With a swift movement Carmencita sprang across the room and from the
mantel took down a once beribboned but now faded and worn tambourine.
"You'd rather cry," she said, under her breath, "but you sha'n't cry.
I won't let you. Dance! Dance! Dance!"
Aloft the tambourine was shaken, and its few remaining bells broke
gaily on the air as with abandon that was bewildering in grace and
suppleness the child leaped into movement swift and light and amazing
in beauty. Around the room, one arm akimbo, one hand now in the air,
now touching with the tambourine the hard, bare floor, now tossing
back the loose curls, now waving gaily overhead, faster and faster she
danced, her feet in perfect rhythm to the bells; then presently the
tambourine was thrown upon the table, and she stopped beside it, face
flushed, eyes shining, and breath that came in quick, short gasps.
"That was much better than crying." She laughed. "There isn't much you
can do in this world, Carmencita, but you can dance. You've got to do
it, too, every time you feel sorry for yourself. I wonder if I could
see Miss Frances before I go for Father? I _must_ see her. Must! Those
Beckwith babies have got the croup, and I want to ask her if she
thinks it's awful piggy in me to put all my money, or 'most all, in
Father's present. And I want to ask her--I could ask Miss Frances
things all night. Maybe the reason I'm not a thankful person is I'm so
inquiring. I expect to spend the first hundred years after I get to
heaven asking questions."
Going over to the mantel, Carmencita looked at the little clock upon
it. "I don't have to go to the wedding-place for father until after
six," she said, slowly, "and I'd like to see Miss Frances before I go.
If I get there by half past five I can see the people get out of their
automobiles and sail in. I wish I could sail somewhere. If I could see
some grandness once and get the smell of cabbage and onions out of my
nose, which I never will as long as the Rheinhimers live underneath
us, I wouldn't mind the other things so much, but there isn't any
chance of grandness coming as high up in the air as this. I wonder if
God has forgot about us! He has so many to remember--"
With a swift turn of her head, as if listening, Carmencita's eyes grew
shy and wistful, then she dropped on her knees by the couch and buried
her face in her arms. "If God's forgot I'll remind Him," she said, and
tightly she closed her eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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