THE ADOPTION OF A MOTHER
Bobbie had become a personality. What is more, he had adopted Esther Bright as his mother, without any formalities of the law. He had found a mother heart, and had taken his place there by the divine right of love. No one seemed to know how it had all come about; all anyone knew, positively, was that Bobbie suddenly began to call his teacher "Mither."
At first the children laughed when Bobbie would call her by this new name; then the baby of the school was broken-hearted, until the teacher had mended the break with kisses and tender words.
Sometimes at midday recess, the drowsy child would climb into Esther's lap; and when she would cuddle him, his great blue eyes would look up into hers with a look of content and trusting love. After a while the heavy lids would close, and the flaxen hair lie moist on the ruddy forehead. Then Bobbie would be laid on an improvised bed, to finish his siesta.
Day after day went by, with increasing love on Bobbie's part, and deepening tenderness on the part of Esther Bright.
He was not always good. Far from it. He was a healthy little animal, bright and attractive. His activity sometimes got him into trouble. Then to divert his mind, his teacher would tell him little stories. When she would finish, he would say coaxingly, "More."
After a while, he would call for certain stories she had already told him, and interrupt her all the way along, his face alive with intelligent interest. At last he himself wanted to tell the stories to his teacher, with many interpolations and funny variations.
But the funniest thing happened one day when he refused to go home, and announced that he would stay with his adopted mother.
"Oh, no, Bobbie dear," she said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "What would your father do without you?"
"He tan det another wain," he said, in a tone of satisfaction.
"No, Bobbie," insisted the teacher; "you must go home."
Still he refused. Then all his Scotch stubbornness asserted itself. He could not be driven or coaxed home. And when the older children tried to carry him, he kicked and screamed and fought, till he had freed himself. He ran to his teacher with heart-rending sobs. She sent the other children home, and took him in her arms. Gradually his sobs ceased and he fell asleep. His face was wet with tears. In his sleep, great sighs, the aftermath of the storm, seemed to come from his innermost heart.
The adopted mother sat with her arms clasped about him. Such a look of tender love came into her face as one sometimes sees in the face of a young mother, bending over her sleeping babe. If ever Esther Bright was beautiful, it was at that moment. Kenneth Hastings stood a short distance away, watching her. He lifted his hat and stood with bowed head. At last he spoke her name. She turned, and nodded toward the sleeping boy in her arms.
"Come sit down," she said, moving to make room for him on the doorstep.
"You seem to be a good nurse, too," he responded, taking the proffered seat. "What's Bobbie doing here this time of day?"
She told him of the child's decision to stay with her, and his refusal to go home, his fight, and his stormy sorrow. He listened, with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
"Poor little chap," he said; "he has my sympathy in refusing to be parted from you."
She flushed slightly.
"Don't waste your sympathy," she replied saucily. Somehow that provoking smile of his nettled her. He had found her vulnerable.
"Bigger chaps than he feel the same way towards you," he said, smiling still.
He saw that she was badly teased, and the spirit of mischief led him on.
"Now I'd like to stay with you always, myself."
She looked as though she would annihilate him.
"And what is more, I'd like to change places with Bobbie this very minute."
She rose suddenly, but with some effort, for the child was stout and heavy for his years.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, looking admiringly upon Bobbie.
"I'm going to carry him home."
"How cruel to Bobbie!" he said, stepping near her and extending his arms for the child. "Let me carry him, do."
"I can carry him myself, thank you," she said, with a sudden air of independence.
Again she saw his look of amusement, and struggled with her heavy load, knowing full well that she could not carry him far.
"No, you must not carry him," he said firmly. "He is too heavy for you." And without more ado, he took Bobbie from her arms.
"Come," he said amicably, "we'll both take him home—to Mrs. Carmichael's."
So on they trudged. Bobbie roused a moment, but seeing a familiar face, he reached up his grimy hand and patted the bronzed cheeks, then cuddled comfortably into the strong arms.
