“He must be five pounds overweight,” she thought anxiously. “I daresay it won’t do him a bit of harm to go without food for a little while. He’s very different from what I expected him to be ... but in spite of everything there is something attractive about him. Poor Ella didn’t know anything about child psychology ... I suppose she never really found the right approach to him.”
For dinner there was a delicious roasted chicken, with spinach for Lionel, and ice cream for dessert.
“Sausages,” said Lionel.
Penelope was in despair. It was all very well to say let a child alone ... let him learn for himself the consequences of certain acts ... but you couldn’t let him starve to death. That might be learning consequences too late.
“I’ll ... there’ll be some sausages for your breakfast, darling. Try a bit of this nice chicken.”
“Sausages,” said Lionel. “And my name ain’t darling. The boys at home called me Bumps.”
Marta went out and brought in a platterful of sausages, with a defiant glance at Penelope.
“I got ’em just to be on the safe side,” she said. “My cousin’s wife, Mary Peters, out at Mowbray Narrows, made them. They’re of good clean pork. You couldn’t let him go with an empty stomach all night. He might come down sick.”
Lionel fell to on the sausages and ate every one of them. He accepted a helping of peas but said “Nope” to the spinach.
“I’ll give you a nickel if you’ll eat your spinach,” said Marta, to Penelope’s horror. Bribing a child to do right!
“Make it a dime,” said Lionel.
He got the dime and he ate the spinach ... every scrap of it. At least Lionel believed in fulfilling his part of the contract. He did very well by his ice cream but reverted to sulks when Penelope refused to give him coffee.
“I’ve always had coffee,” he said.
“Coffee is not good for little boys, darling,” she said, and stuck to it. But she did not enjoy her own. Especially as Lionel said,
“You must be awful old. You can’t seem to remember that my name isn’t darling.”
Penelope never forgot those first two weeks of Lionel’s existence at Willow Run. By dint of giving him some bacon with his egg he was induced to refrain from demanding sausages, and, apart from that, his appetite seemed normal enough. He even ate his spinach without bribes, apparently to save argument. But the problem of his meals being partially solved there remained the problem of amusing him. For it had come to that. He would not make friends with any of the neighbouring youngsters and he sat on the porch steps and stared into vacancy or wandered idly around the grounds of Willow Run. Penelope took him out to Ingleside one day and he seemed to hit it off with Jem Blythe, whom he called a “good bean,” but you couldn’t go to Ingleside every day. He never looked at the squirrels and the swing which Penelope had erected for him in the backyard he disdained. He would not talk. He would not play with the mechanical donkey or the electric train or the toy airplane she bought him. Only once he threw a stone. Unluckily he picked the exact time when Mrs. Raynor, the wife of the Anglican minister, was coming in at the gate. It just missed her nose by an inch.
“You mustn’t throw stones at people, dar ... Lionel,” said Penelope miserably (forgetting that you “mustn’t” use “mustn’t”) after a very stately lady had gone.
“I didn’t throw it at her,” said Lionel dourly. “I just threw it. It wasn’t my fault she was there.”
Penelope took to going into the sleeping porch every night ... Lionel refused to sleep anywhere else ... and “suggesting.” Marta thought it was some kind of witchcraft. Penelope “suggested” that Lionel should feel happy ... should not want sausages or coffee ... should like spinach ... should realize they loved him ...
“Old Marta doesn’t,” said Lionel one night suddenly, when she had supposed him sound asleep.
“He won’t let us love him,” said Penelope despairingly. “And as for letting him do what he wants to do, he doesn’t want to do anything. He doesn’t want to go driving ... he won’t play with his toys ... and he doesn’t laugh enough. He doesn’t laugh at all, Marta. Do you notice that?”
“Well, some kids don’t,” said Marta. “What that kind want is a man to bring them up. They don’t take to women.”
Penelope disdained to reply. But it was after this that she suggested a dog. She had always rather hankered for a dog herself but her father had not liked dogs. Neither did Marta and an apartment was really no place for a dog. Surely Lionel would like a dog ... a boy should have a dog.
“I’m going to get you a dog, dar ... Lionel.”
