"Oh!--a what?" in awestruck chorus from the listeners. "Say it again, Rhody Sharp."

"An adopted--that's all she is. I guess n.o.body but an adopted need to go trampin' past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we're good as she is an' better, too, so there!"

Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she breathed with difficulty. If--supposing they meant--

"Rhody Sharp, you're fibbing! I don't believe a single word you say!"

sprang forth a champion valiantly. "She's dreadfully fond of her mother--just _dreadfully!_"

"She doesn't know it," promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice stabbing poor Margaret's ear like a sharp little sword. "They're keeping it from her. My gran'mother doesn't believe they'd ought to.

She says--"

But n.o.body cared what Rhody Sharp's gran'mother said. A clatter of shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with them--an' she'd stuck her chin out!

"Why! Why, then she's a--orphan!" one voice exclaimed. "Really an'

honest she is--an' she doesn't know it!"

"Oh my, isn't it awful!" another voice. "Shouldn't you think she'd hide her head--I mean, if she knew?"

It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist gra.s.s--a little heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on.

"It's just like a disgrace, isn't it? Shouldn't you s'pose it would feel that way if 'twas you?"

"Think o' kissin' your mother good-night an' it's not bein' your mother?"

"Say, Rhody Sharp--all o' you--look here! Do you suppose that's why her mother--I mean she that _isn't_--dresses her in checked aperns?

That's what orphans--"

The shorn head dug deeper. A soft groan escaped Margaret's lips. This very minute, now while she crouched in the gra.s.s,--oh, if she put out her hands and felt she would feel the checks! She had been to an orph--to a place once with Moth--with _Her_ and seen the ap.r.o.ns herself. They were all--all checked.

At home, folded in a beautiful pile, there were all the others. There was the pink-checked one and the brown-checked one and the prettiest one of all, the one with teenty little white checks marked off with buff. The one she should feel if she put out her hand was a blue-checked.

Margaret drove her hands deep into the matted gra.s.s; she would not put them out. It was--it was terrible! Now she understood it all. She remembered--things. They crowded--with capital T's, Things,--up to her and pointed their fingers at her, and smiled dreadful smiles at her, and whispered to one another about her. They sat down on her and jounced up and down, till she gasped for breath.

The teacher's bell rang crisply and the voices changed to scampering feet. But Margaret crouched on in the sweet, moist gra.s.s behind the wall. She stayed there a week--a month--a year,--or was it only till the night chill stole into her bones and she crept away home?

[Ill.u.s.tration: She stayed there a week--a month--a year]

She and Nell--she and the Enemy--had been so proud to have ap.r.o.ns just alike and cut by the same dainty pattern. But now if she knew--if the Enemy knew! How ashamed it would make her to have on one like--like an adopted's! How she'd wish hers was stripes!

Perhaps--oh, perhaps she would think it was fortunate that she _was_ an enemy now.

But the worst Things that crowded up and scoffed and gibed were not Things that had to do with enemies. The worst-of-all Things had to do with a little, tender woman with gla.s.ses on--whose hair didn't curl.

Those Things broke Margaret's heart.

"Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it's wrinkly," gibed one Thing.

"And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings," another Thing.

"She doesn't make me do the biggest ones!" flashed Margaret, hotly, but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.

"Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes--"

"And won't let you eat two pieces of pie--"

"Or one piece o' fruit-cake--"

"Maybe you remember now the times she's said, 'This is no little daughter of mine'?"

Margaret turned sharply. "That was only because I was naughty," she pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn't "only because." She knew it was _because_. The terror within her was growing more terrible every moment.

Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been lurking in the background waiting its turn,--it was its turn now.

Margaret stood quite still, _ashamed_. She could not name the strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs.

Streeter's and the minister's and the Enemy's!--oh, most of all past the Enemy's!--for fear they'd look out of the window and say, "There goes an adopted!" Perhaps they'd point their fingers.--Margaret closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter's plump one and the minister's lean one and the Enemy's short brown one, all pointing.

She could feel something burning her on her forehead,--it was "Adopted," branded there.

The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she got to the Enemy's house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.

Moth--She That had Been--would be wondering why Margaret was late. If she looked sober out of her eyes and said, "This can't be my little girl, can it?" then Margaret would _know for certain_. That would be the final proof.

The chimney was in sight now,--now the roof,--now the kitchen door, and She That Had Been was in it! She was shading her eyes and looking for the little girl that wasn't hers. A sob rose in the little girl's throat, but she tramped steadily on. It did not occur to her to s.n.a.t.c.h off her hat and wave it, as little girls that belonged did.

She had done it herself.

The kitchen door was very near indeed now. It did not seem to be Margaret that was moving, but the kitchen door. It seemed to be coming to meet her and bringing with it a dear slender figure. She looked up and saw the soberness in its dear eyes.

"This can't be my little girl, can--" but Margaret heard no more.

With a m.u.f.fled wail she fled past the slender figure, up-stairs, that she did not see at all, to her own little room. On the bed she lay and felt her heart break under her awful little checked ap.r.o.n. For now she knew for certain.

Two darknesses shut down about her, and in the heart-break of one she forgot to be afraid of the other. She had always before been afraid of the night-dark and imagined creepy steps coming along the hall and into the door. The things she imagined now were dreadfuler than that.

This new dark was so much darker!

They thought she was asleep and let her lie there on her little bed alone. By-and-by would be time enough to probe gently for the childish trouble. Perhaps she would leave it behind her in her sleep.

Out-of-doors suddenly a new sound rose shrill above the crickets and the frogs. It was the Enemy singing "Glory, glory, hallelujah." That was the last straw. Margaret writhed deeper into the pillows. She knew what the rest of it was--"Glory, glory, hallelujah, 'tisn't me!

_My_ soul goes marching on!" She was out there singing that a-purpose!

In her desperate need for some one to lay her trouble to, Margaret "laid it to" the Enemy. A sudden, bitter, unreasoning resentment took possession of her. If there hadn't been an Enemy, there wouldn't have been a trouble. Everything would have been beautiful and--and respectable, just as it was before. _She_ would have been out there singing "Glory, glory hallelujah," too.

"She's to blame--I hate her!" came m.u.f.fledly from the pillows. "Oh, I do!--I can't help it, I do! I'm always going to hate her forevermore!

She needn't have--"

Needn't have what? What had the little scape-goat out there in the twilight done? But Margaret was beyond reasoning now. "Mine enemy hath done it," was enough for her. If she lived a thousand years--if she lived _two_ thousand--she would never speak to the Enemy again,--never forgive her,--never put her into her prayer again among the G.o.d blesses.

A plan formulated itself after a while in the dark little room. It was born of the travail of the child's soul. Something must be done--there was something she would do. She began it at once, huddled up against the window to catch the failing light. She would pin it to her pin-cushion where they would find it after--after she was gone.

Did folks ever mourn for an Adopted? In her sore heart Margaret yearned to have them mourn.

"I have found it out," she wrote with her trembling little fingers. "I don't suppose its wicked becaus I couldent help being one but it is orful. It breaks your hart to find youre one all of a suddin. If I had known before, I would have darned the big holes too.

Ime going away becaus I canot bare living with folks I havent any right to. The stik pin this is pined on with is for Her That Wasent Ever my Mother for I love her still. When this you see remember me the rose is red the violet blue sugger is sweet and so are you.

"Margaret."