"So Bobbie wanted to stay with you," he was saying.
"Yes, he calls me mither, you know."
"I'd like to call you 'mither' myself some day. It's a beautiful name."
She felt provoked with herself. Why in the world had she made that unfortunate remark?
"You love children, don't you?" He was not smiling now.
"Oh, yes; from my childhood up I have loved every child I have seen."
"I see."
But at this juncture Bobbie again roused, rubbed his eyes and demanded to be put down. So Kenneth set him on his feet. The little lad stood in sleepy bewilderment a moment, then with an engaging smile, offered one hand to Esther, and the other to Kenneth. He began to chatter.
"Bobbie loves his mither."
"So do I," responded Kenneth.
Esther bit her lip. She would not look up. But she felt her cheeks flush.
"Mr. Kenneth love Bobbie's mither?"
Kenneth laughed, a free, happy laugh. It was contagious, and the child laughed too. So did Esther in spite of herself.
"Mr. Kenneth tan't love Bobbie's mither."
"Can't, eh?" Again the happy laugh. "Who says I can't?"
"I do, his adopted mother," said the girl, demurely.
"I'll just capture you the way Bobbie did, and you can't help yourself." And again the stern eyes that seldom smiled, were filled with laughter.
Esther suddenly stopped.
"I can take Bobbie home."
"So can I," he said carelessly, with a suggestion of laughter still in his voice.
"I command you, Mr. Persistency, to turn about and leave me to take Bobbie home."
"I refuse to obey, Miss Obstinacy." A low chuckle.
"I suppose I'll have to endure you, then," she said, with mock seriousness.
"I suppose you will," he said. He seemed to enjoy the tilt. "But Miss Bright—." He stood still and faced her. "—I didn't know you were such a fighter. Here I have been trying to make you understand how I appreciate you, and you almost give me a black eye."
"You had two before—ever you saw me," she said.
"You have looked into them, then," he said, maliciously, "so that you know their color?"
He was, provokingly confident in his manner. Suddenly she stopped again. They were almost at Mrs. Carmichael's door, and Robert Duncan's shack was not far away.
"Really, Mr Hastings," she said, resuming a serious tone, "I do wish you would leave me."
"No," he persisted, "I am going to see you safely home."
Mrs. Carmichael met them at the door. Donald had already reached home, and had told her of Bobbie's refusal to return with him. She patted the little one on the head. He was an attractive little boy, and it was evident Mrs. Carmichael loved him. She stooped and extended her arms, and the child ran into them.
"So my Bobbie was nae coming home tae his auntie? What'd I dae wi'oot him?"
Bobbie hung his head and then said softly:
"Bobbie hae found a mither."
The call was prolonged in order to get Bobbie into a staying frame of mind. At last they spied Robert Duncan approaching his shack, when Kenneth stepped over to tell him of Bobbie's decision and afternoon experience. At first the man smiled, then the tears trickled down his face.
"Puir bairn, puir bairn," he said, huskily. Kenneth laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. He knew that Duncan was disheartened, and had spent much time, lately, in the saloons.
"Come," he said. "Come get the little chap. It is evident he misses his mother."
"Yes, he misses her, an' I miss her. I'll gie mair time tae him."
So saying, he accompanied Kenneth to the Carmichael home and soon Bobbie was in his father's arms.
The call of Kenneth and Esther drew to a close.
As the two walked briskly toward the camp, Esther Bright paused from time to time to draw in great breaths of air, and to drink in the glory of the world about her.
"Come," her companion said, "we shall be late to dinner. Did you know I am invited to dine with the Claytons to-night?"
"Really!" She tossed back the curls the stiff breeze had blown across her eyes.
"Really!" he echoed, in a tone of mockery. "Miss Bright, pardon me, but you—" He paused.
"Well?" she said. "What about you?"
"You look altogether charming."
She stopped. He walked on.