She hoped to see Lionel’s face light up for once. But he only looked at her out of lacklustre black eyes.
“A dog? Who wants a dog?” he said sulkily.
“I thought all boys liked dogs,” faltered Penelope.
“I don’t. A dog bit me once. I’d like a kitten,” said Lionel. “They have heaps of kittens at Ingleside.”
Neither Penelope nor Marta liked cats but this was the first thing Lionel had wanted apart from sausages. Penelope was afraid it would not do to thwart him.
“If you thwart a child you don’t know what kind of a fixation you may set up,” she remembered.
The kitten was procured ... Mrs. Blythe sent one in from Ingleside and Lionel announced that he would call it George.
“But, dar ... Lionel, it’s a lady kitten,” faltered Penelope. “Susan Baker told me so. Better call it Fluffy ... its fur is so soft ... or Topsy ...”
“Its name is George,” said Lionel.
Lionel kept George by him and took her to bed with him ... much to Penelope’s horror ... but he still prowled darkly about Willow Run and refused to enjoy himself. They had got used to his silence ... evidently he was a taciturn child by nature ... but Penelope could not get used to his smouldering discon-tent. She felt it to the marrow of her bones. Suggestion seemed of no avail. Ella’s child was not happy. She had tried everything. She had tried amusing him ... she had tried leaving him alone.
“When he begins to go to school it will be better,” she told Marta hopefully. “He will mingle with other boys then and have playmates. He seemed quite different that day we spent at Ingleside.”
“The doctor and Mrs. Blythe have no theories, I’m told,” said Marta.
“They must have some. Their children are very well behaved ... I admit that. I’d have had some boys in before but the children hereabouts have some kind of spots ... I don’t know if it’s catching ... but I thought it best not to expose Lionel to it. I ... I wish Roger were back.”
“There are plenty other doctors in town,” said Marta. “And you can’t keep a child wrapped up in cotton wool all his life. I may be an old maid but I know that. Anyhow, it’s two months yet till school opens.”
Marta was taking things easily. Marta rather approved of Lionel, in spite of his calling her an ugly old woman.
He didn’t get into mischief and he didn’t say impolite things to you if you left him alone. He had to be bribed to drink his nightly glass of milk sometimes ... Marta did that oftener than Penelope had any idea of ... but he hoarded the dimes he got.
Once he asked Marta how much a ticket to Winnipeg cost and would not eat any lunch after he had been told. That night he told Marta he was “through with guzzling milk.”
“I ain’t a baby,” he said.
“What will your Aunt Penelope say?” admonished Marta.
“Do you think I care?” said Lionel.
“You ought to care. She is very good to you,” said Marta.
Penelope came to a certain decision on the day Lionel came in with a bad bruise on his knee. Not that he made any fuss over it but when he was asked how he got hurt he said the church steeple fell on him.
“Oh, but Lionel, that isn’t true,” said Penelope, horrified. “You couldn’t expect us to believe that.”
“I know it ain’t true. When Walter Blythe says things that ain’t true his mother calls it imaginat
ion.”
“But there is a difference. He doesn’t expect her to believe them true.”
“I didn’t expect you to either,” said Lionel. “But nothing ever happens here. You’ve just got to pretend things happen.”
Penelope gave up the argument. She bathed and disinfected the knee. She was conscious as she did so of a queer desire to kiss it. It was such an adorable, fat, little brown knee. But she was afraid if she did it Lionel would look at her with that fine trickle of disdain which sometimes appeared so disconcertingly in his expression.
He refused to let her put a bandage on it although Penelope felt sure it should be done to prevent possible infection.
“I’ll rub some toad spit on it,” said Lionel.
“Where did you ever hear of such a thing?” exclaimed Penelope in horror.
“Jem Blythe told me. But he wouldn’t tell his father,” added Lionel. “His father has some queer notions just like you and Marta.”
“If only Roger were here!” came unbidden and unwelcomely into Penelope’s mind.
She thought hard that afternoon and announced the result to Marta at night, after Lionel and George were in bed.
