CHAPTER VIII.
The first thing that greeted the Little Colonel's eyes when she openedthem next morning was her mother's old doll. Maria had laid it on thepillow beside her.
It was beautifully dressed, although in a queer, old-fashioned stylethat seemed very strange to the child.
She took it up with careful fingers, remembering its great age. Mariahad warned her not to waken her grandfather, so she admired it inwhispers.
"Jus' think, Fritz," she exclaimed, "this doll has seen my Gran'mothahAmanthis, an' it's named for her. My mothah wasn't any bigger'n me whenshe played with it. I think it is the loveliest doll I evah saw in mywhole life."
Fritz gave a jealous bark.
"Sh!" commanded his little mistress. "Didn't you heah M'ria say, 'Fo' deLawd's sake don't wake up ole Marse?' Why don't you mind?"
The Colonel was not in the best of humours after such a wakeful night,but the sight of her happiness made him smile in spite of himself, whenshe danced into his room with the doll.
She had eaten an early breakfast and gone back up-stairs to examine theother toys that were spread out in her room.
The door between the two rooms was ajar. All the time he was dressingand taking his coffee he could hear her talking to some one. He supposedit was Maria. But as he glanced over his mail he heard the LittleColonel saying, "May Lilly, do you know about Billy Goat Gruff? Do youwant me to tell you that story?"
He leaned forward until he could look through the narrow opening of thedoor. Two heads were all he could see,--Lloyd's, soft-haired and golden,May Lilly's, covered with dozens of tightly braided little black tails.
He was about to order May Lilly back to the cabin, when he rememberedthe scene that followed the last time he had done so. He concluded tokeep quiet and listen.
"Billy Goat Gruff was so fat," the story went on, "jus' as fat asgran'fathah."
The Colonel glanced up with an amused smile at the fine figure reflectedin an opposite mirror.
"Trip-trap, trip-trap, went Billy Goat Gruff's little feet ovah thebridge to the giant's house."
Just at this point Walker, who was putting things in order, closed thedoor between the rooms.
"Open that door, you black rascal!" called the Colonel, furious at theinterruption.
In his haste to obey, Walker knocked over a pitcher of water that hadbeen left on the floor beside the wash-stand.
Then the Colonel yelled at him to be quick about mopping it up, so thatby the time the door was finally opened, Lloyd was finishing her story.
The Colonel looked in just in time to see her put her hands to hertemples, with her forefingers protruding from her forehead like horns.She said in a deep voice, as she brandished them at May Lilly, "With mytwo long speahs I'll poke yo' eyeballs through yo' yeahs." The littledarky fell back giggling. "That sut'n'y was like a billy-goat. We hadone once that 'ud make a body step around mighty peart. It slip upbehine me one mawnin' on the poach, an' fo' awhile I thought my haid wasbuss open suah. I got up toreckly, though, an' I cotch him, and when Idone got through, Mistah Billy-goat feel po'ly moah'n a week. He sut'n'ydid."
Walker grinned, for he had witnessed the scene.
Just then Maria put her head in at the door to say, "May Lilly, yo'mammy's callin' you."
Lloyd and Fritz followed her noisily down-stairs. Then for nearly anhour it was very quiet in the great house.
The Colonel, looking out of the window, could see Lloyd playinghide-and-seek with Fritz under the bare locust-trees. When she came inher cheeks were glowing from her run in the frosty air. Her eyes shonelike stars, and her face was radiant.
"See what I've found down in the dead leaves," she cried. "A little blueviolet, bloomin' all by itself."
She brought a tiny cup from the next room, that belonged to the set ofdoll dishes, and put the violet in it.
"There!" she said, setting it on the table at her grandfather's elbow."Now I'll put Amanthis in this chair, where you can look at her, an' youwon't get lonesome while I'm playing outdoors."
He drew her toward him and kissed her.
"Why, how cold your hands are!" he exclaimed. "Staying in this warm roomall the time makes me forget it is so wintry outdoors. I don't believeyou are dressed warmly enough. You ought not to wear sunbonnets thistime of year."
Then for the first time he noticed her outgrown cloak and shabby shoes.
"What are you wearing these old clothes for?" he said, impatiently. "Whydidn't they dress you up when you were going visiting? It isn't showingproper respect to send you off in the oldest things you've got."
It was a sore point with the Little Colonel. It hurt her pride enough tohave to wear old clothes without being scolded for it. Besides, shefelt that in some way her mother was being blamed for what could not behelped.
"They's the best I've got," she answered, proudly choking back thetears. "I don't need any new ones, 'cause maybe we'll be goin' awaypretty soon."
"Going away!" he echoed, blankly, "Where?" She did not answer until herepeated the question. Then she turned her back on him, and startedtoward the door. The tears she was too proud to let him see were runningdown her face.
"We's goin' to the poah-house," she exclaimed, defiantly, "jus' as soonas the money in the pocketbook is used up. It was nearly gone when Icame away."
