Every day at the same hour he passed the house, leaning on a cane. When the sun was bright he stepped along quickly, with an alert carriage of the head; but there were cloudy days when his step was slow and feeble, and even his smile lost some of its usual charm.

"Hello, little girl," he said, in a ponderous fashion, the first time that he saw me perched on the gate. "Hello! Hello! Hello!"

The hellos reached a long distance, and grew very gruff at the end, but there was a twinkle in his eye, and he had a beautiful bright star on his watch-chain, with which I longed to play.

I gravely put out a small hand to him.

"My name is Rhoda," I said, in a burst of confidence. "I live here in this house. I was six years old yesterday."

"Were you!" he replied, evidently much impressed. "That's very old, very old."

He went on slowly down the block, but when he turned on his way back, he stopped again at the gate to discuss my age.

"Six, was it?" he questioned. "Well! Well! Perhaps you can tell me what time it is."

I shook my head, with a fascinated look at the gleaming star.

"I haven't a watch."

"But you don't need a watch," he answered. "See here."

He stooped down, painfully, grasping the fence for support, and picked the snowy seed-ball of a dandelion plant. Then he straightened up, slowly, and blew at the feathery toy.

"One, two, three, four, five! Five o'clock. Time for the old major to go in out of the damp."

Then he turned away from me, and went on up the street, his cane digging little holes in the path, and he himself forgetting all about the child whom he had left still perched on her gate. I had not entirely passed from his memory, however, for when he came to his own gate far in the distance, he took off his hat, and gallantly waved it to me before he went in out of the damp.

"Mother, I love the old major!" I said one day.

"What major?" my mother asked, looking up from her work with a smile.

She was making small ruffled skirts and aprons with pockets. She could make the most beautiful things, all out of her own head.

"What major? Why, my major. Mother, has the old major any little girls or boys that I could play with? Oh, I should so like to play with his little girls and boys!"

"Major Daniel Clark hasn't any little girls or boys. He lost them all, dear. He is a very lonely man."

"Didn't he ever find them again, mother?"

"No, dear. Never again."

Now, I was very good at finding things. I found grandmother's spectacles ten times a day, even when they were only lost in her soft, white hair. And once I found mother's thimble when little brother Dick had it in his mouth, and it was just going down red lane. Norah said that I had a pair of bright eyes, and my very father, when he wanted his slippers, could think of no one so trustworthy to send as I. To find little girls and boys would be quite easy, for they were much larger things. I had only to ask all the girls and boys who came past my gate if they belonged to the major, and, when the right ones came, we would run hand-in-hand up to that distant door and go in. He would be so pleased, and never lonely again. And, perhaps—Just suppose that he would be my friend forever and ever!

I was waiting on my gate the next day when he came by.

"Oh, Major!" I cried, excitedly, nodding my head at him, "I'm going to find your little girls and boys for you!"

"My little girls and boys?" he asked, perplexed.

"Yes. The ones that you lost so long ago."

He turned quite suddenly on his way, so quickly that I thought that he was angry, but when he came back he stopped at the gate again. He took my face softly between his hands, and looked down deep into my eyes, into the little circles where there were pictures.

"When you grow up, always remember that the old major loved you," he said, hurriedly, and then went back toward the house from which he had come out so shortly before.

We were great friends after that. We held long conversations over the gate, about my dolls, and the hobby-horse which had lately come to live in the hall. We discussed the best way to raise children, and how convenient it would be if aprons could only be made to button in front. We both had original ideas on things, and often differed, but none of my new clothes ever seemed quite real to me until the major had admired them, and pinched my cheeks with that air of gallantry which showed that I was a woman. He brought me presents, very wonderful things; bright pebbles which he picked up on the street, willow whistles, and a tiny basket carved from a peach-stone, which I hung on a ribbon about my neck. I gave him flowers, and once, when no one was looking, I let him kiss me in the shadow of the pink sunbonnet.

If the major and I met thus on the sunny days, when it rained there came a blank in my life. Then he could not go out at all, but must stay shut up in his house until the weather cleared again. There was something the matter with the major which made this necessary. In some unaccountable way he was different from other people, and to be different from other people was sad, and was, moreover, a thing which never happened in our family.

