Salome looked out of the kitchen window, and a of appeared on her smooth forehead.
“Dear, dear, what has Lionel Hezekiah been doing now?” she murmured anxiously.
Involuntarily she reached out for her ; but it was a little beyond her reach, having fallen on the floor, and without it Salome could not move a step.
“Well, anyway, Judith is bringing him in as fast as she can,” she reflected. “He must have been up to something terrible this time; for she looks very cross, and she never walks like that unless she is angry clear through. Dear me, I am sometimes to think that Judith and I made a mistake in adopting the child. I suppose two old maids don’t know much about bringing up a boy properly. But he is NOT a bad child, and it really seems to me that there must be some way of making him behave better if we only knew what it was.”
Salome’s was cut short by the entrance of her sister Judith, holding Lionel Hezekiah by his wrist with a grip.
Judith was ten years older than Salome, and the two women were as different in appearance as night and day. Salome, in spite of her thirty-five years, looked almost girlish. She was small and pink and flower-like, with little rings of pale golden hair clustering all over her head in a most unspinster-like fashion, and her eyes were big and blue, and mild as a dove’s. Her face was perhaps a weak one, but it was very sweet and appealing.
Judith Marsh was tall and dark, with a plain, face and iron-gray hair. Her eyes were black and sombre, and every feature unyielding will and determination. Just now she looked, as Salome had said, “angry clear through,” and the baleful glances she cast on the small mortal she held would have a more hardened criminal than six happy-go-lucky years had made of Lionel Hezekiah.
Lionel Hezekiah, whatever his shortcomings, did not look bad. Indeed, he was as engaging an as ever beamed out on a jolly good world through a pair of big, -brown eyes. He was chubby and firm-limbed, with a mop of beautiful golden curls, which were the despair of his heart and the pride and joy of Salome’s; and his round face was usually a lurking-place for dimples and smiles and sunshine.
But just now Lionel Hezekiah was under a ; he had been caught red-handed in , and was feeling much ashamed of himself. He hung his head and squirmed his toes under the mournful reproach in Salome’s eyes. When Salome looked at him like that, Lionel Hezekiah always felt that he was paying more for his fun than it was worth.
“What do you suppose I caught him doing this time?” demanded Judith.
“I—I don’t know,” Salome.
“Firing—at—a—mark—on—the—henhouse—door—with—new-laid—eggs,” said Judith with measured distinctness. “He has broken every egg that was laid to-day except three. And as for the state of that henhouse door—”
Judith paused, with an indignant gesture meant to convey that the state of the henhouse door must be left to Salome’s imagination, since the English language was not capable of it.
“O Lionel Hezekiah, why will you do such things?” said Salome .
“I—didn’t know it was wrong,” said Lionel Hezekiah, bursting into prompt tears. “I—I thought it would be fun. Seems’s if everything what’s fun ‘s wrong.”
Salome’s heart was not proof against tears, as Lionel Hezekiah very well knew. She put her arm about the culprit, and drew him to her side.
“He didn’t know it was wrong,” she said to Judith.
“He’s got to be taught, then,” was Judith’s retort. “No, you needn’t try to beg him off, Salome. He shall go right to bed without supper, and stay there till to-morrow morning.”
“Oh! not without his supper,” Salome. “You—you won’t improve the child’s morals by injuring his stomach, Judith.”
“Without his supper, I say,” repeated Judith inexorably. “Lionel Hezekiah, go up-stairs to the south room, and go to bed at once.”
Lionel Hezekiah went up-stairs, and went to bed at once. He was never sulky or disobedient. Salome listened to him as he patiently up-stairs with a at every step, and her own eyes filled with tears.
“Now don’t for pity’s sake go crying, Salome,” said Judith . “I think I’ve let him off very easily. He is enough to try the patience of a saint, and I never was that,” she added with entire truth.
“But he isn’t bad,” pleaded Salome. “You know he never does anything the second time after he has been told it was wrong, never.”
“What good does that do when he is certain to do something new and twice as bad? I never saw anything like him for originating ideas of . Just look at what he has done in the past fortnight—in one fortnight, Salome. He brought in a live snake, and nearly frightened you into fits; he drank up a bottle of liniment, and almost poisoned himself; he took three to bed with him; he climbed into the henhouse , and fell through on a hen and killed her; he painted his face all over with your water-colours; and now comes THIS exploit. And eggs at twenty-eight cents a dozen! I tell you, Salome, Lionel Hezekiah is an expensive luxury.”
“But we couldn’t do without him,” protested Salome.
“I could. But as you can’t, or think you can’t, we’ll have to keep him, I suppose. But the only way to secure any peace of mind for ourselves, as far as I can see, is to tether him in the yard, and hire somebody to watch him.”
“There must be some way of managing him,” said Salome . She thought Judith was in earnest about the tethering. Judith was generally so terribly in earnest in all she said. “Perhaps it is because he has no other employment that he invents so many unheard-of things. If he had anything to occupy himself with—perhaps if we sent him to school—”
“He’s too young to go to school. Father always said that no child should go to school until it was seven, and I don’t mean Lionel Hezekiah shall. Well, I’m going to take a pail of hot water and a brush, and see what I can do to that henhouse door. I’ve got my afternoon’s work cut out for me.”
Judith stood Salome’s crutch up beside her, and departed to purify the henhouse door. As soon as she was safely out of the way, Salome took her crutch, and limped slowly and painfully to the foot of the stairs. She could not go up and comfort Lionel Hezekiah as she to do, which was the reason Judith had sent him up-stairs. Salome had not been up-stairs for fifteen years. Neither did she dare to call him out on the landing, lest Judith return. Besides, of course he must be punished; he had been very naughty.