"You are perfectly incorrigible," she called. "Unless you promise to talk sense, I'll not go a step further with you."
He turned.
"Sense?" he said with mock seriousness, "that's what I have been talking when in your society all these weeks past. And here you make me play second fiddle to Jack Harding, Wathemah and Bobbie."
"And you prefer to be first fiddle?"
"Of course!"
She seemed in high spirits, ready for a tilt.
"Do be sensible," she said gayly.
"Sensible? I was never more sensible in my life." He made a long face.
"Unfortunate man!" She sighed, as though his condition were utterly hopeless.
He laughed.
"Miss Bright!"
"Mr. Hastings!"
"I have been thinking!"
"Marvelous!" She seemed like some mocking sprite.
"Why don't you ask what I am thinking about?" He seemed provokingly cool.
"Because you are just dying to tell me." She was piquant.
"I vow I'm not. I won't tell you!"
"All right," she returned, quickening her pace.
"Really, now, don't you wish to know what I have been thinking about?" He stepped nearer to her.
"I'm not the least bit concerned," she answered with airy indifference. "I wouldn't know for anything."
"Then I'll tell you. I was just thinking what fun it would be to meet you in society, and have a rattling flirtation with you."
"Indeed!" She lifted her head. "You'd find Greek had met Greek."
"I've no doubt. That would be the fun of it."
"And you might die of a broken heart." Her tone was full of laughter.
"That's what I'm doing already." He looked comical. "And you take no pity on me."
"You might take a dose of soothing syrup." She looked extremely solicitous.
"How extremely kind of you, Miss Bright. But my malady is in the region of the heart. I suspect you think I haven't a heart. But really, Miss Skeptic, a heart happens to be a part of my anatomy."
"I thought we were to talk sense," she reminded him.
Just then they heard a familiar call, and turning, saw Lord Kelwin hastening towards them.
"By George!" he said, breathing hard. "I have been trying to overtake you two for a half mile. You seemed to be having a mighty good time."
"Good time?" echoed Kenneth. "Miss Bright has been abusing me all the way." He assumed an injured air.
"I have no doubt, Miss Bright, that Mr. Kenneth enjoyed the treatment he received," remarked Lord Kelwin.
"Enjoyed it?" Kenneth interjected. "I have been a perfect martyr to feminine cruelty. And would you believe it? Miss Bright has been trying to palm off on me that she is not a daughter of Eve."
"You are a veritable son of Adam," she rejoined, gayly. "And to think that I shall have to endure you at dinner!"
"You'll have to endure another son of Adam, too," interjected Lord Kelwin, "for I am invited also."
At once new light broke in upon Esther.
"I believe you are letting the cat out of the bag," she said, "for I am sure this is intended to be a surprise for me. I have a birthday to-day."
"A birthday?" Kenneth said. "Let me see—" he said with comic gravity,"—you are getting to be a venerable lady. I presume you'll never see fifty again?"
"Oh, I assure you that is altogether too young." Then she turned to Lord Kelwin.
"Do you think it proper to suggest such frivolity as a flirtation to one of my advanced years?"
"Highly improper. Highly improper," said the Irishman, "but I'd like a hand in such a flirtation myself." He seemed to enjoy the nonsense.
"Then there would be two victims."
"You and I?" questioned Lord Kelwin.
"No; you and Mr. Kenneth."
"I was just thinking—." Lord Kelwin paused, to think of something that would make him a score.
"Thinking! Thinking!" as though that were quite incomprehensible. "Mr. Hastings also claimed to be thinking."
"Better leave her alone, Kelwin," laughed Kenneth. "She will have the last word. She's like the woman with the scissors."
"Good avenin'," said a rich brogue just at hand.
"How are you, Patrick?" said Kenneth.
"Well, sir. How are yez, Miss?" He gave his slouch hat a jerk. "Good avenin', Lord Kelwin."
They walked on together, and the talk drifted to the Gila Club.