Here she began to sob, as she fumbled at the door she could not see toopen.
"I'm goin' home to my mothah right now. She loves me if my clothes areold and ugly."
"Why, Lloyd," called the Colonel, amazed and distressed by her suddenburst of grief. "Come here to grandpa. Why didn't you tell me sobefore?"
The face, the tone, the outstretched arm, all drew her irresistiblyto him. It was a relief to lay her head on his shoulder, and unburdenherself of the fear that had haunted her so many days.
With her arms around his neck, and the precious little head held closeto his heart, the old Colonel was in such a softened mood that he wouldhave promised anything to comfort her.
"There, there," he said, soothingly, stroking her hair with a gentlehand, when she had told him all her troubles. "Don't you worry aboutthat, my dear. Nobody is going to eat out of tin pans and sleep onstraw. Grandpa just won't let them."
She sat up and wiped her eyes on her apron. "But Papa Jack would diebefo' he'd take help from you," she wailed. "An' so would mothah. Iheard her tell the doctah so."
The tender expression on the Colonel's face changed to one like flint,but he kept on stroking her hair. "People sometimes change their minds,"he said, grimly. "I wouldn't worry over a little thing like that if Iwere you. Don't you want to run down-stairs and tell M'ria to give youa piece of cake?"
"Oh, yes," she exclaimed, smiling up at him. "I'll bring you some, too."
When the first train went into Louisville that afternoon, Walker wason board with an order in his pocket to one of the largest dry goodsestablishments in the city. When he came out again, that evening, hecarried a large box into the Colonel's room.
Lloyd's eyes shone as she looked into it. There was an elegantfur-trimmed cloak, a pair of dainty shoes, and a muff that she caught upwith a shriek of delight.
"What kind of a thing is this?" grumbled the Colonel, as he took out ahat that had been carefully packed in one corner of the box. "Itold them to send the most stylish thing they had. It looks like ascarecrow," he continued, as he set it askew on the child's head.
She snatched it off to look at it herself. "Oh, it's jus' like EmmaLouise Wyfo'd's!" she exclaimed. "You didn't put it on straight. See!This is the way it goes."
She climbed up in front of the mirror, and put it on as she had seenEmma Louise wear hers.
"Well, it's a regular Napoleon hat," exclaimed the Colonel, muchpleased. "So little girls nowadays have taken to wearing soldier's caps,have they? It's right becoming to you with your short hair. Grandpa isreal proud of his 'little Colonel.'"
She gave him the military salute he had taught her, and then ran tothrow her arms around him. "Oh, gran'fath
ah!" she exclaimed, between herkisses, "you'se jus' as good as Santa Claus, every bit."
The Colonel's rheumatism was better next day; so much better that towardevening he walked down-stairs into the long drawing-room. The room hadnot been illuminated in years as it was that night.
Every wax taper was lighted in the silver candelabra, and the dim oldmirrors multiplied their lights on every side. A great wood fire threw acheerful glow over the portraits and the frescoed ceiling. All the linencovers had been taken from the furniture.
Lloyd, who had never seen this room except with the chairs shrouded andthe blinds down, came running in presently. She was bewildered at firstby the change. Then she began walking softly around the room, examiningeverything.
In one corner stood a tall, gilded harp that her grandmother had playedin her girlhood. The heavy cover had kept it fair and untarnishedthrough all the years it had stood unused. To the child's beauty-lovingeyes it seemed the loveliest thing she had ever seen.
She stood with her hands clasped behind her as her gaze wandered fromits pedals to the graceful curves of its tall frame. It shone likeburnished gold in the soft firelight.
"Oh, gran'fathah!" she asked at last in a low, reverent tone, "where didyou get it? Did an angel leave it heah fo' you?"
He did not answer for a moment. Then he said, huskily, as he looked upat a portrait over the mantel, "Yes, my darling, an angel did leave ithere. She always was one. Come here to grandpa."
He took her on his knee, and pointed up to the portrait. The same harpwas in the picture. Standing beside it, with one hand resting on itsshining strings, was a young girl all in white.
"That's the way she looked the first time I ever saw her," said theColonel, dreamily. "A June rose in her hair, and another at her throat;and her soul looked right out through those great, dark eyes--thepurest, sweetest soul God ever made! My beautiful Amanthis!"
"My bu'ful Amanthis!" repeated the child, in an awed whisper.
She sat gazing into the lovely young face for a long time, while the oldman seemed lost in dreams.
"Gran'fathah," she said at length, patting his cheek to attract hisattention, and then nodding toward the portrait, "did she love mymothah like my mothah loves me?"
"Certainly, my dear," was the gentle reply.
It was the twilight hour, when the homesick feeling always came backstrongest to Lloyd.
"Then I jus' know that if my bu'ful gran'mothah Amanthis could come downout of that frame, she'd go straight and put her arms around my mothahan' kiss away all her sorry feelin's."
The Colonel fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair a moment. Then to hisgreat relief the tea-bell rang.
The Little Colonel Page 8