“But I wish I could a bit of supper up to him,” she , sitting down on the lowest step and listening. “I don’t hear a sound. I suppose he has cried himself to sleep, poor, dear baby. He certainly is dreadfully ; but it seems to me that it shows an investigating turn of mind, and if it could only be directed into the proper channels—I wish Judith would let me have a talk with Mr. Leonard about Lionel Hezekiah. I wish Judith didn’t hate ministers so. I don’t mind so much her not letting me go to church, because I’m so that it would be painful anyhow; but I’d like to talk with Mr. Leonard now and then about some things. I can never believe that Judith and father were right; I am sure they were not. There is a God, and I’m afraid it’s terribly wicked not to go to church. But there, nothing short of a miracle would convince Judith; so there is no use in thinking about it. Yes, Lionel Hezekiah must have gone to sleep.”
Salome pictured him so, with his long, curling brushing his , tear-stained cheek and his chubby fists clasped tightly over his breast as was his habit; her heart grew warm and thrilling with the the picture provoked.
A year Lionel Hezekiah’s parents, Abner and Martha Smith, had died, leaving a houseful of children and very little else. The children were adopted into various Carmody families, and Salome Marsh had amazed Judith by asking to be allowed to take the five-year-old “baby.” At first Judith had laughed at the idea; but, when she found that Salome was in earnest, she yielded. Judith always gave Salome her own way except on one point.
“If you want the child, I suppose you must have him,” she said finally. “I wish he had a name, though. Hezekiah is bad, and Lionel is worse; but the two in combination, and on to Smith at that, is something that only Martha Smith could have invented. Her was the same clear through, from selecting husbands to names.”
So Lionel Hezekiah came into Judith’s home and Salome’s heart. The latter was permitted to love him all she pleased, but Judith overlooked his training with a critical eye. Possibly it was just as well, for Salome might otherwise have ruined him with indulgence. Salome, who always adopted Judith’s opinions, no matter how ill they fitted her, to the former’s decrees , and suffered far more than Lionel Hezekiah when he was punished.
She sat on the stairs until she fell asleep herself, her head pillowed on her arm. Judith found her there when she came in, severe and , from her with the henhouse door. Her face into marvelous tenderness as she looked at Salome.
“She’s nothing but a child herself in spite of her age,” she thought pityingly. “A child that’s had her whole life and spoiled through no fault of her own. And yet folks say there is a God who is kind and good! If there is a God, he is a cruel, jealous , and I hate Him!”
Judith’s eyes were bitter and . She thought she had many against the great Power that rules the universe, but the most intense was Salome’s helplessness—Salome, who fifteen years before had been the brightest, happiest of , light of heart and foot, bubbling over with harmless, sparkling mirth and life. If Salome could only walk like other women, Judith told herself that she would not hate the great tyrannical Power.
Lionel Hezekiah was and angelic for four days after that affair of the henhouse door. Then he broke out in a new place. One afternoon he came in sobbing, with his golden curls full of burrs. Judith was not in, but Salome dropped her crochet-work and gazed at him in dismay.
“Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, what have you gone and done now?”
“I—I just stuck the burrs in ‘cause I was playing I was a heathen chief,” Lionel Hezekiah. “It was great fun while it lasted; but, when I tried to take them out, it hurt awful.”
Neither Salome nor Lionel Hezekiah ever forgot the harrowing hour that followed. With the aid of comb and scissors, Salome eventually got the burrs out of Lionel Hezekiah’s crop of curls. It would be impossible to decide which of them suffered more in the process. Salome cried as hard as Lionel Hezekiah did, and every of the scissors or at the silken floss cut into her heart. She was almost when the performance was over; but she took the tired Lionel Hezekiah on her knee, and laid her wet cheek against his shining head.
“Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, what does make you get into mischief so constantly?” she sighed.
Lionel Hezekiah frowned reflectively.
“I don’t know,” he finally announced, “unless it’s because you don’t send me to Sunday school.”
Salome started as if an electric shock had passed through her body.
“Why, Lionel Hezekiah,” she , “what put such and idea into your head?”
“Well, all the other boys go,” said Lionel Hezekiah defiantly; “and they’re all better’n me; so I guess that must be the reason. Teddy Markham says that all little boys should go to Sunday school, and that if they don’t they’re sure to go to the bad place. I don’t see how you can ‘spect me to behave well when you won’t send me to Sunday school.
“Would you like to go?” asked Salome, almost in a whisper.
“I’d like it bully,” said Lionel Hezekiah and .
“Oh, don’t use such dreadful words,” sighed Salome helplessly. “I’ll see what can be done. Perhaps you can go. I’ll ask your Aunt Judith.”
“Oh, Aunt Judith won’t let me go,” said Lionel Hezekiah despondingly. “Aunt Judith doesn’t believe there is any God or any bad place. Teddy Markham says she doesn’t. He says she’s an awful wicked woman ‘cause she never goes to church. So you must be wicked too, Aunt Salome, ‘cause you never go. Why don’t you?”
“Your—your Aunt Judith won’t let me go,” faltered Salome, more than she had ever been before in her life.
“Well, it doesn’t seem to me that you have much fun on Sundays,” remarked Lionel Hezekiah ponderingly. “I’d have more if I was you. But I s’pose you can’t ‘cause you’re ladies. I’m glad I’m a man. Look at Abel Blair, what splendid times he has on Sundays. He never goes to church, but he goes fishing, and has cock-fights, and gets drunk. When I grow up, I’m going to do that on Sundays too, since I won’t be going to church. I don’t want to go to church, but I’d like to go to Sunday school.”
Salome listened in agony. Every word of Lionel Hezekiah’s stung her conscience . So this was the result of her weak yielding to Judith; this innocent child looked upon her as a wicked woman, and, worse still, regarded old, de............