"I'm really surprised, don't you know," said Lord Kelwin, "at the interest these fellows take in the club."
"It's the first dacint thing the byes has had ter go to. Look at that saloon there!" he said, pointing to an overgrown shack, where women of the coarsest type presided. "And look at that opium den," he said, indicating a small building at their right. "And see that haythen," he said, pointing to a female who stood in the door of a saloon, her cheeks painted, and puffing away at a cigarette. "Thim is the things as has sint the byes to desthruction."
Kenneth Hastings and Lord Kelwin made no reply.
"If yez kape on, schoolma'am," continued Patrick, "yez'll wipe out the saloons and opium places, an' make dacint min an' women out of these poor crathers." He nodded his head.
"So pitifully sad!" Esther's vivacious mood suddenly vanished. She was again grave and thoughtful.
"Aye," said Patrick, "but yez kin do it, Miss, niver yez doubt it. Yez can do it! Oi used ter go ter the saloon mesilf, but Oi'll go no more, no more. That's what yez has done fur me."
Just then Wathemah came running and leaping from Keith's saloon. In a moment he spied them, and ran full tilt towards them.
"It makes me sick at heart," Esther said in a low tone to Patrick, "whenever I think of Wathemah living longer in the saloon."
"Yez air right, Miss," answered Patrick, "but Misthress Keith is a purty dacint sort av a woman, and she has been good ter the lad."
"Yes, I realize that. But I wish I could take him myself."
By this time the child was trudging along beside his Beloved.
Lord Kelwin liked to tease him, and said in a bantering tone, "What are you always hanging on to Miss Bright's hand for, Wathemah? She don't allow the rest of her admirers to do that."
Wathemah placed his other hand over the hand he clasped.
"Me teacher mine!" he said, defiantly.
The men laughed. The teacher placed one hand on the child's head. He rested his cheek against her hand, as he said softly, "Me mother."
"Your mother, eh?" Lord Kelwin looked amused. "I wish she'd mother the rest of us."
The child did not understand the laughter, and fancying himself ridiculed by Lord Kelwin, turned, ran and leaped like a squirrel to his shoulder, and struck him in the face.
"You little savage," the Irishman said, angrily, as he grasped the child and shook him.
"Let me settle with Wathemah," said Esther, firmly. She stepped forward, and took him by the arm, and held him. "Go on," she said to the men, "I will follow."
They sauntered on, leaving her with the refractory urchin. When she and the child finally overtook them, Wathemah's face was tear-stained.
Nothing more was said to the child until they reached the Clayton door.
"I guess you had better go back now, dear," Esther said, placing her hand on Wathemah's shoulder.
"No," he said stoutly, "Mrs. Clayton ask Wathemah he Miss Bright party."
"Oh, yes," she said, with sudden understanding, "you came to celebrate my birthday, didn't you?"
He nodded.
"You want me to wash your face and hands, don't you, Wathemah?" she asked. And off she went with the child.
"By George," said Lord Kelwin, "I never saw such a woman."
"Nor I," returned Kenneth. "There is no other like her."
The other whistled, and Kenneth flushed. His companion went on, "I'd like to know if she really has a fortune."
"Better ask her." Lord Kelwin did not observe the look of contempt on Kenneth's face.
But host and hostess had entered the spacious room, and were extending gracious welcomes.
"Does either of you happen to know of the whereabouts of Miss Bright?" questioned Mr. Clayton.
On learning of her arrival with them, he rallied them on spiriting her off. In the midst of the raillery, Esther and Wathemah entered the room. The latter found his way at once to Mr. Clayton's side, for they were great friends. The entrance of Esther was the signal for further badinage.
"John, what do you think of a young lady who tells her escort she supposes she'll have to endure him?"
"Mr. Clayton," she said, with a saucy tilt of her head, "what do you think of gentlemen who tell a lady they would like to flirt with her?"
