In any other child the doctor would at once have suspected a wrong
diet, but Marjorie's committee had arranged her diet and it was beyond
criticism. The doctor suggested that perhaps incubator babies
were subject to such declines. One of the strictest rules of the
committee-arranged diet was “no sweets.” Candy was absolutely forbidden.
On this point the committee was most positive.
Miss Vickers considered this a shocking cruelty. She lived largely on
chocolate creams and considered a candyless world pathetic. She pitied
Marjorie, and occasionally, when no one was looking, she smuggled a fat
chocolate into Marjorie's willing mouth. Miss Vickers believed that
a little candy was good for a child, but she was careful not to give
Marjorie more than she thought was good for her.
Mr. Fielding was of the same opinion. He could not imagine an
unsweetened childhood, and whenever he visited the nursery he smuggled
in a few soft bonbons--the kind that dissolve in the mouth and leave
no clews. Marjorie approved. She had a capacity for candy that was
phenomenal. One morning she and her mother were taking a little toddle
down the street when they passed one of those seductive candy shops in
which the basely knowing proprietor has the show windows cut so low that
the tempting display is very near the level of a two-year-old's mouth.
Marjorie stopped. She pushed her nose into flatness against the window
and gloated. She edged back and forth from one side, where there were
chocolate creams, to the other, where there were pink bonbons, and her
nose in its course made a clean streak on the dusty window glass. She
paused hesitatingly before the floury marshmallows, passed the cakes of
flat chocolate without qualms, and settled firmly and finally before the
pink bonbons.
She refused to leave the beautiful spot. When Mrs. Fielding tried to
draw her away, her nose remained against the glass and she screamed.
Mrs. Fielding glanced up and down the street guiltily. Not a committee
member was in sight. The street was untroubled by the feet of members of
the Federation of Women's Clubs. Mrs. Fielding vanished into the candy
shop. It was quite safe to leave Marjorie outside; she would remain with
her nose, and her nose seemed permanently affixed to the window.
But when Mrs. Fielding emerged with a small paper bag in her hand
Marjorie turned. The sight of one of the delicious pink lumps of
sweetness being lifted from the bag drew her away from the window, and
when the bonbon was dropped into her open mouth she was conquered. She
followed her mother gladly. Wherever that paper bag might go, Marjorie
would follow. The last bonbon disappeared before they reached home, but
Mrs. Fielding continued to carry the empty bag, and Marjorie followed
it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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