Now, grandmother had a little red brick house that stood on her mantel-piece which aided me a great deal in the stormy times. A little man and woman lived in this house who were never of the same mind, and carried their lack of sympathy to such an alarming extent that they used separate doors, and, as far as I could see, had never met in the course of their lives. For as sure as the man with the umbrella came out of one door, the little lady with the roses in her bonnet gathered up her skirts, and scurried in as if she were afraid to meet him. With her went the sunshine and the blue look to the sky, and the rain came down heavy and fast. But if the old man went into his house, the old lady sprang out, with a smile on her face, the rain stopped falling, and the sun came out. Then, by and by, the major would walk down the street, and stop to chat awhile.

I used to run into grandmother's room every morning to look at that house.

"Grandma," I cried, eagerly, "has the little lady come out to-day?"

Then I took my stand soberly in front of the mantelpiece and regarded the two figures with much attention.

"Grandma," I said once, "do you think that they can be relations?"

Grandmother took up a stitch in her knitting without replying.

"Because, if they are," I went on, indignantly, "I think that they ought to be ashamed!"

"Ashamed of what, Rhoda?"

"Why, of the way that they act. They don't even look at each other! And, grandma, I think that he's the worst. He goes in with such a click when she comes out. He's so afraid that she'll say something to him."

Grandmother looked up over her spectacles.

"Now that I come to think of it," she said, "they've acted that way for forty years."

"I wonder why he don't like her?" I went on, musingly. "Is it because she's got flowers in her bonnet, and he hasn't? Look, grandma, she's coming out very quietly. She's going to catch him this time. Oh, he's gone in with a click! And he never said a word!"

"We'll have fair weather now, Rhoda."

"And my major will come out, grandma."

"He's my major!" little Dick cried.

"He's my major!" Beatrice asserted.

"No such thing!" I said, turning on them angrily. "He belongs all to me. Don't he, grandma?"

Grandmother did not answer, but I knew that he did. When the twins came, hand-in-hand, down the path to see him, he would pat their fat arms through the spokes of the gate, but it was always I to whom he wished to talk, for I was more of his own age and not a baby like them.

"Baby yourself!" Dick said, when I mentioned this, and slapped me, but it made no difference.

Sometimes the lady from across the way would come over to walk with the major. They were old friends, and had a great deal to talk about. I remember seeing her shake her finger at him when she found him leaning on my gate.

"So you're trying to turn another woman's head!" she cried, gayly.

He wheeled upon her with that sudden straightening of his shoulders that would come so unexpectedly.

"Did I ever turn yours, Kitty?" he asked, with a mischievous smile.

"Dozens of times," she cried. "Dozens of times!"

Then she took his arm, and they went up and down in the bright sunshine, up and down, while the major would thump his cane upon the ground with that gruff laugh that always seemed merrier than other people's. His white hair was smoothly brushed, and his black hat was set on jauntily, and his kind eyes shone as if he were young again. I noticed that the lady from over the way always wore a black silk dress and her best, curly, brown hair whenever she came to walk with the major, and, also, a battered silver bracelet which looked as if it had been chewed. The major would glance at it and laugh.

"I took castor-oil to buy that bracelet," he said once, with his twinkle.

It sounded funny, but I knew just what he meant. I had made dollars and dollars myself taking castor-oil, except that time when Auntie May mixed it so cunningly with lemonade that it went down and down to the very dregs, and I never discovered until then how I had been cheated out of my just dues.

"So that was it!" the lady from over the way exclaimed, patting the bracelet. "I always knew that there was something curious about it."

"It was harder than leading a regiment into action," the major answered, soberly, and then broke into a gleeful laugh. "I wouldn't do it for you now!" he cried.

First she threatened him with the bracelet. Then she took his arm again, and they went on in the sunshine, talking of all the many people whom they had known in their lives. Her touch on his arm was very light, guiding, and sustaining, rather than dependent, but the old major thought that she leant upon him.

I was not jealous of the lady from over the way. I felt that we shared the major between us, and then it was always at my gate that he stopped first. It was here that he told me about a trip that he was intending to make.

"I'm going off to the city for a week," he said.

"Are you, Major?" I questioned, sorrowfully, for a week had seven days in it, and even a day was a long, long time. No wonder that my eyes were full of tears.

"There, there," he said. "Bear it like a woman."

I was not a woman, but sometimes the major used to forget. I thought that it was because I looked so tall when I stood on my gate.

He put out his kind old hand and smoothed my hair.

"What shall I bring you from the city?" he asked. "A new doll? What would you like best of all, Rhoda?"