“Marta, I have come to the conclusion that what Lionel needs is a companion ... a chum ... a pal. All boys should have one. The Ingleside boys are all too far away ... and really, after what Jem told Lionel about toad spit ... But you know they say a child with no one but grown-ups around him will have an inferiority complex. Or do I mean a superiority complex?”
“I think you don’t know what you mean yourself,” said Marta. “Have a talk with Mrs. Blythe. She is in town, I hear.”
“Mrs. Blythe is a B.A., but I have never heard that she was an authority on child psychology ...”
“Her children are the best behaved I’ve ever seen,” said Marta.
“Well, anyhow I have decided that Lionel needs a companion.”
“You don’t mean that you are going to adopt another boy!” said Marta in a tone of consternation.
“Not adopt exactly ... oh, dear me no, not adopt, Marta. But I simply mean to get one for the summer ... till school opens. Mrs. Elwood was talking about one yesterday ... I think his name is Theodore Wells ...”
“Jim Wells’ nephew! Why, Penelope Craig! Wasn’t his mother an actress or something?”
“Yes ... Sandra Valdez. Jim Wells’ brother married her ten years ago in New York or London or somewhere. They soon parted and Sidney came home with his boy. He died at Jim’s farm. Jim has looked after the boy but you know he died last month and his wife says she has enough to do to look after her own.”
“He was never very welcome there, from all I’ve heard,” muttered Marta.
“She wants to find a home for him until she can get in touch with Sandra Valdez ... and I feel it is Providential, Marta ...”
“I feel the old Scratch has had more to do with it,” said Marta.
“Marta ... Marta ... you really mustn’t. Mrs. Elwood says he is a dear little chap ... looks just like an angel ...”
“Mrs. Elwood would say anything. She is a sister of Mrs. Jim Wells. Penelope, you don’t know what that child is like ... or what he may teach Lionel ...”
“Mrs. Elwood says the Wells children are all well behaved and well brought up ...”
“Oh, she said that, did she? Well, they’re her own nephews and nieces. She ought to know ...”
“Suppose he is a little mischievous ...”
“Oh, she admitted that, did she? Well, children should be mischievous. I may be an old maid but I know that. They say those Blythe youngsters you’re so fond of quoting ...”
“I very seldom mention them, Marta! But Dr. Galbraith ... well, that is one thing that worried me about Lionel. He isn’t half mischievous enough. In fact, he is not mischievous at all. It isn’t normal. When Theodore comes ...”
“Theodore! That is even worse than Lionel.”
“Now, Marta, be nice,” said Penelope pleadingly. “You know I’m right.”
“If you had a husband, Penelope, I wouldn’t care how many children you adopted. But for two old maids to start bringing up boys ...”
“That will do, Marta. A woman who has made a study of child psychology as I have knows more about bringing up children than many a mother. My mind is made up.”
“Oh, how I wish Dr. Roger was home!” groaned Marta to herself. “Not that I suppose he would have the slightest influence either.”
Theodore looked as Lionel should have looked. He was slender and had delicate features, with red-gold hair and astonishingly lustrous grey eyes.
“So this is Theodore,” said Penelope graciously.
“Yes’m,” said Theodore with a charming smile. There was evidently nothing of Lionel’s gruffness about him.
“And this is Lionel,” smiled Penelope.
“I’ve heard about him,” said Theodore. “Hello, Bumps!”
“Hello, Red,” condescended Lionel.
“Suppose you go out into the garden and get acquainted before dinner,” suggested Penelope, still smiling. Things were going much better than she had dared hope.
Marta sniffed. She knew something about the said Theodore Wells.
A few minutes later bloodcurdling howls came from the backyard. Penelope and Marta both rushed out in dismay to find the two boys in a furious clinch on the gravelled walk, kicking, clawing and yelling. Penelope and Marta dragged them apart with difficulty. Their faces were covered with dirt. Theodore had a cut lip and another of Lionel’s teeth was missing. George was up on a maple tree, apparently wondering if her tail really belonged to her.
“Oh, darlings, darlings,” cried Penelope distractedly. “This is dreadful ... you mustn’t fight ... you mustn’t ...”
