Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

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"PLAYING S'POSE"

Calvin did think about it. He thought about it as he drove out of the yard, and it was a grave salute that he waved to Mary Sands, smiling on the door-step in her blue dress, with the low sun glinting on her nut-brown hair.

He thought about it on the road; and hossy missed the usual fire of cheery remarks, grew morose, and jogged on half asleep. He was still thinking about it, when he came to a narrow lane that branched off from the main road, some half a mile from the Sill farm. It was a pretty lane, but it had a deserted look, and there were no wheel-marks on its grass and clover. Coming abreast of this opening, Calvin checked the brown horse with a word, and sat for some time looking thoughtfully down the lane. It ended, a few hundred yards away, in an open gateway; there was no gate. Beyond stood some huge old maple trees, which might hide anything—or nothing.

"Want to go in, hossy?" asked Calvin. He flicked hossy on the ear, but his tone was not the usual one of friendly banter. Hossy shook his head.

"Might as well!" said Calvin. "I've kep' away so fur, but it's there, you know, hossy, all the same. Gitty up!"

Thus urged, the brown horse jogged slowly up the grassy lane, snatching now and then at the tall grass as he went. Passing through the empty gateway, they came to the maple trees, and saw—only one of them knew before—what they hid. A yawning hole in the ground; at one side of it a well, its covering dropping to pieces, its sweep fallen on the ground; behind, a tangle of bushes that might once have been a garden. In front, almost on the edge of the hole, some long blocks of granite lay piled one atop of the other; these had been the door-steps, when there was a door.

Calvin Parks sat silent for a long time looking at these things. Then,—"Hossy," he said, "look at there!"

Hossy looked; saw little that appealed to him, and fell to cropping the grass.

"What did I tell you?" said Calvin, addressing some person unseen. "Even the dumb animal won't look at it. Hossy, what do you think of this place, take it as a place? Speak up now!"

Hossy, flicked on the ear, shook himself fretfully, whinnied, and returned to his cropping.

"Nice home to offer a woman?" said Calvin. "Cheerful sort of habitation? Hey? Well, there! you see how 'tis yourself. A rolling—stone—gathers—no—moss, little hossy."

As he spoke he was climbing down from his perch; now he threw the reins over the brown horse's neck, and walking to the edge of the empty cellar-place, sat down on one of the granite blocks.

"But I want you to understand that I warn't born rollin'!" he continued with some severity. "If you think that, hossy, you show your ignorance. I was a stiddy boy, and a good boy, as boys go. Mother never made no complaint, fur as I know. Poor mother! if I'm glad of anything in this mortal world, it's that mother went before the house did. That old lobster was right, darn his hide! a woman has to have a home. Poor mother! She thought a sight of her home and her gardin. I can't but scarcely feel she must be round somewheres, now; pickin' gooseberries, most likely. Sho! gooseberries in October! well, butternuts, then! The old butternut tree warn't burned. Hossy, I tell you, it seems as though if I was to turn round this minute I should expect to see mother's white apurn—"

He turned as he spoke, and stopped short. Something white glinted behind the withered bushes of the garden plot.

Calvin Parks sat motionless for a moment, gazing with wide eyes. A cold finger traced his spine, and his heart thumped loud in his ears. The something white seemed to move—a swaying motion; and now a soft voice began to croon, half speaking, half singing.

"I'd—I'd like to know what you are scairt of!" said Calvin Parks, addressing himself. "You might put a name to it. It would be just like mother, wouldn't it, to come back if it was anyways convenient, and see to them butternuts? Well, then! You wouldn't be scairt of mother, would you? I've no patience with you. The dumb critter there has more spunk than what you have."

The brown horse had raised his head, and his ears were pointed toward the something white that glinted through the bushes.

Another instant, and Calvin rose, and casting a scared look at the brown horse, made his way with faltering steps round the cellar-hole and put aside the bushes.

A small girl in a white pinafore cowered like a rabbit under a straggling rose-bush, and looked up at him with wide eyes of terror. Calvin's eyes, which had been no less wide, softened into a friendly twinkle.

"How de do?" he said. "Pleased to meet you!"

The child drew a long, sobbing breath. "I thought you was ghosts!" she said.

"So I thought you was!" said Calvin. "But we ain't, neither one on us; nor yet hossy ain't. See hossy there? you never heard of a ghost hossy, did you now?"

The child's face brightened as she looked at the brown horse, stolidly cropping his clover. The tucked-in corners of her mouth looked as if a smile were trying to come out, but was not allowed.