I considered the question. There were so many things that the major might bring from the city. There were little doll-babies, or picture-books, or cups and saucers, or hooples with bells. Then I had an inspiration. I leaned forward in a glow of excitement.

"I should like—Oh, Major! Will you really give it to me? I should like the littlest watch in the world. With a star! With a star, just like yours!"

"You shall have it," he answered, promptly, as if there was nothing unusual in such a grand request. "Now, remember, if all goes well, I'll be at the gate a week from to-day. And I'll have that watch right here in my pocket."

"And I'll bring flowers!" I cried, joyfully. "All the flowers that you love best, Major."

"Good-by," he said, with a sudden touch of emotion.

"Good-by," I answered, rather tearfully, for even the watch could not reconcile me to his absence.

He turned to go, and came back again.

"Pray for the old major," he said, in a husky whisper.

Through my tears I saw him go up the block, a little slower than usual, as if he did not want to go. At the gate he stopped and waved his hat to me, as he had done on that first day, and squared his gallant old shoulders before he passed into the house. I always wished that I had kissed him before he went.

It was not hard to pray for the major, for I believed in the efficacy of prayer. When the elastic bands became loosened in the black doll, Topsy, and she lost her wool and her legs at the same time, I went down, solemnly, on my knees on the floor, and prayed for them to grow together again. And they did, in the night. And when I lost my little front tooth, I prayed to God and He sent me a new one! So it was not hard to pray for the major. But somehow or other I did not like to do it before my mother. It seemed such a secret sort of a prayer. I waited until I was safe under the covers, and she had taken away the light. Then I climbed out of the bed, in the big darkness, and went down on the floor. I prayed to God to bless the old major, and bring him back safely to me. I said it over twice, so that God would not forget.

"So the old major has gone to the city," my father said, at the breakfast table. "I can remember him when he was in the pride of his strength, a magnificent figure on horseback. He never rose as high in the service as he should. He made powerful enemies and slipped into the background."

"It's twenty years since his wife died," my mother's soft voice added. "He has lived alone in that big house ever since. Think of it, Robert!"

"Such is the heart's fidelity," father answered, with his face turned toward hers.

"When he comes back we must make more of him," mother said.

It was a very long week, but even long weeks have a way of slipping by at last. I played about the house and the garden with the twins, but I never went near the gate, not until the day dawned which was seven times from last Friday, and was Friday again, bright and clear, the very day for the major's home-coming. There were so many flowers in the garden that morning, such especially large ones. They knew, too, that the major was coming home, and had put on their prettiest dresses in his honor.

It was quite a puzzle to me what I should put on. I had a closet full of dresses. There was a beautiful blue silk one, too good for anything but church, which matched a little blue parasol. And there was a lovely white one with a lace flounce, which went with my scolloped petticoat. My third best dress had roses and buttons on it, and the fourth best was covered with brown spots, like cough drops. I loved my little dresses, and it was so hard to tell which dress should come out, and which must stay shut up in the closet, with nobody to admire them.

"Shall it be the cough drop dress, mother?" I asked, uncertainly.

"It's such a wonderful day, and the sun shines so bright, that I think you might put on the white dress with the lace flounce," my mother said, with that smile which meant that she was laughing with me, and not at me.

"And my little black slippers?"

"And your little black slippers."

"And, mother, you remember the time that I was your little flower girl? And you put roses in my hair so it looked like a crown? I'd like to be the major's little flower girl."

My mother lent herself to the pretty idea. She crowned my head with roses. There were roses at my throat, and a big, floating, pink sash swept down my back, and there were roses in my hand for the major, one bunch to give him with a kiss when he came, and another to give him with my love when he went.

Grandmother shook her wise head when she saw that toilet.

"If she were my child," she said, "I should dress her in brown gingham down to her heels, and tie her hair with shoe-laces."

I gasped, and mother laughed.

"She's vain," grandmother went on, severely. "Suppose she should grow up a poppet!"

I carried that awful name out with me as I climbed upon the gate, and stared out, bashfully, at the street. I was afraid to think how beautiful I might be.

The grocer's boy came by, my own particular grocer's boy. Stricken with sudden admiration for my charms he put down his basket, and expressed his sentiments.

"Say, you are a daisy!" he said.

"Go away, Jakie," I answered, with embarrassment. "I haven't time to play with you now. Go away! I'm busy."

He was quite crushed by my new haughtiness, and lingered about, thinking that I would relent, but all my smiles and flowers were waiting for that bent figure which I loved so well.