It was evident that for the moment, at least, Penelope had forgotten the rules of child psychology.
“He pulled George’s tail,” snarled Lionel. “Nobody ain’t going to pull my cat’s tail.”
“How did I know it was your cat?” demanded Red. “You hit first. Look at my lip, Miss Craig.”
“It’s bleeding,” said Penelope with a shudder. She could never endure the sight of blood. It turned her sick.
“It’s only a scratch,” said Marta. “I’ll put some vaseline on it.”
“Kiss the place and make it well,” jeered Theodore. Lionel said nothing. He was busy hunting for his lost tooth.
“At least he isn’t a crybaby,” Penelope comforted herself. “Neither of them is a crybaby.”
Marta took Lionel to the kitchen. He went willingly because he had found his tooth. Penelope took Theodore to the bathroom, where she washed his face, much against his will, and discovered that his neck and body were in deplorable need of attention also. A bath was indicated.
“Gee, I’d hate to be as clean as you all the time,” said Theodore, looking himself over afterwards. “Do you wash yourself over every day?”
“Of course, dear.”
“All over?”
“Of course.”
“If I wash my face at the pump once a week ... thorrerly ... won’t that be enough?” demanded Theodore. “And can I call you momma? You smell nice.”
“I think ... Aunty would be better,” faltered Penelope.
“I’ve got all the aunts I want,” objected Theodore. “But I ain’t got no momma. Just as you say, though. Say, that tooth of Bumps was ready to come out anyhow. What are cats’ tails for if they ain’t to be pulled?”
“But you don’t want to hurt poor little animals, do you? If you were a kitten and had a tail, would you like to have it pulled?”
“If I was a kitten and had a tail,” sang Theodore. He really sang it ... in a delightfully clear, true, sweet voice. Lionel could sing, too, it appeared. The two sat on the steps after dinner and sang all kinds of songs together. Some of the songs Penelope thought rather terrible for small boys but it was such a comfort to find Lionel taking an interest in something at last. She had been right. All Lionel really needed was a companio
n.
“Did you hear how they ended up that bee-i-ee-iee song?” demanded Marta. “They didn’t end it with ‘way down yonder in the field.’ What if Mrs. Raynor had heard them?”
Mrs. Raynor had not heard them. But a certain Mrs. Embree, who was passing at that moment, had. It was all over the neighbourhood by next day. Someone telephoned it to Penelope. Did she really think Theodore Wells a fit companion for her nephew?
By now Penelope, who had screwed the truth out of Marta, was wondering herself. Marta had found the two boys at the pump before lunch.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Marta, looking at Lionel’s face.
“Nothing,” said Lionel.
Penelope came running out.
“What is the matter?”
“Red was chewing beet root and he spit on me,” growled Lionel.
“Oh, Theodore! Theodore!”
“Well, you told me I mustn’t fight,” yelled Theodore, who seemed to be in a towering rage. “There wasn’t nothing I could do but spit.”
“But why ... why spit?” said Penelope weakly.
“He said he bet his father could swear worse’n my father could if they were alive. I ain’t going to let anybody run down my relations. I’ve got more guts than that. If I can’t fight I’m going to spit ... spit hard. But I forgot about the beet root,” he added frankly.
“There’s just one of two things you can do, Penelope,” said Marta, after Lionel’s face had been purified. “You can send this Theodore young one back to his aunt ...”
“I can’t do that, Marta. It would look so ... so ... it would be a confession of defeat. And think how Roger would laugh at me.”
“So Roger’s opinion is beginning to have some weight with you,” thought Marta with satisfaction.
“And really Lionel is a changed boy even in so short a time,” protested Penelope ... “I mean he’s taking an interest in things ...”
“Then you can let them fight it out when they want to fight,” said Marta. “It don’t hurt boys to fight. They get a lot of divilment out of their systems in that way. Look at them two now ... out behind the garage, digging for worms, as good friends as if they’d never fought or spit. No, don’t quote the Ingleside gang to me ... they’ve got a different lot of parents altogether ... and a different bringing-up. It makes all the difference in the world.”
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