Читать книгу Concerning Sally - William John Hopkins - Страница 8

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Sally was not completely deprived of the society of other children, although her temperament made this question a rather difficult one. Her father did not bother himself about Sally's goings and comings, which was quite what would have been expected. Indeed, he bothered himself very little about the doings of his family; as a general thing, he did not know what they did, nor did he care, so long as they refrained from interference with his own actions. They had learned to do that.

Mrs. Ladue did bother herself about Sally's doings a good deal, in spite of the difficulty of the question; and one would have thought that she had her fill of difficult questions. She went to the door and looked out. She saw Charlie playing alone near the foot of a tree. He was tied to the tree by a long string, one end of which was about his body, under his arms.

"Charlie," she called, "where's Sally?"

Charlie looked up, impatiently, and shook his head. Mrs. Ladue repeated her question.

"Up there," he answered, pointing into the tree above his head. "And I'm a giraffe in a menagerie and giraffes can't talk, mother."

"Oh, excuse me, little giraffe," she said, smiling.

"Great, big giraffe. Not little giraffe."

Meanwhile there had been a sound of scrambling in the tree and Sally dropped to the ground.

"Did you want me, mother?" she asked.

"I only thought that you have had the care of Charlie for a long time. Don't you want to go up to Margaret Savage's and play with her?" This was, perhaps, the hundredth time that Mrs. Ladue had asked that question.

"No, mother," Sally replied, also for the hundredth time, "I don't. But if you want me to go, I will."

Mrs. Ladue laughed outright at her daughter's directness. "Why?" she asked. "I am really curious to know why you don't like to play with other little girls."

"They are so stupid, mother," Sally answered quietly. "I have a lot better time alone."

"Well, my dear little daughter," began Mrs. Ladue, laughing again; and there she stopped. "I should like, Sally—I should like it very much, if I could manage to send you to dancing-school this winter."

"Very well, mother," said Sally again.

"But I don't know what your father would think of the idea."

"No," Sally returned. "You can't ever tell, can you?"

"Wouldn't you like to go and be with the other children and do what they do?"

Sally was quite serious. "I don't think it would be very interesting," she said. "But if you want me to go, I will."

Mrs. Ladue sighed; then she laughed. "Well, Sally, dear," she said, "run along and play in your own way. At any rate, I can trust you."

"Yes, mother, dear, you can."

And Sally ran out, quite happy, to untie the giraffe.

"What you goin' to do, Sally?" he asked.

"Giraffes can't talk," remarked Sally.

"Aren't a giraffe. I'm the keeper. But I'll turn into a giraffe again as soon as you answer me."

"I'm going down in that little clump by the wall, where there are plenty of things for giraffes to eat."

Reminded that he was hungry, Charlie began to cry.

"What's the matter?" asked Sally, stopping short.

"Don't want to be a giraffe and eat old leaves and things," Charlie wailed. "Can't I have some gingerbread, Sally?"

"Well, here," said Sally. She took from her pocket some little crackers, which she gave him. "I guess those won't hurt you."

Charlie made no reply, being busy with the crackers; and Sally led him into the clump by the wall and tied him.

"Sally," asked Charlie, somewhat anxiously, "what you goin' to do?"

"I'm going up in the tree, of course."

"Yes, but Sally, what will you be?"

"I haven't decided," replied Sally thoughtfully. "I'll be deciding while I go up." She turned and began to climb the tree, skillfully. She had got no farther than the lower branches when she stopped. "Oh, I'll tell you, Charlie," she cried. "It's just the thing. I'll be father's little lizard."

"What lizard?" Charlie demanded.

"Father's little lizard, that he's got the skeleton of, up in his room."

"Isn't any little lizard," Charlie returned, very positively. "That's a croc."

"It is, too, a lizard, Charlie. Father said so."

"Lizards are little weenty things," Charlie objected. "'Sides, they don't live in trees."

Sally did not feel sure on this point, so she evaded it.

"That little lizard lived millions of years ago." What were a few million years, more or less, to her? "And father said that it could fly like a bat. It used to fly right up into the coal trees and—and eat the coal that grew on them." Sally was giggling at the recollection. "Now, this is a coal tree and I'm that little lizard, and this is millions of years ago."

Charlie had been paralyzed into momentary silence by the information poured into him so rapidly. The silence was but momentary, but Sally took advantage of it and climbed swiftly.

"Sally!"

Sally paused. "What?" she asked.

"You that same lizard that father has the skeleton of?"

Sally acknowledged that she was.

"Then," Charlie retorted, "you haven't got any bones in you. They're up in father's room."

Sally chuckled, but she did not reply to this remark directly.

"Charlie," she called, "you be a saurus something."

"Don't want to be a—Sally, what's a—that thing that you said for me to be? What is it?"

"Well," replied Sally slowly, "it's an animal kind of like an alligator—and such things, you know. I guess I'm one. And Charlie, you can't talk. Animals—especially sauruses—never talked."

"Parrots can," returned Charlie sullenly.

Sally did not think it worth while to try to answer this objection.

"There wasn't any kind of a thing, millions of years ago, that could talk," she said calmly, "so, of course, they couldn't learn."

"Then you can't talk, either," said Charlie, in triumph. And he subsided and returned to the eating of crackers, of which, as everybody knows, the saurians were extremely fond.

