Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 33, Number 73, 28 April 1908 — Page 6

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By ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL 2

Copyright, 1908, by Tftomas JT. McKee.

I FORGOT." Rachel Seymour drearily re peated the stereotyped little excuse, and patiently sighed. Patience was the key stone of th bridge that connected her with the boy who forgot. She was always patient and the boy always forgot He atood gazing down at his stubbed little shoes. Six short months ago Rodney had forgotten with perfect Impunity, but since the unlooked-for advent at this clear-eyed woman-person it had been regarded in the light of a sin to forget. He had learned the lmple tenets of the new code by heart: To forget to tell the truth was a lie. To forget to obey was dis- ; obedience those two led the little processional of lelns. Rodney had committed them all unrestrained 'before, with a certain innocence of sinning; guiltysouled now because he knew. The patient woman had told him. Her clear eyes were on him now; ho could feel them, though he would not look. ; "It Is the third time to-day," she said slowly. She need not have said it, since he knew already and three times yesterday and two the day before. Mechanically he reckoned three plus three plus two. Rodney was good at adding things. Eight was considerable many, he realized, suddenly ashamed. Rachel Seymour opened a door and motioned gravely. Without a word the boy went in. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. In his seven years of experience. The shame swelling within his little breast was for this now rather than for hia eight sins, but he made no resistance at all. He scorned to resist a little clear-eyed woman-person. "I've explained so often," wearily; "now stay here alone and try to remember what I've said right here alone with your poor little sins. You are to stay till I come and open the door." She went away, but came back: "Your father would approve of what I am doing," she said gently and went again, j It was dark in the closet and the Sins crowded. Rodney was not afraid of the dark, but he was afraid of the Sina. In here all together, like this he had never been shut up with them all before. Singly and With plenty of room and light no one of them had ever dismayed him. ! The Head Sin the sin of forgetting seemed to come and sit astride his shoulder and whisper many hlssy, prickly things in his ear. j "She told you not to, an' you went an' did!" the .Head Sin chanted. J "I forgot" Rodney hurried, then stopped. The Head Sin laughed. "That's where I came in," he said, "I always come in." "I hate you! Get off o' my shoulder!" "You hate Her, too." "No," Rodney was a little surprised when he heard himself say it. It seemed queer to be saying it here, and any way he had supposed that he did hate Her. But he found himself going on: "No, I don't hate Her, I only don't love Her. There's a diff'rence between hating an' don't-loving." "She hates you." WITHOUT A WORD THE BOY WENT IN. ere was real trouble. From the depths of a rather fore little heart Rodney hesitated to confide in a Sin, even a Head One. She hated him, but he did not want anyone else to find it out- He was sure She would never tell anyone. They had known each other now for nearly a year. Father had married Her so

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she would bring him up everyone had said so, and she was doing It now, this minute. Rodney appreciated her gentle thoroughness. She had to do it, of course, but it did not make him love Her nor Her love him. Probably just bringing up never did; it was to Rodney's mind rather a dreary, unloving process. Probably She did not like it any better than he did. It would be so much easier for both of them If She would only stop bringing him up. "Morry Pennefeather's mother brings him up." It seemed to be the Head Sin who said it, as if he had been listening to Rodney's thoughts. "She's an own-er," flashed back Rodney. It made so much diff'rence. Own-ers could do things you didn't like an' you iiked 'em. Morry's mother was small and gentle like Her, but she loved Morry and Morry loved her It made a diff'rence. "You're sighing," accused the Sin. "I'm breathing I can breathe, can't I?" "Morry Pennefeather doesn't breathe. He laughs." In here In the dark things kept coming to Rodney.

t. 5. If', , 'YOU'LL HAVE TO TUT HIM IN THE There was really nothing to do but think of things. The new one he thought of now filled him with a strange feeling like being hungry and not expecting anything to eat. It was a secret between Rodney and himself that he wanted to love Her and wanted Her to love him. That was the difference between him and Her, for of course she didn't. Only own-ers probably did. She might open closet-doors then and say, "Go in." She might tell him and tell him how bad forgetting was She might bring him up then and welcome, Trobably Morry Pennefeather liked to be brought up. When his mother opened closet-doors perhaps then there weren't any closet-doors! Rachel Seymour went about her work with a troubled face. This thing that, she had done wa3 a rery disturbing thing she had never shut a little child in a closet before. She wished he would kick and beat upon the door with angry fists would call out angry things. The utter silence almost alarmed and wholly distressed her. "But he forgot again. His father would say I did right. He can't keep on disobeying," she reasoned; but it did not comfort her. She sat down to the piano and played loud music to drown that little utter silence upstairs. Her own boy, if she had one, would kick and beat end scream. She smiled a little to herself at the thought. He would be a little forgetter, too, but he would not be self-contained and silent like this little boy that forgot and was not hers. He would not look tip at 'her with that haunting, disturbing look that said things she could not understand. Her own little boy she would love, down even to his little sins. "I want to love Rodney," she said aloud and drowned it in a crash of chords. She had always wanted to. How did people go about loving silent little boys who had to be brought up? Why, when people knotted little ties and brushed little coats, did it not come then? Rachel Seymour would have given much to have felt glorious impulses to kiss the neck and ears and eyes of the child upstairs the rough hair and the hollow of the little, white throat. But, being honest and never having been impelled, she haa never kissed. His father would have liked her would Rodney?

