FullReads

“Do you? Why?”

“‘Cause she’s always and always dust as good as she can be. And she never and never says ‘Stop this minute!’ er ‘at I make her head ache, er ‘at I ‘m naughty, er anything. She dust puts her arms all ’round me and says, ‘Dear little girl.’ An’ ‘en I ‘m good. And I love my new mamma, I do, better than my gone-away mamma.” And she gave a decided little nod, as if in defiance of some privately urged claim.

“Where has your other mamma gone?” I asked, expecting to hear but the one answer. She raised her long lashes and looked at me seriously.

“You ‘re a tourist lady, ain’t you? That’s why you don’t know. Well, it was a tourist man, ‘at stayed a long time, who tooked my gone-away mamma away.”

“A tourist man? Why did he do that?”

“‘Cause he did n’t want me ’round, I guess. When the flowers was here that other time he comed to the store where my mamma sold all the pretty things my papa made dust every day an’ every day. An’ I did n’t like him a bit, I did n’t.”

“Why didn’t you like him?”

“‘Cause he did n’t like me, and did n’t want me ’round. When my mamma was there and I was there, he would come and talk to my mamma, an’ ‘en he would tell her to send me away. An’ ‘en she would put me in the back room; an’ if I cried an’ kicked the door, she would put me in the closet. If the tourist man wasn’t there, she loved me most all the time.”

“Did n’t she love you all the time, anyway?”

For answer the small maiden shut her eyes tightly and shook her head rapidly and decidedly.

“Why do you think she did n’t love you all the time?”

“‘Cause sometimes she was n’t good to me.”

“Did you love her all the time?”

Another decided head-shaking.

“You did n’t? Why?”

“I did n’t love her when she did n’t love me. But my new mamma loves me all the time an’ all day an’ all night an’ every day an’ every night an’ always. An’ we dust have the bestest times togevver, an’ I love her dust all I can love anybody.” She hugged her chubby arms close up to her breast as if she had them around the loved one’s neck, screwed up her pretty face, and gave the little grunt with which childhood expresses the fulness of its affection.

“Did you see the tourist man take your gone-away mamma away?”

“No, I didn’t see him, but he did, ’cause once she went to take a walk an’ ‘en he never came back any more.”

“And did n’t she ever come back?”

“‘Course not!” She looked at me in wide-eyed amazement at my ignorance. “One day she said for me to stay there ’cause she was going to take a walk. An’ I cried to go too, an’ ‘en she picked me up quick an’ hugged me tight an’ kissed me. An’ ‘en she put me down an’ said no, she was going too far. An’ she took off her ring, her pretty gold ring, ‘at she never let me have before, an’ said to play wif it and when papa come give it to him. An’ I did, an’ papa readed a letter ‘at was on the table, an’ ‘en he fell down on the bed an’ cried. An’ I put my hand on his face an’ said, ‘Poor papa, what’s ‘e matter?’ An’ ‘en he took me up in his arms, an’ we bofe cried, an’ cried, an’ cried. An’ he said, ‘Poor little girl!'”

She paused a moment, and then, with the air of one summing up a long discourse, she exclaimed, “An’ that’s why I ‘ve got a gone-away mamma!”