“Look at her!” he cried. “Just look at her! Ain't she a picter for you?
I knowed she'd get it, she's grit clean through.” A small boy, excited
by the size of the crowd, pushed his way to the front and looked, and
then turned away, indignant. “Huh!” he exclaimed scornfully, “'tain't
nut'in' but a kid got its toe in its mout'!” During her last days in the
incubator Marjorie and her feet became fast friends. All the long period
of her loneliness was forgotten in this new companionship. Never were
there more accommodating playmates than those two gentle twins, for they
seemed to be twins, they were so much alike in size and appearance. They
never forced themselves forward. When Marjorie wanted to sleep the feet
lay quietly at the foot of the pillow, but the moment she felt like
playing they crept upward and stood enticingly in her sight. Sometimes
she played with one, and sometimes with the other, and whichever was not
needed curled up snugly out of sight and waited patiently until it was
needed.
They had glorious times together. Usually she had no trouble in catching
a foot when she wanted it, but sometimes they played a little game with
her, and dodged about just beyond her reach, coaxing her to catch them,
and eluding her hands by the smallest part of an inch, but this only
made the fun more riotous, and one of them always ended the game by
letting itself be captured.
But one day a wonderful thing happened to Marjorie. The nurse and the
manager came to Marjorie's incubator, and consulted the chart, and
weighed Marjorie and pinched her arms and legs to see whether they were
firm and solid, and after that the air in the incubator lost a little
of its warmth every day, until it was as cool as the air of the great
outside world.
Marjorie was playing the foot game when the end came. She had not the
least idea that anything of the sort was going to happen. No one thought
of consulting her convenience in the matter.
First her father and mother appeared, and she might have known that
something unusual was on foot if she had thought about it, for they
had never before visited Marjorie simultaneously, but Marjorie was too
deeply in the foot game to pay attention to parents. Parents were a
necessity, but the foot game was a joy.
The nurse, who often did unaccountable things to Marjorie, did the most
unaccountable of all. She took Marjorie from her bed on the soft, pillow
and dressed her in stiff new garments, and enfolded her in blankets and
capes until she was like a bundle of soft cloths, with only a little
peephole for her eyes, and then, with cruelty unthought of, she handed
her bodily to Mrs. Fielding. Marjorie objected. She foresaw some trick
in all this. She raised her voice and protested, but they covered her
face with a soft white veil. Marjorie indignantly went to....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account