yet he was bound by his harness and heavily laden.
"I might just as well be home," she said to Puffy, disheartened. ”

“ Puffs of smoke rose in its place. Then there was borne to the waiting trio a sound of chugging. And the next instant, with a purr of its engine, and a whirr of its wheels, here into full sight shot forward the limousine!
Gwendolyn paled. The half-devoured stick of candy slipped from her fingers. "Oh, I don't want to be shut up in the car!" she cried out. "And I won't! I won't! I WON'T!" She scurried behind the Man-Who-Makes-Faces.
The automobile came on. Its polished sides reflected the varied lights of the forest. Its hated windows glistened. One door swung wide, as if yawning for a victim! ”

“ Then Gwendolyn suddenly recalled why she was waiting alone—while Miss Royle and Jane made themselves extra neat in their respective rooms; why she herself was dressed with such unusual care—in a pink muslin, white silk stockings, and black patent-leather pumps, the whole crowned by a pink-satin hair-bow. With the remembrance, the pretend-game was forgotten utterly: The lines of limp, white creatures on the roofs flung their tortured shapes about unheeded. ”

“ She freed herself gently from the clinging arms and followed the two. "Miss Royle, will you take Gwendolyn?"
As the governess promptly advanced, with a half-bow, and a set smile that was like a grimace, Gwendolyn raised a face tense with earnestness. Until half an hour before, her whole concern had been for herself. But now! To fail to grow up, to have her long-cherished hopes come short of fulfillment—that was one thing. To know that her mother and father had real and serious troubles of their own, that was another!
"Oh, moth-er! Don't you go!" ”

“ In each of the houses across the wide river, she often established a pretend-home. Her father was with her always; her mother, too,—in a silken gown, with a jeweled chaplet on her head. But her household was always blissfully free of those whose chief design it was to thwart and terrify her—Miss Royle, Jane, Thomas; her teachers [as a body] ; also, Policemen, Doctors and Bears. Old Potter was, of course, the pretend-butler. And Rosa, notwithstanding the fact that she had once been, while at Johnnie Blake's, the herald of a hated bed-time went as maid. ”

“ Jane dropped the small package and shook the large one.
"In the whole, whole big world?" went on Gwendolyn—to herself rather than to her nurse. She was not looking at the table, but toward a curtained window, and the gray eyes had a tender faraway expression. There was a faint conventional pattern in the brocade of the heavy hangings. It suggested trees with graceful down-growing boughs. She clasped her hands. "I want to live out in the woods," she said, "at Johnnie Blake's cottage by the stream that's got fish in it." ”

“ She smiled up, and nodded. "All the clouds in the sky are filled with wind," she declared; "like automobile tires. Toy-balloons are, I know. Once I put a pin in one, and the wind blew right out. I s'pose the clouds in the South hold the south wind, and the clouds in the North hold the north wind, and the clouds—"
"Jane," said Thomas, "we've got to have a doctor."
Gwendolyn heard. She saw Jane spring to the telephone. The next instant, with a piercing scream that sent her canary fluttering to the top of its cage, she flung herself sidewise.
"Jane! Oh, don't! Jane! He'll kill me! Jane!" ”

“ Upon this arbor, bouncing along with an occasional chirp of contentment, and with the air of one who has assumed the lead, went the Bird.
Gwendolyn's father walked in silence, his look fixed far ahead. Trotting at his side, she glanced up at him now and then. She did not have to dread the coming of Jane, or Miss Royle, or Thomas. Yet she felt concern—on the score of keeping beside him; of having ready a remark, gay or entertaining, should he show signs of being bored. ”

“ And in that same moment, the four who were holding the rope felt it begin to writhe and twist in their grasp!—like a live thing. And its black length took on a scaly look, glittering in that pink glow as if it were covered with small ebon paillettes. It grew cold and clammy. At its thicker end Gwendolyn saw that the Piper was supporting a head—a head with small, fiery eyes and a tongue flame-like in its color and swift darting. Next, "Hiss-s-s-s-s!" And with one hideous contortion, the huge black body wrung itself free and coiled. ”