"And what was you doin' here all by your lonesome?" asked Calvin.

"I was playin' s'pose," said the child soberly.

"I want to know!" said Calvin. "How do you play it?"

The child inspected him critically for a moment; then the smile fairly broke loose, and twinkled all over her face.

"I'll show you!" she said; and with a pretty gesture she patted the dry grass beside her. Calvin was down in an instant, his long legs curled up in some mysterious way so that they showed as little as might be.

"Up anchor!" he said. "Yo heave ho, and off we go, to the land of Spose-y-oh!"

The child bubbled into a laugh.

"I guess you're funny!" she said.

"I guess I am!" said Calvin Parks. "Comical Cal—well now, how long is it since I heard that?"

"Comical Cal,
Scairt of a gal!"

"There was a little gal jest about your age used to say that whenever I passed her house."

"Was you?" inquired the child.

"Was I what? scairt? yes, I was! scairt out of my boots, if I'd had any."

"Why was you?"

"Why was Silas's gray hoss gray? This ain't playin' s'pose, little un. S'pose you start in!"

"Why," said the child; "well—you see—you just s'pose, you know. You can s'pose about anything; I do it at home, and sometimes—only don't tell—I s'pose in meetin', if I had a bunnet like—but you never saw her, I s'pose. But most of all I like to s'pose about this place, because there isn't anything, so you can have anything you like. See?"

"I see!" said Calvin.

"There used to be a house here!" the child went on. "There truly did."

"You don't say!" said Calvin.

"That was the cellar of it;" she nodded toward the yawning gulf, full of briars and blackened brick and timbers. "The house was burned up—no, I mean down—no, I mean all burned, both ways, long ago; ever 'n' ever 'n' ever so long."

"Ever 'n' ever 'n' ever so long!" repeated Calvin.

"This was the gardin. This is a rose-bush I'm settin' under. It has white roses in summer, white with pinky in the middle."

"You bet it has! and the next one has red damask, big as a piny, and sweet—there!"

The child stared. "How did you know?" she asked.

"I'm jest learnin' the game," said Calvin. "Clap on sail, little un!"

"But it's funny, because you s'posed right! Well—and so I play s'pose the house was there, and it was all white marble with a gold roof. And s'pose a little girl lived there, about as big as me, with golden hair that came down to her feet; and she had a white dress, and a blue dress, and a pink dress, and a silk dress, and all kinds of dresses; and shoes and stockin's to match every single one. Have you s'posed that?"

"I'm gettin' there!" said Calvin. "Gimme time! I can't s'pose all them stockin's to once, you know."

"I can s'pose things right off!" said the child. "But p'raps it's different when you are old. Well! And s'pose she had a mother, and she was a beautiful lady, and she had a velvet dress, purple, like a piece in Aunt Susan's quilt. It's as soft as a baby, or a new kitten. And s'pose the little girl came out into the gardin, and said, 'Mittie May, come and play with me!' and s'pose I went, and s'pose she took me into the house, and into a room that was all pink, with silver chairs and sofys, and pink curtains, and a pink pianner,—"

"Belay there, young un!" said Calvin. "You're off soundin's. You don't want the pianner should be pink. Why, 'twould be a sight!"

"I think 'twould be lovely!" cried the child. "All smooth, like the pond looks when the sun is goin' down."

Calvin shook his head gravely. "I don't go with that!" he said, "not a mite. I say, s'pose the pianner was white, with pink roses painted on it. I see one like that once, to Savannah, Georgia, and it was handsome, I tell ye. Make it white with pink roses, little un!"

"All right!" said the child. "And anyhow, s'pose the lady played on it, and the little girl—" she turned suddenly shy, and hung her head.

"Will you laugh if I say her name?" she asked wistfully.

"Laugh!" said Calvin. "Do I look like laughin', young un? nor yet I don't feel like it. What is her name?"

"S'pose it's Clementina Loverina Beauty! I made up the middle one myself. S'pose she asked me to dance, and we danced, and the floor was pink marble, and we had gold slippers on, and my hair grew down to my feet too, and—and—and then s'pose we was hungry, and Clementina Loverina Beauty waved her hand, and a table come up through the floor with roast chicken on it, and cramb'ry sauce, and grapes, and icecream and cake, and—and we eat all we could hold, and then we went to sleep in a gold bed with silk sheets. There! now it's your turn."

"My turn?" said Calvin vaguely.

"Yes! your turn to s'pose. What do you s'pose, about this place?"

