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The Poor Little Rich Girl
by
In each of the houses across the wide river, she often established a pretend-home. Her father was with her always; her mother, too,—in a silken gown, with a jeweled chaplet on her head. But her household was always blissfully free of those whose chief design it was to thwart and terrify her—Miss Royle, Jane, Thomas; her teachers [as a body]; also, Policemen, Doctors and Bears. Old Potter was, of course, the pretend-butler. And Rosa, notwithstanding the fact that she had once been, while at Johnnie Blake’s, the herald of a hated bed-time went as maid.
Gwendolyn had often secretly coveted the Superintendent’s residence in the Park (so that, instead of straggling along a concrete pavement at rare intervals, held captive by the hand that was in Jane’s, she might always have the right to race willy-nilly across the grass—chase the tame squirrels to shelter—even climb a tree). But more earnestly did she covet a house beyond the precipice. Were there not trees there? and rocks? Without doubt there were Johnnie Blake glades as well—glades bright with flowers, and green with lacy ferns. For of these glades Gwendolyn had received proof: Following a sprinkle on a cool day, a light west wind brought a butterfly against a pane of the front window. When Gwendolyn raised the sash, the butterfly fluttered in, throwing off a jeweled drop as he came and alighted upon the dull rose and green of a flower in the border of the nursery rug. His wings were flat together and he was tipped to one side, like a skiff with tinted sails. But when the sails were dry, and parted once more, and sunlight had replaced shower, he launched forth from the pink landing-place of Gwendolyn’s palm—and sped away and away, due west!
But the view from the side window!
Beyond the line of step-houses, and beyond the buildings where the maids hung their wash, were roofs. They seemed to touch, to have no streets between them anywhere. They reached as far as Gwendolyn could see. They were all heights, all shapes, all varieties as to tops—some being level, others coming to a point at one corner, a few ending in a tower. One tower, which was square, and on the outer-most edge of the roofs, had a clock in its summit. When night settled, a light sprang up behind the clock—a great, round light that was like a single shining eye.
She did not know the proper name for all those acres of roof. But Jane called them Down-Town.
At all times they were fascinating. Of a winter’s day the snow whitened them into beauty. The rain washed them with its slanting down-pour till their metal sheeting glistened as brightly as the sides of the General’s horse. The sea-fog, advanced by the wind, blotted out all but the nearest, wrapped these in torn shrouds, and heaped itself about the dun-breathed chimneys like the smoke of a hundred fires.
She loved the roofs far more than Drive or River or wooded expanse; more because they meant so much—and that without her having to do much pretending. For across them, in some building which no one had ever pointed out to her, in a street through which she had never driven, was her father’s office!
She herself often selected the building he was in, placing him first in one great structure, then in another. Whenever a new one rose, as it often did, there she promptly moved his office. Once for a whole week he worked directly under the great glowing eye of the clock.
Just now she was standing at the side window of the nursery looking away across the roofs. The fat old gentleman at the gray-haired house was sponging off the rubber-plant, and waving the long green leaves at her in greeting. Gwendolyn feigned not to see. Her lips were firmly set. A scarlet spot of determination burned round either dimple. Her gray eyes smouldered darkly—with a purpose that was unswerving.
“I’m just going down there!” she said aloud.
Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!
It was Miss Royle, entering. Though Saturday was yet two days away, the governess was preparing to go out for the afternoon, and was busily engaged in drawing on her gloves, her glance alternating between her task and the time-piece on the school-room mantel.