Bonnie Bell

“ She was wont to dress neatly about the hotel and in attending to her other duties there, and when out for a ride on one of her spirited horses wore a buckskin habit and gold-embroidered sombrero.
Kind to all, with charity for men’s failings and sins, and generosity toward all in suffering and distress, Bonnie Belle had won the hearts of all the miners, as well as their admiration and respect.
Not the most hardened villain in the camp would have dared say aught to cast a slur upon Bonnie Belle if he valued his life, for he would have been seized and made an example of very quickly. ”

“ I must go alone,” was the determined reply of Bonnie Belle, and the miner urged no more.
Several days later a carriage drove up to the army headquarters in Chicago, and a lady wearing a heavy veil got out.
As she reached the reception-room she suddenly came face to face with the general’s orderly, and, throwing back her veil, she extended her hand, and said pleasantly and in a tone of surprise:
“Why, Bainbridge, you here?”
[57]
“As I live and move, it’s Bonnie Belle!” cried the orderly, grasping the extended hand in both his own. ”

“ About noon they stopped at a farm, where Billy got a glass of milk, and the farmer's wife called him “her bonnie boy” and hugged him when he offered to kiss her. It is only the little boys who get plenty of kisses who really object to them. ”

“ Baron hit upon another possible grievance. “And she’s going to Sunday-school to-day,” she affirmed in a tone which seemed to take account of difficulties. “We’ve done our best to dress her decently. And I don’t intend to humor a little pagan as long as she’s in a Christian household.”
“But in that—that peculiar dress?” faltered Flora. She had a vision of Bonnie May in her fantastic old frock associating with the prim children [79] of poverty who were now the mainstay of the Sunday-school.
“She may walk with Mrs. Shepard. People may believe she belongs to her, if they want to.” ”

“ He nodded his head. “Well, then, I’m the Romeo!”
[53] Again she regarded him critically. “You seem a little old for the part,” she suggested.
“Do you think so?” He was thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe that’s what Mrs. Baron thinks. She won’t even let me stand under a balcony, when she can help it.”
“Isn’t she quaint!” This with smiling indulgence. “But of course you don’t pay any attention to that?”
“Oh, yes I do; we—we have to!”
Bonnie May looked puzzled. “I can’t understand it,” she said. “You look like the kind that they always play the loud music for.” ”

“ You know just talking doesn’t prove anything. I wanted so much to have you know that I was an—an artist!”
In the theatre the orchestra was still playing while the people filed out. In the distance there was the muffled sound of the procession of motor-cars starting and of announcers shouting numbers above the din.
It was Flora’s turn to press forward and take her seat beside Bonnie May now; and while Mrs. Baron stood aside, smiling quite happily, the manager spoke to her as if he were merely continuing a conversation which had been interrupted. ”

“ Her lips trembled and her eyes filled.
“But you’ll be better,” said Baron, reading her thought. Clearly she had despaired of ever being any better. “When you’re able to have her, she’ll be so happy to visit you. I mean Bonnie May. She’s a wonderfully sociable little creature. If she were invited to come to see you she would be delighted. Attentions like that—such as you would [186] pay to grown people—have a wonderful effect upon her.” ”

“ I had to get back at that one. ‘Don’t cry, little one,’ I said. ‘Wait until it’s a pretty day and I’ll come around and take you out in my automobile.’”
“But you haven’t any automobile!”
“That,” with great emphasis, “doesn’t make any difference. There’s no harm in stringing people of a certain kind.”
“Oh, Bonnie May!” cried Baron reproachfully, [102] and with quickly restored calm he added: “Surely one should tell the truth!”
“Yes, one should, if two would. But you can’t afford to show your hand to every Bedelia that gets into your troupe. ”

“ He sat down and gazed abstractedly at the carpet. He realized after a time that he was studying the meaningless outlines of a figure in faded colors. “We need a new carpet,” he mused. “We need everything new. And the only new thing we’ve got hold of in years is discovering that everything in the house, including ourselves, is threadbare, and respectable—and ugly.”
Then he realized that Bonnie May had come back into the room and that she was almost impatiently trying to thrust her hand into his.
“Oh, do let’s play nice parts,” she remonstrated. ”

