Suzanna Stirs the Fire | Page 9

Maizie couldn't understand, and she never understands. You never were cross about that before." She gazed straight back into her mother's face--"I'm mad at the whole world."
What perfection the child expects of the mother! No human deviations! Mrs. Procter sighed. How could she live out her child's exalted ideal of her! She looked helplessly at Suzanna. The eyes lifted to hers lacked the wonted expression of perfect belief, of passionate admiration. That this first little daughter, so close to her heart fibers, should in any degree turn from her, pierced the mother. She put her arms about the unyielding small figure.
"Suzanna, little daughter," she whispered. "Mother is sometimes tired, but always, always she loves you."
The response was immediate. With a little cry Suzanna pressed her lips to her mother's. All her reticence was gone. This mother who enfolded her stood once more the unwavering star that guided Suzanna's life.
"You see, little girl," Mrs. Procter said after a few moments, "mother sometimes has a great deal to think about--and baby was cross."
"Oh, mother, dear, I'll help you," cried Suzanna. "I'll always be good to you and when I'm grown up I'll buy you silk dresses and pretty hats and take you to hear beautiful music."
Later they went downstairs together. In the kitchen Maizie was amusing the baby as he sat in his high chair. She looked around as Suzanna entered: "Are you going to see Drusilla now," asked Maizie.
"Who's Drusilla?" asked Mrs. Procter with interest.
Now Suzanna had not told her mother of her new friend. She had wished to keep in character, and a princess, she felt, was rather secretive and aloof. But now the renewed closeness she felt to her mother opened her heart.
"Yesterday when I was a princess, living my very own first tucked-in day, I walked and walked, and at last came to a little house with a garden," she said, "and there was an old lady with no one to call her by her first name--and so I'm going to call her Drusilla."
"Is she a little old lady with white hair, and curls on each side of her face?" asked Mrs. Procter.
"Yes," said Suzanna.
"Why, she's Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett's mother, and she's a little--" Mrs. Procter hesitated believing it wiser to leave her sentence unfinished.
"A little what, mother?" asked Suzanna anxiously.
"Oh, she has fancies," evaded Mrs. Procter. "For instance, there are times when she thinks herself a queen."
"What was the word you were going to use, mother?" persisted Suzanna.
"Well, then, Suzanna, such a person is called a little strange."
"Then I'm a little strange, too," said Suzanna.
"But you're a child, Suzanna," said Mrs. Procter, "and Mrs. Bartlett is a very old lady."
"Does that make the difference?" asked Suzanna. "If it does, I can't understand why. I think that an old lady, especially if she's lonely and if she grieves for her king who went far away from her, has just as much right to have fancies as a little girl has."
"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Procter, turning a soft look upon Suzanna.
Maizie, who had been standing near listening intently, now spoke: "A girl I know had a grandfather who thought he was a cat and every once in awhile he meowed, and he liked to sit in the sun. He thought he was a nice, gentle, Maltese cat, and when he wasn't busy meowing he was awful sweet to the children, and played with them and took care of the little ones; but the big people thought they'd better send him far away, because it wasn't right that he should think himself a cat."
Suzanna's eyes flamed in anger. "I think they were cruel," she cried, "not to let him stay at home. I know the girl whose grandfather he was. Her name's Mary Holmes, and she cried because they sent her grandfather away. But she didn't tell me why."
"I'm her special friend on Wednesday recess day," said Maizie bashfully, "that's why she told me."
"I like old people," Suzanna continued. "I like Drusilla, and I like Mrs. Reynold's mother that once came to see her, and I like old Joe, the vegetable man, who made whistles for us last summer. They all seem to understand you when you talk to them, and they can see things just like you can."
"Well, I've heard it said," said Mrs. Procter musingly, "that old people are very much like the young in their fancies. Maybe that's why you enjoy them, Suzanna."
"Well, mother," Suzanna was very much in earnest now, "can't you always tell everybody who has an old lady or an old gentleman living with them that if they're not loving to old ladies and gentlemen, their silver chain will break?"
"Silver chain?" cried Maizie, puzzled. "I don't know what you mean, Suzanna."
"Why, every one of us," Suzanna explained carefully, "carries a little