"That depends," he answered, with a broad smile, "upon who the lady is. Now if I were not a staid married man—"
"You do not answer my question," she said. "You introduce an altogether extraneous matter. I asked you what you thought of gentlemen who would tell a lady they would like to flirt with her." Here both Lord Kelwin and Kenneth Hastings tried to present their cases. Esther raised her hand. "Would you not consider this great frivolity, Mr. Clayton?" And she assumed a prim, shocked expression so funny that all laughed.
"If you wish to know my candid opinion," he said, with the air of a judge, "I believe they were within the law; but, if they were guilty offenders, they have my sympathy."
Wathemah looked from one to another with a puzzled expression as he listened to their laughter. He seemed to sense the fact that his Beloved was in some way the butt of their fun. In a moment he had slid from his place on John Clayton's knee, and was standing leaning against Esther.
"That's right, Wathemah," she said, pretending to be greatly injured, "you take my part."
"Look out here, young man," said Lord Kelwin, as Wathemah approached him with a threatening fist. Kenneth caught the child, and held him close in his arms, whispering to him, "We're only fooling, Wathemah."
But he said aloud:
"Did you know, John, that Miss Bright has become an adopted mother?"
"No. Whom has she adopted? You?"
"Me? No. That's a good one. She's adopted Duncan's little boy, Bobbie. And when I suggested that I'd like to change places with Bobbie, she almost annihilated me."
All seemed to be enjoying the nonsense.
"Really, Miss Bright," continued Lord Kelwin, "I think you should be at the head of an orphanage."
"I suppose you'd like to be chief orphan," suggested John Clayton.
Then the talk drifted to serious themes, until dinner was announced. A birthday cake with sixteen lighted candles, in the center of the table, was the signal for another fusillade of fun.
"Sixteen! sixteen!" said Kenneth Hastings. "I accused Miss Bright, to-day, of being fifty, and she assured me she was not so young as that."
"Sixteen! sweet sixteen!" said Lord Kelwin, bowing low.
She, in turn, bowed her head.
"You see," she said, "our good prophet, Mrs. Clayton, cried out, and the shadow has turned backward on the dial of Ahaz."
"It is not so much the number of years we count on the dial, after all," spoke Mrs. Clayton, who had thus far listened smilingly to the others; "it is what we live into those years. And you have lived already a long life in your few years, dear friend."
"You are right," Kenneth rejoined. "Miss Bright has lived more years of service to her fellow men in the few months she has been in Gila, than I have lived in my thirty years." Then, half in jest, half in earnest, he continued, "I wish Miss Bright could have been my grandmother, then my mother, then my—" He halted in embarrassment, as he saw a deep blush sweep over Esther's face.
"And then—" suggested Lord Kelwin, in a provoking tone—"and then?"
"I should like her for my friend."
"So say we all of us," rejoined John Clayton. Then observing Esther's face, he changed the drift of the conversation.
"How would you good people like to make up a party to go to Box Canyon sometime in the near future?"
"Delightful!" spoke several, simultaneously. And thereupon they began to describe for Esther the canyon and what she would see.
Before leaving the table, every wineglass save one was filled with sherry. That glass was turned down. John Clayton rose and lifted his glass.
"Here's to our dear friend, Miss Bright. May she always be sixteen at heart, with her ideals of life as true and as sweet as they are now; may the cares of life sit lightly upon her; may she be given strength to do all that she will always seek out and find to do; may the love of the true of heart enfold her; may the Heavenly Father keep her in all her ways; may the shadow ever turn backward on the dial."
And lifting their glasses, they drank to this toast.
Ah, little did they realize how prophetic in some ways that toast would prove to be, nor how great was the work that lay before the lovely and fragile-looking girl. All were happy and light-hearted; at least, all save Carla Earle. She sat quiet and retiring, when her duties were over. Wathemah had found refuge in her lap, and his regular breathing assured her he was fast asleep. So the evening wore on. At last all the guests except Wathemah had departed. The fire burned low. And soon all were asleep in the quiet house.