“ Rolled canvas, which might be let down in case of [226] rain, rattled slightly in the breeze, and one or two disturbed sparrows darted into the place and rested, chirping, on a girder overhead.
Then Baron had eyes only for Bonnie May, who had undergone some strange sort of transformation the moment she had entered the theatre.
Her eyes were enough to thrill an ordinary world-weary person. Her color became brilliant. Then her body began to respond to some overmastering influence. One might have thought of her as a little palfrey about to enter a great parade with many bands in it. ”

“ And that last one on the platform of Sloan's Station, waving him a smiling good-by!
Courtland had torn himself away at last, with a promise that he would return the minute his work was over, and with the consolation that Bonnie was going to write to him. They had arranged to pursue a course of study together. The future opened up rosily before him. How was it that skies had ever looked dark, that he had thought his ideals vanished, and womanhood a lost art when the world held this one pearl of a girl? Bonnie! Rose Bonnie! ”

“ But Bonnie May was advancing very prettily. “How do you do, Mrs. Baron?” she inquired. She was smiling almost radiantly. “I do hope I don’t intrude,” she added.
Mrs. Baron looked down at her with frank amazement. For the moment she forgot the presence of her son. She took the child’s outstretched hand.
Perhaps the touch of a child’s fingers to a woman who has had children but who has them no longer is magical. Perhaps Bonnie May was quite as extraordinary as Victor Baron had thought her. At any rate, Mrs. Baron’s face suddenly softened. ”

“ She was a Boone—of the Virginia Boones—when she married Baron’s father; a beauty who had [20] been wealthy, despite the disintegration of the Boone fortunes when the Civil War freed the slaves.
He pictured Bonnie May in the dim old mansion that was his home—in that aged house that never knew the voices of children; in which even adults seemed always to be speaking in low, measured tones.
“The governess isn’t as bad as she would like to appear,” was his irreverent meditation, which still related to his mother. “And Flora would take my part. ”

“ Clifton had assisted her to the floor; and now, after an appealing step in Mrs. Baron’s direction, and the swift conclusion that nothing she could do would save the situation, she broke into tears and staggered from the room.
“Bonnie May!” called Clifton, with overflowing solace in his tone. He ran after Bonnie May. The other actor, casting brass rings and red bandanna to the floor, followed.
“Emily Boone!” The voice was Mrs. Harrod’s. “I think you might blame us, if it’s all so terrible. We encouraged her. We enjoyed it.”
[324] Mrs. Baron now turned toward the assembled group. ”

“ You can be the audience, if you will.”
Mrs. Harrod began to laugh almost helplessly. Then she checked herself, because she perceived that Bonnie May was deeply in earnest.
“Of course!” she responded. “I make a very good audience. I’ll be delighted to help.”
She took a chair and became, immediately, a highly inspiring audience. Still, she was amazed. She had never been told by any of the Barons that Bonnie May had formerly been “of the profession.”
“We’ll do only the third act,” decided Bonnie May, addressing the two actors, “where the ship sinks, and the raft is seen at sea.” ”

“ Suppose you make a complete confession.”
He shot a dubious glance at her; then he smiled. Bonnie May thought his teeth were quite wonderful. “I’m the head of the Addis Stores Company.”
Bonnie May looked slightly dismayed.
“A business man,” added Mr. Addis firmly. [158] “I’ve admired Miss Flora a very long time. I had chances just to be nice and polite to her. I haven’t taken any pains to hide from her, for a year or so——”
“I understand,” Bonnie May finished for him.
“Well, then. But the trouble is that Mrs. Baron——”
“She can only see you with a pencil behind your ear,” supplemented Bonnie May. ”

“ A gentleman stood there; a man who was very substantial-looking and by no means formidable in appearance. The hall-light fell on him. It seemed to Bonnie May that he was quite middle-aged. He was well-dressed in a rather informal way. A short-cropped black mustache had the effect of retreating slightly between two ruddy cheeks. His eyes expressed some degree of merriment—of [51] mischief, and this fact gave him standing with Bonnie May immediately.
“Good evening,” said Bonnie May in her most friendly manner. She waited, looking inquiringly up into the twinkling eyes.
“I came to see Miss Baron. ”