“ And still weeping copiously, so that his forehead glistened with his tears, he plodded across the border of the Face-Shop.
It was then that Gwendolyn recalled under what circumstances she had seen him last. Only two or three days before, when bound homeward in the limousine, she had spied him loitering beside the walled walk. "What makes his club shine so?" she had asked Jane, whispering. "Eh?" whispered Jane in return; "what else than blood?" The wind was blowing as the automobile swept past him: The breeze lifted the tail of his belted coat. ”

“ The Man-Who-Makes-Faces seated himself on the stool at one of the tables and began working industriously.
But Gwendolyn could only stand and stare about her, so amazed that she was dumb. For in front of the little old gentleman, and spread handily, were ears and eyes, noses and mouths, cheeks and chins and foreheads. And upon the bill-board, pendant, were toupees and side-burns and mustaches, puffs, transformations and goatees—and one coronet braid (a red one) glossy and thick and handsome! ”

“ Here I am, a person that likes my freedom once in a while, and a glimpse at the shop-windows,—exactly as much as old you-know-who does—and a bit of tea afterwards with a—a friend."
At this point, Gwendolyn glanced up—just in time to see Thomas regarding Jane with a broad grin. And Jane was smiling back at him, her face so suffused with blushes that there was not a freckle to be seen.
Now Jane sighed, and stood looking down with hands folded. "What good does it do to talk, though," she observed sadly. "Day in and day out, day in and day out, I have to dance attendance." ”

“ Disappointed, she turned to face the screening curtains. But she was in no mood to make herself agreeable to visiting friends of Miss Royle's—and who else could this be?
She decided to remain quietly in seclusion; to emerge for no one except her mother.
A door opened. A heavy step advanced, followed by the murmur of trailing skirts upon carpet. Then Thomas spoke—his tone that full and measured one employed, not to the governess, to Jane, to herself, or to any other common mortal, but to Potter, to her father and mother, and to guests. "This is Miss Gwendolyn's nursery," he announced. ”

“ The Piper, in his excitement, jounced the pig so hard that it squealed. "We ought to be able," he panted, "to manage a top."
"Jane!" bellowed the Policeman, galloping hard. "You must not injure that shaft!"
Then Gwendolyn realized that the square tower toward which the nurse was spinning was the Big Rock. And she recognized it as a certain great pillar of pink granite, up and down the sides of which, deep cut by chisels, were written strange words.
It rose just ahead. Answering the Officer with a shrill, scoffing laugh, Jane bore down upon it. Aided by the wind, she made top speed. ”

“ For seeing them thus, hand in hand, Jane suddenly started forward—with a great boisterous hop and skip. Her front face was distorted with a jealous scowl. She gave Gwendolyn a rough sidewise shove.
"Git away from that old beggar!" she commanded harshly. "Why, he'll kidnap you! Look at his knife!"
Nimbly the little old gentleman thrust himself in front of her, barring her way, and shielding Gwendolyn. "Who told you where she was?" he asked angrily.
"Who?" mocked Jane, impudently. "Well, who is it that tells people things?" ”

“ Awakening, she lay and watched out through the upper panes of the front window. Across the square of serene blue framed by curtains and casing, small clouds were drifting—clouds dazzlingly white. She pretended the clouds were fat, snowy sheep that were passing one by one.
Thus had snowy flocks crossed above the trout-stream. Oh? where was that stream? the glade through which it flowed? the shingled cottage among the trees?
With all her heart Gwendolyn wished she were a butterfly. ”

“ The pig moved in the poke. He trounced the poor thing irritably.
The Man-Who-Makes-Faces now began to speak—in a curious, chanting fashion. "The mode of locomotion adapted by this woman," said he, "rather adds to, then detracts from, her value as a nurse. Think what facilities she has for amusing a child!—on, say, an extensive slope of lawn. And her ability to, see two ways—practically at once—gives her further value. Would she ever let a young charge fall over a cliff?"
The barrel was whopping over and over—noiselessly, except for the faint chatter of Jane's tortoise-shell teeth. ”

“ A strange creature was kneeling behind her—a creature dressed in black sateen, and like no human being that she had ever met before. For it was two-faced!
One face (the front) was blowzy and freckled, with a small pug nose and a quarrelsome mouth. The other (the face on what, with ordinary persons, was the back of the head) was dark and forbidding, its nose a large brick-colored pug, the mouth underneath shaped most extraordinarily—not unlike a barrette, for it was wide and long, and square at the corners, and full of shining tortoise-shell teeth! ”