An hour slipped by, but still the major did not come. My crown grew heavy on my head, and the flowers wilted in my hot hands. The lady from over the way came to ask me questions. She had on her ugliest hair, and there were tears in her eyes.

"What are you doing, Rhoda?" she asked, with an anxious look.

Then she seemed to divine.

"You are not watching for the major!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," I answered, wearily.

"Doesn't your mother know, child?" she cried. "But, then, he never told any one. They found that there must be an operation, and he was not strong. There was no one whom he loved there at the end. He died, as he lived, all alone. Oh, poor old man! Poor old man! Let me go by, child! Let me go by!"

She thrust herself in the little gate, wheeling me back against the fence, and went up the path to our house.

Then, in hardly a moment, Norah came out and led me in, and proceeded to take off all my pretty things and put on a common dress, quite an old one, with a darn on the sleeve.

"I don't want that dress, Norah," I protested. "I want my white dress. I want to see my major. I want to be his little flower girl."

I went in where my mother sat with the lady from over the way, and explained the situation through my tears. Mother was very tender with me. Somehow I felt that she herself was sorry about something, for she dropped a tear on the wilted roses which I still held in my hand. Together we went out into the garden. Together we gathered all the flowers that there were—the big ones and the little ones—and formed them into a great bunch. It was for the major. I danced with sheer delight, knowing only too well how the kind face would light up when he saw all the flowers which he had admired so often made a present to him. I added buttercups, and dandelions, and bits of feathery grass, while mother watched me, with a sad smile, and said never a word.

The lady from over the way cried very hard on our front steps, but afterwards she dried her eyes and took my flowers to the major.

He did not come the next day or the next, though I watched at the gate, and then something strange happened. I was told not to go into the garden.

"Not this morning, Rhoda," my mother said. "Grandma and I are going out, and you must stay in the house. When we come back you may go out."

She dressed herself very quietly that day, all in dark things, and she and grandmother did not look joyful, as they always did when they went out together.

"I'd like to go, too," I said, wistfully.

Then Norah coaxed me.

"Ah, stay and play with your Norah," she cried. "Sure you'll not be after leaving your Norah alone in this big house!"

I always liked to play with Norah, when her work was done and she had time to be sociable. That day we played blindman's buff together—she, and I and the twins. Norah was always the blind man, and she was the longest time catching us, and when she did she could never tell who it might be. She would guess quite impossible people,—the grocer's boy, and the lady from over the way, and her own very mother in Ireland,—and she never once, by any chance, thought that it was Rhoda or little Dick or Trixie.

"Sure, you're too big to be Trixie!" she cried, when we told her who it was.

That day, when the blind man was out of breath, and his feet were sore from walking hundreds of miles, I climbed up on the window-sill and watched the people going along the street. There were a great many of them, much more than usual. Suddenly there was the sound of a fife and drum in the distance, and a long line of carriages came into sight, and one was filled with beautiful flowers, and one was draped with a torn old flag.

"Come quick, Norah!" I cried, eagerly. "It's a procession!"

"It's the old major's funeral," Norah said, coming with the twins in her arms to look over my shoulder.

I had known, somehow, that it was the major's, for everything nice belonged to him. I was so proud to think that my major should have all that big procession, with the lovely flowers and the music in front. I looked for him in every carriage, that I might wave as he went by. He was not there, but other people were,—my mother and my grandmother, and the lady from over the way, and men with gold braid on their coats come to grace the major's procession.

"Is it all his, Norah?" I asked.

"Sure, dear."

"I am so glad," I cried. "Oh, I'm so glad!"

I clapped my hands in my delight, and was quite angry with Norah when she dragged me, hurriedly, away from the window.

That night my mother took me in her lap, and told me that the old major had gone to heaven. I had heard of heaven before. It was where I came from, and the twins, away back in the early days. Heaven was a nice place, and now, as the major's home, it acquired a new charm. But there was one drawback.

"Shan't I ever see him again, mother?" I asked.

"Never again, Rhoda."

"But, mother, it's a children's place," I urged, anxiously. "And the major is old, quite old. He won't like it there, mother."

"The major has gone to heaven to be a little child again," my mother said, with a sob.

Then she put a blue velvet box in my hand. Inside there was the littlest watch in the world, and on the back of the watch there was a star in blue stones. It was the last thing which the old major bought before he went to heaven.