Miss Theodosias Heartstrings | Page 4

her recent comrade of the road. They had
traveled to many far places together. What would Cornelia say to that
little conference of three--and a baby--on the front porch?
"My dear," wrote Miss Theodosia, "you will think I have been swapped
in my cradle since I left you! 'That is no fellow tramp of mine,' you will
say, 'That woman being victimized by children in knee-high dresses!
Theodosia Baxter nothing!'"--for Cornelia Dunlap in moments of
surprise resorted sometimes to slang, which she claimed was a sturdy
vehicle of speech. "You will set down your teacup hard," wrote on
Miss Theodosia,--"I know you are drinking tea!--when I tell you the
little story of the Whitewashing of Theodosia Baxter. But shall I tell it?
Why expose Theodosia Baxter's weaknesses when hitherto she has
posed as strong? Soberly, Cornelia, I am as much surprised at myself as
you will be (oh, I shall tell it!). Do you remember your Mother Goose?
The little astonished old lady who took a nap beside the road and woke
to find her petticoats cut off at her knees? 'Oh, lawk-a-daisy me, can
this be I!' cried she. I'm not sure those were just her words, but they
will do. Oh, lawk-a-daisy me, can this be Theodosia Baxter! The
Astonished Little Old Lady, if I remember my Mother Goose, resorted
to the simple expedient of going home and letting her little dog decide
if she were she. But I have no little dog.
"They were so earnest to whitewash me, Cornelia! The whole scheme
was such a plucky little one and Baxters, from the dawn of creation,
have admired pluck. The lively, chatterbox-one was 'Evangeline' and
the quiet one who should have been an Evangeline was what the other
one ought to have been,--a 'Stefana,' suggestive of flashing, dark eyes
under a lace mantilla, with ways to match the eyes. So does fate play
her little jokes. The baby--but what do I know of babies or you know of
babies? He had six toes and I might have seen them for nothing; so do
we miss our opportunities. He was named for his grandfather just in
time, but the name, my dear, the name! Elihu. Are you listening? Elihu!
But they offered him the assuaging 'sop' of 'Launcelot' for a middle
name, and what could a baby do? Babies are the little scapegoats of
mistaken loyalties."

Miss Theodosia was having a good time. Her sober mood had passed.
She wrote on enjoyingly, describing the whole little episode to Cornelia
Dunlap. The freshening of it in her memory was pleasant. Again she
felt the tug of those eager little pleadings. She kept remembering other
things about little Elihu Launcelot besides his name and his toes. She
remembered how gravely he had looked at her, how tiny and soft his
hands were.
"That little box of a house next to mine, Cornelia,--I told you about it.
Well, it's as full now as it has been empty, and a little fuller. Dear
knows how many it holds! But it's sociable seeing the smoke come out
of the chimney; it's friendly."
She had not thought of it as sociable and friendly before. The thought
seemed just to have come to her. She was quite cheerful-minded when
she finished her letter to Cornelia Dunlap and neatly folded it. If she
had but known, she was sorry for Cornelia who was not next door to a
friendly little box.
She made tea and sipped it, made golden toast and opened a
foreign-looking box of some sort of jelly. While she ate slowly, she
slowly made plans. No, she would not have a stay-all-the-time
maid--yes, she would move her things into the room facing the
next-door house. Until she got tired of watching the sociable thread of
smoke, anyway.
It had not occurred yet to Theodosia Baxter that she had not said a
word to Cornelia Dunlap about going on their travels again. When it
did occur, she suddenly laughed out aloud, but softly.
"I forgot what I began that letter for! I never mentioned going away
again! And now--I'm glad. Who wants to go off? 'East, west, hame's
best.' Even a hame next door to a little dry-goods box."
Of course there was the promise to let those funny kiddies whitewash
her--
"It's a Baxter promise; don't try to get out of it, Theodosia Baxter," she

said.
The next noon she saw her dresses dangling from the neighboring
clothesline. They were not successfully dangled; Miss Theodosia liked
to see them hung with symmetry, all alike in a seemly row. The
shirtwaists dangled also in unseemly attitudes. One hung by a single
sleeve. But that was not all--a certain faint suggestion of something
worse than lack of symmetry persisted in Miss Theodosia's mind. They
had been especially