"Oh! this place. Well, now you're talkin'. Only I don't know as I can play this game as pretty as you do, Mittie May. I don't believe I can git you up any white marble buildin's, nor gold floors, nor that kind of thing. 'Tain't my line, you see."

"Why not?" asked the child. "Because you are a brown man can't you?"

Calvin nodded. "I expect that's about the size of it," he said gravely. "I'm a brown man. Yes, little un, you surely hit it off that time. And bein' a brown man, it stands to reason that I can't s'pose nothin' risin' out of that hole but a brown house. S'pose it's there now, what? a long brown house, facin' south, see? This is the way it lays. Over this main sullar is the kitchen—big kitchen it is, with lots of winders, and all of 'em sunny, some ways of it; I dono just how they can be, but so they seem. Flowers in 'em, too; sweet—I tell ye; and then the settin'-room openin' out of it."

"What's in the settin'-room?" asked Mittie May. "S'pose we're in it now; tell me!"

"S'pose we are! There's a rag carpet on the floor; see it? hit-or-miss pattern. Mother made it herself; leastways, the mother of the boy I'm comin' to bimeby. I always liked hit-or-miss better than any other pattern. Then there's smaller rugs, and one of 'em has a dog on it, with real glass eyes; golly, but they shine! And a table in the middle with a lamp on it, glass lamp, with a red shade; and a Bible, and Cap'n Cook's voyages, and Longfellow's poems. Mother was a great hand for poetry—that is, the boy's mother, you understand."

"S'pose about the boy!" said Mittie May eagerly.

"Well—s'pose he was a brown boy, same as I am man; brown to match the house. Hair and eyes, jumper and pants, just plain brown; not much of a boy to look at, you understand. S'pose there was jest him and father and mother. There had been a little gal;—s'pose she was like you, little un, slim and light on her feet, singin' round the house—but she was wanted somewheres else, and she went. S'pose the boy thought a sight of his mother, specially after the little gal went. Him and her used to play together for all the world like two kids. S'pose he dug her gardin for her, and sowed her seeds, and then he'd take and watch the plants comin' up, and seems though he couldn't wait for 'em to bloom so's he could git a posy to carry in to mother. Yes, sir! she liked them posies, mother did; she liked 'em, sure enough!"

He was silent a moment. "Go on!" cried the child. "You ain't half s'posing, brown man."

"No more I am!" said Calvin Parks. "Well, little un, I dono as I can play this game real well, after all. S'pose after a spell the boy's mother went away too. Where? Well, she'd go to the best place there was, you know; nat'rally she would."

"That's heaven!" said the child decidedly.

"Jes' so! to be sure!" Calvin assented. "S'pose she went to heaven; to see after the little gal, likely; hey? That'd leave father and the boy alone, wouldn't it? Well now, s'pose father couldn't stand it real well without her. What then, little un? S'pose the more he tried it the less he liked it, till bumby he begun to take things to make him forget, as warn't the best things in the world for him to take. S'pose he did; do you blame him?"

"N—no!" said the child. "Unless you mean stole 'em!"

"No! no! not that kind of takin', little un; 'tother kind, like when you take med'cine. S'pose he kind o' made believe 'twas med'cine for a spell. Then s'pose he got so he warn't jest like himself, and spoke kind o' sharp, and took a strap to the boy now and then, harder than he would by natur', you wouldn't blame him, would you? Not a mite! But s'pose things went on that way till they warn't real agreeable for neither one of 'em. Then—s'pose one night—when he warn't himself, mind you!—he shook out his pipe on the settin'-room carpet and set the house afire. You wouldn't blame him for that either, would you? Poor father!"

He paused.

"What do you s'pose then?" cried the child eagerly. "Did the house burn up?"

Calvin made a silent gesture toward the ruined cellar. Something in it struck the child silent too. She crept nearer, and slid her hand into Calvin's.

"You don't s'pose they was burned, do you?" she said in an awestruck whisper.

"No, they warn't burned," said Calvin slowly. "But father never helt his head up again, and 'twarn't a great while before he was gone too, after mother and the little gal. So then the boy was left alone. See?"

"Poor brown boy!" said the child. "S'pose what he did then!"

"S'pose he lit out!" said Calvin Parks; "And s'pose I light out too, little gal. It's gettin' towards sundown, and I've got quite a ways to go before night."

He rose, and stretched his brown length, towering a great height above the rose-bush.

"But before I go," he added; "s'pose we see what hossy's got in back of him. I shouldn't wonder a mite if we found a stick of candy. S'pose we go and look!"

"S'pose we do!" cried Mittie May.