Sally, meanwhile, was enjoying the prospect of treetops; an unbroken prospect of treetops, except for a swamp which, in historic times, became their own little valley.

Sally had ceased, for the moment, her flitting lightly from bough to bough, and there was no sign of her presence; and Charlie had come to the end of his crackers and was browsing around in the grass, picking up a crumb here and there.

"Hello!" said a strange voice; a strange voice, but a very pleasant one. "As I'm a living sinner, if here isn't a little pony!"

Charlie looked up into the eyes of a very serious young man. The eyes were twinkling over the wall and through the gap in the trees. Charlie decided not to be frightened. But he shook his head. He wasn't a pony.

"Well, well, of course not," the voice went on. "I was rather hasty, but it looked like a pony, at the first glance. I guess it's a fierce bull."

Charlie shook his head again, less positively. Now that it had been suggested, he yearned to be a fierce bull. He wished that he had thought of it before he shook his head.

"A camel?" asked the young man. "Can it be a camel?"

Once more Charlie shook his head, and he laughed.

"It sounds like a hyena," remarked the stranger solemnly, "but it can't be, for hyenas eat—" He put his hand to his forehead and seemed to be puzzling it out. "Aha!" he cried at last. "I have it. A giraffe!"

"No!" Charlie shouted. "I'm aren't a giraffe. I'm a saw-horse."

And he straddled his legs far apart and his arms far apart, and he looked as much like a saw-horse as he could. That isn't saying much.

At this last announcement of Charlie's, Sally exploded in a series of chuckles so sudden and so violent that she almost fell out of the tree.

An answering titter came from the other side of the wall and a pair of hands appeared, trying for a hold on the top stones; then the head of a very pretty little girl followed, until her chin was on a level with the top of the wall and she could look over it into Charlie's eyes.

The strange young man had looked up into the tree. "Hello!" he exclaimed. "If there isn't another! Is that a saw-horse, too?"

Charlie had considered himself the person addressed. "Yes," he replied, "it is. It's a flying one."

"Mercy on us!" cried the young man. "A flying saw-horse! What a lot of saw-horses you have about here; very interesting ones, too."

"Yes," said Charlie importantly, "we like to be 'em."

"It must be most exciting to be so extraordinary a thing. Do you suppose you could get that flying one to come down where we can see it? Do you know, I never have seen a flying saw-horse in all the nineteen years that I have lived."

"She won't come down unless she wants to," Charlie grumbled.

Sally was recovering, in a measure, from her fit of chuckling. She leaned far forward, below the screen of leaves.

"Oh, yes, I will," she called, in a low, clear voice. "Besides, I want to. Charlie was mistaken about the saw-horse. He meant saurus. And I was a flying lizard and this was a coal tree. From the top of the tree you can't see anything but treetops and swamps. It's millions of years ago, you know. And father's got the skeleton of this very lizard up in his room, and he said that it used to fly right up in the topmost branches of the coal trees and he told me about the sauruses that used to be." She had dropped to the ground. "Oh, it's very interesting."

"It must be," the young man smilingly replied; "and I should suppose that it must be rather interesting for your father to have such a pupil."

"It isn't," Sally returned. "That is—father only told me those things the other day."

The young man laughed. "I guess you must be Professor Ladue's little girl."

"Yes," said Sally, "we are. That is, I am, and this is my brother Charlie."

"The only and original saw-horse. You, I suppose, were a—we'll call it a gynesaurus—"

Sally clapped her hands and gave a little laugh of delight.

"And this," he continued, laying his hand affectionately upon the small head beside him, "is my small sister, Henrietta Sanderson, who would be happy to be any kind of a beast that you tell her about. She is ten years old and she dotes on being strange beasts."

"Oh," cried Sally, "and I'm ten years old, too. Would Henrietta like to come over the wall now? There's a gate farther along."

"Henrietta despises gates. But does your invitation include her brother? I'm Fox Sanderson and I was on my way to see your father."

"Father isn't at home to-day," said Sally; "and, if you could come over, too—"

At that, Fox Sanderson put his hands on the top of the wall and vaulted lightly over. He turned to help Henrietta.

"Now," he said, when she was safely on the right side, "here we all are. What'll we do?"

Henrietta had her brother's hand. "Fox tells lovely stories," she remarked.

"Does he?" asked Sally. "What about?"

"About any kind of a thing that you ask him," answered Henrietta.

"About sauruses?" Sally asked eagerly, turning to him.

"All right," he agreed, smiling; "about sauruses. But I'm afraid it's just a little too cold for you youngsters to sit still and listen to stories. I'll have to keep you moving a bit."

Sally told her mother about it that night. She thought that she never had had such a good time in all her life. Fox Sanderson! Well, he told the most wonderful stories that ever were.

"And, mother," said Sally, all interest, "he had me be a gynesaurus and Henrietta was a—— But what are you laughing at?"

For Mrs. Ladue had burst out laughing. "My dear little girl!" she cried softly. "My dear little girl! A gynesaurus! This Fox Sanderson must be interesting, indeed."

"Then I can play with Henrietta? And father wouldn't mind, do you think? And your head can't be hurting, mother, because you just laughed right out."