"He hates me," she thought sadly, "but he needn't think that I hate him. It's only that I have to punish him and can't love him." As If that were not bad enough! He must stay a long while. She must do her duty. There was always that she could do. Meanwhile to get away from the disturbing silence she put on her hat and coat and went out to a neighbor's house to see a new baby. It was so near she would be gone only about the right time, and when she came back she would release Rodney. It was a tiny boy-person and they put him into her arms. The puckered little face was a rosy spot among the flannels, and she gazed down at it in a tremor of delight. That anything could be so small! That it could belong to anyone be flesh of flesh and blood of blood! She did not know Rodney's word, but she knew that the fragment of life in her arms was an "own-er." A little sigh escaped her and floated down to stir a wisp of soft hair on the baby's forehead. To ward off sobbing she laughed.

CLOSET SOMETIME," SHE SAID. "You'll have to put him in the closet sometime!" she said, and added: "But you'll kiss him all over when he comes out." "Do you think I'll ever punish tho little beloved!' the new mother protested. "Never! But I'll do th kissing all over!" She reached a languid hand toward, the tiny creature in Rachel Seymour's arms. Another caller crossed the room and peered down into h rosy dot of face and prodded the soft flannels. There was about the new admirer a certain definite air of accustomedness that stamped her a mother of rosy dots. "Isn't he a darling! Wherp's your little hannle, baby? I always want to get my finger into a baby's hand, and get it squeezed! It's the loveliest feeling, isn't it, Mrs. Seymour? Terhaps you'd 1hink the mother of four little squeezers would get used " She stopped suddenly and held up her hand. Her vivacious face expressed dawning panic. A fire-alar -was clanging out its dire strokes. v "One, two, three one, two, three, four," she counted with a terrible fascination. The panic burst, fullfledged, into her face. "Thirty-four! That's our district! I know our house is on fire and my blessed babies are burning up! I must run oh, why did I leave them with that terrible red-headed maid!" , No one thought to smile at the time-worn Imputation. The young mother's alarm was too genuine; she was white-faced with it. Rachel Seymour laid the new baby gently down and went to her. "I'll go with you," she said, soothingly. All thought of her reason for getting back soon to her own home was swallowed up in this little wave of borrowed excitement. Once out of mind it took its time to come back to her. There was no fire, no burned babies. After her exertion to keep up with the impetuous young mother, Rachel Seymour was persuaded to stop and rest a little. Then, finding herself so near the shops, she concluded to go on and do a few neglected errands. The few multiplied. She discovered, besides, that several milliners were having openings, and what normal woman with no apparent reason why she should not stop and feast her eyes on lovely creations of lace and roses, ribbons and feathers what woman ever went by? Rachel Seymour was fond of dainty things. She lingered among them enjoyingiy while the afternoon hours drifted by. In the dark closet, quite alone with the Sins, time dragged tc Rodney. He began to wonder that She

