Jean K. Baird

“ I don’t know whether I have a father or mother, or if I ever had one. I do not know if they are living or dead. She asked me if I was your niece and I could not tell her. Am I, Adee?”
There was silence. Eliza had nothing to say. She had known that the time would come when Beth could not understand and would ask questions. It had come sooner than she expected.
“Will you tell me, Adee? I do not know what to say when people ask me, and I feel ashamed that I do not know. Every little girl in school has a father and mother and I have none. ”

“ She was moving about the drawing-room in a dignified fashion, arranging at regular intervals wild roses on the heavy sod. Helen watched her.
“The green velvet carpet with pink roses is just the thing to go with these chairs,” said Helen. “I must say that in all my travels I never saw anything more scrumptious.”
“It is the most kertish thing I ever saw,” said Beth.
“Who are we anyhow?” asked Beth at last. “I mean who are we besides ourselves.”
“I am Mrs. Queen of Sheba,” said Helen, “and you can be Mrs. Princess of Wales.” ”

“ Kilgore, bustling about with liniments and medicine bottles, her face radiant with the happiness of waiting upon the sick. From the room beyond came the heavier tones of men’s voices. None of the women had attempted to answer Eliza’s question. Her head was whirling so that she forgot in an instant that she had asked it. She listened to the voices from the parlor. Then, with all the energy of which she was capable, she moved quickly across the room and entered what the countryside termed ‘the parlor.’ This room was one of the things which Eliza disliked. ”

“ No one told me about your birthday.”
“They kept me in heaven longer than most babies, then,” said Beth sententiously. “Most babies are just a minute old when they are sent down on earth. The angels must have liked me very much. Don’t you think so, Adee?”
“I am sure they did,” Eliza assured her. This comforted Beth somewhat. It is nice to feel that the angels feel pleasure in one’s society. Yet it had its disadvantages too. One could not be quite sure of one’s birthday; and thereby one was short of presents and festivities of various kinds. ”

“ During the winter, he fell into the habit of bringing magazines to Miss Eliza. They opened a new world to her—a world of flowers and sunshine; the world where the artist soul expresses itself in making the world beautiful in color and form. He sometimes lingered to explain some plant or variety of flowers of which the magazines treated. Beth would sit and listen with open eyes. Sometimes she took part in the conversation. Once she laughingly said in connection with some story of his, “That makes me think of the poppy story Adee told me when I was a little girl.” ”

“ She smiled at her own egotism, as she added, “What, if like Columbus, I should find a great undiscovered country?”
She laid the stories away. What simple little things they were! The story of an ambitious little seed which was unhappy because it had been tied up in a paper all winter and then hidden in the ground. It wanted to do something great. It did not wish to hide from life and light. But as the days passed, it crept up from the earth into a life of whose beauty it had no conception. ”

“ Then Eliza recounted the events of that dreadful day when she had asked the mother to ride. She described Beth’s mother, her dress and manner.
“That accounts for the dreams I have—waking dreams, Adee. Do you remember that I told you once that you did not look like you used to. It was some one else I remembered. I can see, as plain as can be, a lady with coils about her head, and flowers stuck in her hair. She wore dresses trailing over the floor. I can see her bending over my crib to kiss me. There was always a man with her.” ”

“ The flies bothered him considerably, and he shied like a young colt at every object in the road. He had not been out of the stable-yard for a week and what energy had been left to him had been bottled up for this trip to town.
In his youth, some years before, he had been a vicious animal which only a man with a steady nerve and strong hand could manage. But age had made him tractable. He went home at a steady gait with the reins hanging loose on his back, except when Eliza shook them to dislodge an annoying fly. ”

“ But she argued in this fashion: if all these hundred souls lived in one way and declared that to be the right way, then surely she was wrong, and her ideas had all gone awry somewhere; for one could not stand against a hundred.
The old Wells place had all the finger-marks of having a peculiar occupant. Hollyhocks all along the walk to the milk-house, nasturtiums climbing over a pile of rock; wistaria clinging to the trunk of a dead tree; wild cucumber vines on a trellis shielding the wood-pile and chip yard. ”

“ Wasn’t Beth really Miss Eliza’s little girl after all? The wonder of it was that she had never found out before. Her mouth fairly watered for this morsel of news. Yet she never so much as turned her head or lost one snip with her shears.
“Well, to my way of thinking it hain’t right. Every one I’ve spoke to says the same thing. It hain’t right to take a tramp child and bring her up as though she was somebody. If you’d train her so she’s be handy for working out, folks wouldn’t have so much to say, but you’re spoiling her so that she won’t make even a good hired girl.” ”

“ No one had ever lived here since Eliza could remember. The windows and doors had been boarded up for years. Nature had softened the colors and vines and bending branches of oak had made it a beautiful place. The Oliver place, people called it; but nothing remained of the Oliver family but the name of this place. They had come and gone, and that was all the Shintown folk could tell of them.
Eliza stopped and looked at the place, as she did every time she passed it. It had always been attractive to her, even when she was a child. It was mellowed in color ”

“ She takes charge of babies who are motherless, or whose mothers are not responsible. She realizes what her life might have been if Adee had sent her away, and tries to give the little ones in her care the same love and tenderness that she knew.
So wonderful good came from suffering, because those who suffered were strong, and fulfilled their duty nobly.
So ends the tale of Beth, or Ermann, just as you choose to think of her. But in her own thoughts, she thinks of herself as “That little girl of Miss Liza’s,” and so the old residents of the valley speak of her. ”

“ He waved his hand as though the subject were not worth continuing.
“It must be a very unprofitable life,” said Eliza. “You look so well and strong, I should think you would settle down to some useful work. You don’t look a bit like a tramp.”
“Ah—a—h,” the word came from the stranger’s lips slowly. A peculiar twinkle shone in his eyes, and for a moment his lips curled into a smile. He controlled himself, however, and said, “But what a gay life it is! One can see so much—now as to the eggs and milk.”
Miss Eliza promised that he could get them daily.
“My name is Hillis,” he said. ”

“ When Beth was ten years old, she entered the B grammar grade at Farwell. So far Eliza had kept in touch with her work and had taught her all she knew. She had a tug at her heart strings that first morning in September when she walked into town with Beth. It seemed to her that there had come a parting of the ways when each must walk a little more alone.
Beth was radiant with new tan shoes and stockings. Her white dress was fresh from the iron. Eliza felt not a little conscience-stricken whenever she bade her little girl wear this particular dress. ”