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In the Closed Room
by
Jane turned off the hot water and stared.
“Her!”
“The little girl who plays. I never touch her. She says I must not.”
Jane lifted her pail from the sink, laughing outright.
“Well, that sounds as if she was a pretty airy young one,” she said. “I guess you’re a queer little pair. Run on. I must get at this floor.”
Judith ran up the three flights of stairs lightly. She was glad she had told her mother, though she wondered vaguely why it had never seemed right to tell her until last night, and last night it had seemed not so much necessary as imperative. Something had obliged her to tell her. The time had come when she must know. The Closed Room door had always shut itself gently after Judith had passed through it, and yesterday, when her mother passing by chance, had tried the handle so vigorously, the two children inside the room had stood still gazing at each other, but neither had spoken and Judith had not thought of speaking. She was out of the realm of speech, and without any sense of amazement was aware that she was out of it. People with voices and words were in that faraway world below.
The playing to-day was even a lovelier, happier thing than it had ever been before. It seemed to become each minute a thing farther and farther away from the world in the streets where the Elevated Railroad went humming past like a monster bee. And with the sense of greater distance came a sense of greater lightness and freedom. Judith found that she was moving about the room and the little roof garden almost exactly as she had moved in the waking dreams where she saw Aunt Hester–almost as if she was floating and every movement was ecstasy. Once as she thought this she looked at her playmate, and the child smiled and answered her as she always did before she spoke.
“Yes,” she said; “I know her. She will come. She sent me.”
She had this day a special plan with regard to the arranging of the Closed Room. She wanted all the things in it–the doll–the chairs–the toys–the little table and its service to be placed in certain positions. She told Judith what to do. Various toys were put here or there–the little table was set with certain dishes in a particular part of the room. A book was left lying upon the sofa cushion, the large doll was put into a chair near the sofa, with a smaller doll in its arms, on the small writing desk a letter, which Judith found in a drawer–a half-written letter–was laid, the pen was left in the ink. It was a strange game to play, but somehow Judith felt it was very pretty. When it was all done–and there were many curious things to do–the Closed Room looked quite different from the cold, dim, orderly place the door had first opened upon. Then it had looked as if everything had been swept up and set away and covered and done with forever–as if the life in it had ended and would never begin again. Now it looked as if some child who had lived in it and loved and played with each of its belongings, had just stepped out from her play–to some other room quite near–quite near. The big doll in its chair seemed waiting–even listening to her voice as it came from the room she had run into.
The child with the burnished hair stood and looked at it with her delicious smile.
“That is how it looked,” she said. “They came and hid and covered everything–as if I had gone–as if I was Nowhere. I want her to know I come here. I couldn’t do it myself. You could do it for me. Go and bring some roses.”
The little garden was a wonder of strange beauty with its masses of flowers. Judith brought some roses from the bush her playmate pointed out. She put them into a light bowl which was like a bubble of thin, clear glass and stood on the desk near the letter.