Annie Donnell - The Very Small Person

Miss Salome’s face was gently frowning as she wrote.

“Dear John,” the letter began, – “It’s all very well except one thing. I wonder you didn’t think of that. I’m thinking of it most of the time, and it takes away so much of the pleasure of the rose-garden and the raspberry-bushes! Anne is in raptures over the raspberry-bushes.

“Yes, the raspberries and the roses are all right. And I like the stone-wall with the woodbine over it. (Good boy, you remembered that, didn’t you?) And the apple-tree and the horse-chestnut and the elm – of course I like them.

“The house is just big enough and just small enough, and there’s a trunk-closet, as I stipulated. And Anne’s room has a ‘southern exposure’ – Anne’s crazy spot is southern exposures. Mine’s it . Dear, dear, John, how could you forget it! That everything else – closets and stone-walls and exposures – should be to my mind but that! Well, I am thinking of moving out, before I move in. But I haven’t told Anne. Anne is the kind of person not to tell, until the last moment. It saves one’s nerves – heigh-ho! I thought I was coming here to get away from nerves! I was so satisfied. I really meant to thank you, John, until I discovered – it. Oh yes, I know – Elizabeth is looking over your shoulder, and you two are saying something that is unfit for publication about old maids! My children, then thank the Lord you aren’t either of you old maids. Make the most of it.”

Miss Salome let her pen slip to the bare floor and gazed before her wistfully. The room was in the dreary early stages of unpacking, but it was not of that Miss Salome was thinking. Her eyes were gazing out of the window at a thin gray trail of smoke against the blue ground of the sky. She could see the little house, too, brown and tiny and a little battered. She could see the clothes-line, and count easily enough the pairs of little stockings on it. She caught up the pen again fiercely.

“There are eight,” she wrote. “Allowing two legs to a child, doesn’t that make four? John Dearborn, you have bought me a house next door to four children! I think I shall begin to put the books back to-night. As ill luck will have it, they are all unpacked.

“I have said nothing to Anne; Anne has said nothing to me. But we both know. She has counted the stockings too. We are both old maids. No, I have not seen them yet – anything but their stockings on the clothes-line. But the mother is not a washer-woman – there is no hope. I don’t know how I know she isn’t a washer-woman, but I do. It is impressed upon me. So there are four children, to say nothing of the Lord knows how many babies still in socks! I cannot forgive you, John.”

Miss Salome had been abroad for many years. Stricken suddenly with homesickness, she and her ancient serving-woman, Anne, had fled across seas to their native land. Miss Salome had first commissioned John, long-suffering John, – adviser, business-manager, brother, – to find her a snug little home with specified adjuncts of trunk-closets, elm, apple, and horse-chestnut trees, woodbiney stone walls – and a “southern exposure” for Anne. John had done his best. But how could he have forgotten, and Elizabeth have forgotten, and Miss Salome herself have forgotten – it? Every one knew Miss Salome’s distaste for little children. Anne’s too, though Anne was more taciturn than her mistress.

“Hullo!”

Miss Salome started. In the doorway stood a very small person in blue jeans overalls.

“Hullo! I want your money or your life! I’m a ’wayman.”

“A — what? ” Miss Salome managed to ejaculate. The Little Blue Overalls advanced a few feet into the room.

“Robber, you know; – you know what robbers are, don’t you? I’m one. You needn’t call me a high wayman, I’m so – so low. Just ’wayman ’ll do. Why, gracious! you ain’t afraid, are you? You needn’t be, – I won’t hurt you!” and a sweet-toned, delighted little laugh echoed through the bare room. “You needn’t give me your money or your life. Never mind. I’ll ’scuse you.”

Miss Salome uttered no word at all. Of course this boy belonged in a pair of those stockings over there. It was no more than was to be expected.

“It’s me. I’m not a ’wayman any more, – just me . I heard you’d come, so I thought I’d come an’ see you. You glad? Why don’t you ask me will I take a seat?”

“Will I – will you take a seat?” repeated Miss Salome, as if she were saying a lesson. The Little Blue Overalls climbed into a chair.

“Looks pretty bad here, doesn’t it? I guess you forgot to sweep,” he said, assuming social curves in his plump little body. He had the air of having come to stay. Miss Salome’s lips, under orders to tighten, found themselves unexpectedly relaxing into a smile. The Little Blue Overalls was amusing.

“ We’ve got a sofy, an’ a rockin’-chair. The sofy’s new, but Chessie’s broke a hole in it.”

“Are there four of you?” Miss Salome asked, abruptly. It was the Little Blue Overalls’ turn to start now.

“ Me? – gracious! four o’ me? I guess you’re out o’ your head, aren’t – Oh, you mean child’en! Well, there’s five, ’thout countin’ the spandy new one – she’s too little to count.”

Five – six, with the spandy new one! Miss Salome’s gaze wandered from the piles of books on the floor to the empty packing-boxes, as if trying to find the shortest distance.

“There are only four pairs on the line,” she murmured, weakly, – “stockings,” she added. The Little Blue Overalls nodded comprehendingly.

“I don’t wear ’em summers, – I guess you didn’t notice I was in my bare feet, did you? Well, I am. It’s a savin’. The rest are nothing but girls – I’m all the boy we’ve got. Boys are tough. But I don’t s’pose you ever was one, so you don’t know?” There was an upward inflection to the voice of the Little Blue Overalls. An answer seemed expected.

“No – no, I never was one,” Miss Salome said, hastily. She could hear Anne’s plodding steps in the hall. It would be embarrassing to have Anne come in now. But the footsteps plodded by. After more conversation on a surprising number of topics, the Little Blue Overalls climbed out of the chair.

“I’ve had a ’joyable time, an’ I’ll be pleased to come again, thank you,” he said, with cheerful politeness. “I’m glad you’ve come, – I like you, but I hope you’ll sweep your floor.” He retreated a few steps, then faced about again and advanced into the enemy’s near neighborhood. He was holding out a very small, brown, unwashed hand. “I forgot ’bout shakin’ hands,” he smiled. “Le’s. I hope you like me, too, an’ I guess you do, don’t you? Everybody does. Nobody ever didn’t like me in my life, an’ I’m seven. Good-bye.”

Miss Salome heard him patter down the hall, and she half thought – she was not sure – that at the kitchen door he stopped. Half an hour afterwards she saw a very small person crossing the rose-garden. If there was something in his hands that he was eating, Miss Salome never asked Anne about it. It was not her way to ask Anne questions. It was not Anne’s way to ask her. The letter to John was finished, oddly enough, without further mention of – it. Miss Salome got the broom and swept the bare big room carefully. She hummed a little as she worked. Out in the kitchen Anne was humming too.

“It is a pleasant little place, especially the stone-wall and the woodbine,” Miss Salome was thinking; “I’m glad I specified woodbine and stone-walls. John would never have thought. So many other things are pleasant, too; but, dear, dear, it is very unfortunate about that one thing!” Still Miss Salome hummed, and after tea she got Anne to help her move out the empty packing-boxes.