did not come. He had gone to a forbidden place and stayed a long time that last sin. he realized, had been a long one, but not as Icng as this. What if She never came and he stayed here always? What if his hair should become as white as snow! The closet seemed to grow darker, his cramped legs more cramped. He tried counting and counted into hundreds. He tried saying all the multiplication tables he knew and some that he did not. He spelled all his scant little repertory of words and recited aloud all his pieces. If he had been an imaginative boy he might have found some measure cf consolation in making believe, but to Rodney only stern realities occurred. The Sins seemed to shrivel with age and wither away and a quaint fancy seized him that he missed them. Even Si::s were company. After a great while came other, sterner fancies. The loud-voiced clock on the other side of the door began to tick off days, instead of hours and minutes. When it struck it struck a year, and he thought it taunted him meanly: "You never'!! eorae out never'll come out! First thing jou know you'll die!" It began to feel like that. A sudden fury took possession of Rodney and he screamed and beat on the door and kicked it with his numb little feet. The own little son of Rachel Seymour could not have done it better. But nothing happened on theother side of the door, except that the clock taunted a little more loudly. Rodney sank down again on the floor. The drowsiness that by and by crapt over him h understood. It was that. He stretched his littlebody out and folded his hands decently. When they found him when She came he would look better stretched out. with hands folded, he thoucht, A sad exultation drifted mistily through his mind when he thought of that moment and he wished he was going to come with Her to see how She looi.ed. That was just be fore he died. In the new silence the clock outside eeemed to be 6aying tender things in a whisper. Rachel Seymour had fallen in with another friend at one of the "openings." Together they went the rounds of the decorated room and came to a halt before an especially choice little creation on one of the frames. In the middle of a gentle rhapsody the acquaintance caught sight of a new expression on Rachel Seymour's face. It was an odd, awakened expression that changed swiftly to utmost dismay. "My dear! You are not ill?" "I'm wicked!" Rachel Seymour uttered with the emphasis of conviction. She caught the other woman's arm. "I must go home at once. I I had forgotten pomething. If I can't get a car I think I shall run! (kod-bye good-bye." She was off without further loss of time. On the car she sat reviewing the awful thing she had done. It grew steadily more awful. Had a worT ever before done such a thing?

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BENDING, SHE KISSED HIS "And he isn't mine!" she moaned inwardly. She was convinced that it was worse because he was not hers. To shut her own little son in a dark closet and then forget to let him out would be bad enough, but this was worse. He might think poor child, poor child, what might he not and had he not a right to think! Shut in there, in that horrible dark but Rodney would not be afraid, she remembered proudly. The darkness had no terrors for his stout little mini. He would only hate her hate her. Her heart went on ahead to open the door and take him out in its arms. In her remorse and pity she flailed herself unremittingly had no mercy. Those, sitting near hT wondered at her and glanced at each other with looks of suspicion. She had not dared to look at h- watch, but she saw with renewed dismay that the car was full of

business men going home to supper. It had been rery early in the afternoon when she put Rodney into the closet. Dismounting from the car at the street nearest her own. she sped swiftly away toward home, hei troubled thoughts seeming to pant and gasp witli net breath. In sight of the house she began to run. An awful fear gripped her. The closet was not Tery large and if the door fitted tightly She flew up the steps. through the hall, up the stairs. Her heart pounding, her throat throbbing, she wrenched open the closetdoor. "Rodney! Rodney!" she cried, but her voice made no sound. She caught up the awful, straight little figure and ran with it in a panic of fear. It was Rodney himself who stopped her. His eyes opened and he regarded her with the soft bewilderment of a wakened child. "Rodney! Rodney!" "Why. I ,-ame back, didn't I!" he murmured. He was not quite liaPk yet. "I didn't expect to come bd " He stopped suddenly as his vision cleared and he saw the creat trouble in her face. He could not bear it. An iutonse desire to comfort her sprang up. chivalry-born, within him. His mind ignored superbly her responsibility for his woes. "Don't feel bad," he murmured. But She went on feeling bad. "I forgot. Rodney!" she moaned. "Oh, Rodney. You might have died " "I did." simply, "but it's all right. You were perfectly welcome I mean it wasn't so very bad. I'd most as lieves. It war nice an'-an' quiet in there. You needn't have hurried." Hurried! She caught him to her in an eager passion of tenderness and remorse. With those birthpangs was ushered into life Rachel Seymour's lovt for the little boy that was not hers. "Dear dear you are so good! How can you forgive me?" "Why, I forgot, too." he explained gravely, yet throbbing with vague, new joy. "It's very easy to. You see, I know "xactly how it feels you needn't mind a mite, account o' me." Her Sin was a brother to his own he could understand forgetting. He felt a new-born kinship with the clear-eyed woman who brooded over him in this wondrous, unexpected way a comforting partnership in sinning. He was glad She had forgotten, too. This partnership was sweet. "But I didn't forgive you. I punished you. Rodney " "Oh, that's all right!" he laughed out from his pleasant retreat in her arms. "I just as li-ves." H looked up suddenly, half-tisehievous, half-sly. "Tci filad," he added, "because A kind of joins as." For

NECK, HIS EYES, HIS ROUGH HAIK. he did not know the name, only the essence of partnership. She nodded with quick understanding. It made them co-sinners. Bending, she kissed his neck, bis ears, his eyes his rough hair and the hollow of hia little white throat. "But you have a right Rodney, don't you want to put me in the closet? Now? I'm ready." "Oh, nooh, no, indeed!" He was first a little startled, then the mischief again: "You don't need to be punished for such a little thing as me!" The big clock appeared to be holding up its hands in wonderment at thi3 thing that was going on. Then the, two of them, if they had listened, might hare heard the new thing it said: "Mother and son! Mother and son! Mother an! -son!"