“ Take it off!”
“What in the world is the matter?” demanded Flora.
“She asks me what is the matter! Oh, heavens!” Bonnie May jumped down from the chair and turned her back to the mirror. She was wringing her hands.
“I don’t understand at all!” exclaimed Miss Baron hopelessly.
“You might!” was the emphatic rejoinder. “Do you suppose I want to play that kind of a part—here? It might do for the little sister of a sewing-machine girl, or a mountain-pink with her hair in knobs. But it wouldn’t do for anything else. If you was only one of the populace, a costume like that would cause a scream! ”

“ She almost thought he was good enough for her Bonnie girl now. She wasn't given to romances, but she felt that Bonnie needed one most mightily about now.
"She didn't wake up except to open her eyes and smile once," she reported, reassuringly. "She coughs a little now and then, with a nasty sound in it, but I hope we can ward off pneumonia. It was great of you to put your overcoat around her. That saved her, if anything can, I guess. You look pretty well used up yourself. Wouldn't you like the doctor to give you something before you go home?" ”

“ Baron was regarding the two actors critically, yet not with unfriendliness.
“Won’t you introduce your friends?” asked Flora.
Bonnie May did so. She concluded with, “old friends of mine in the profession.”
“If I might suggest,” said Flora, “it’s ever so much more comfortable in the house, if you don’t mind coming in.” She turned to Baron with slightly heightened color. Her glance seemed to say: “You can see they are gentlemen.” Something of constraint passed from her eyes when Baron pushed the door open and turned to the two men, who were “in the profession,” and led the way into the house. ”

“ He could understand that she might have been the only child in the troupe with which she travelled, and that her older companions, weary of mimicry and make-believe when their work was done, might have employed very frank, mature speech toward each other and their young companion.
He turned away from the window with a sigh. “Won’t you take my word for it, Bonnie May, that these people mean well, and that one should speak of them with respect, even if one cannot speak of them with affection?”
“But they don’t mean well. What’s the good of stalling?” ”

“ Bonnie May was now sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to make the toes of one foot come in contact with the floor. Miss Baron sat on a low chair in the middle of the room, the new dress spread across her knees.
“But you’re glad, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I’m glad in a way. I’m glad that anybody so [70] disagreeable could really try to do you a good turn.” Clearly, each day was a new day, with Bonnie May. ”

“ You haven’t had sense enough to realize that merely being Baron wasn’t being anything at all. You’ve got to realize that all men must be measured by just one standard. You’ve got to quit thinking it’s right for you to do just the pleasant things—the things you like to do. You have got to go to work, and take orders like any other man.”
Lying in his room, he obtained a new impression of Bonnie May, too. ”

“ Baron paused, frowning. “I meant,” he explained patiently, “that they are people who want to be as good as they can, and who want to give one another encouragement.”
The child was conscious of his wish to be conciliatory. She tried to restrain herself. “Well,” she asked, “if they want to be good, why don’t they just be good? What’s the use of worrying about it?”
“I’m afraid it isn’t quite so simple a matter as all that.”
Bonnie May’s wrath arose in spite of herself. She was recalling certain indignities. “I don’t see anything in it but a bum performance. ”

“ You know something always happens when you sit down to a table on the stage. A servant comes in and says: ‘Beg pardon, mum, but there’s a gentleman—he says he’s your uncle from Green Bay’—and [205] then everybody gets up in a hurry, because the uncle is supposed to believe his niece has a lot of children he’s been helping to support, when she hasn’t got any at all. Or something like that.”
In brief, there were a hundred accumulating evidences to prove that Bonnie May in the Baron household was the right individual in the right place. ”

“ He did not realize that he was viewing the street now for the first time through the eyes of a child who owed the neighborhood no sort of sentimental loyalty.
“Here we are!” he exclaimed as he produced his key; but his tone was by no means as cheerful as he tried to make it.
Bonnie May hung back an instant, as a butterfly might pause at the entrance of a dark wood. She glanced into the dark vestibule before her inquiringly. Her eyebrows were critically elevated.
“Is it a—a rooming-house?” she faltered.
“Nonsense! It’s always been called a mansion. It’s a charming old place, too—I assure you! ”