“Far back,” he explained. “There in the cotton, Harry.”
But it was not strawberries. Harmony opened the cage and very tenderly took out the cotton nest. Eight tiny pink baby mice, clean washed by the mother, lay curled in a heap.
It was a stupendous moment. The joy of vicarious parentage was Jimmy’s. He named them all immediately and demanded food for them. On Harmony’s delicate explanation that this was unnecessary, life took on a new meaning for Jimmy. He watched the mother lest she slight one. His responsibility weighed on him. Also his inquiring mind was very busy.
“But how did they get there?” he demanded.
“God sent them, just as he sends babies of all sorts.”
“Did he send me?”
“Of course.”
“That’s a good one on you, Harry. My father found me in a hollow tree.”
“But don’t you think God had something to do with it?”
Jimmy pondered this.
“I suppose,” he reflected, “God sent Daddy to find me so that I would be his little boy. You never happened to see any babies when you were out walking, did you, Harry?”
“Not in stumps—but I probably wasn’t looking.”
Jimmy eyed her with sympathy.
“You may some day. Would you like to have one?”
“Very much,” said Harmony, and flushed delightfully.
Jimmy was disposed to press the matter, to urge immediate maternity on her.
“You could lay it here on the bed,” he offered, “and I’d watch it. When they yell you let ‘em suck your finger. I knew a woman once that had a baby and she did that. And it could watch Isabella.” Isabella was the mother mouse. “And when I’m better I could take it walking.”
“That,” said Harmony gravely, “is mighty fine of you, Jimmy boy. I—I’ll think about it.” She never denied Jimmy anything, so now she temporized.
“I’ll ask Peter.”
Harmony had a half-hysterical moment; then:
“Wouldn’t it be better,” she asked, “to keep anything of that sort a secret? And to surprise Peter?”
The boy loved a secret. He played with it in lieu of other occupation. His uncertain future was sown thick with secrets that would never flower into reality. Thus Peter had shamelessly promised him a visit to the circus when he was able to go, Harmony not to be told until the tickets were bought. Anna had similarly promised to send him from America a pitcher’s glove and a baseball bat. To this list of futurities he now added Harmony’s baby.
Harmony brought in her violin and played softly to him, not to disturb the sleeping mice. She sang, too, a verse that the Big Soprano had been fond of and that Jimmy loved. Not much of a voice was Harmony’s, but sweet and low and very true, as became her violinist’s ear.
“Ah, well! For us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes,”
she sang, her clear eyes luminous.
“And in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!”
Mrs. Boyer mounted the stairs. She was in a very bad humor. She had snagged her skirt on a nail in the old gate, and although that very morning she had detested the suit, her round of shopping had again endeared it to her. She told the Portier in English what she thought of him, and climbed ponderously, pausing at each landing to examine the damage.
Harmony, having sung Jimmy to sleep, was in the throes of an experiment. She was trying to smoke.
A very human young person was Harmony, apt to be exceedingly wretched if her hat were of last year’s fashion, anxious to be inconspicuous by doing what every one else was doing, conventional as are the very young, fearful of being an exception.
And nearly every one was smoking. Many of the young women whom she met at the master’s house had yellowed fingers and smoked in the anteroom; the Big Soprano had smoked; Anna and Scatchy had smoked; in the coffee-houses milliners’ apprentices produced little silver mouthpieces to prevent soiling their pretty lips and smoked endlessly. Even Peter had admitted that it was not a vice, but only a comfortable bad habit. And Anna had left a handful of cigarettes.
Harmony was not smoking; she was experimenting. Peter and Anna had smoked together and it had looked comradely. Perhaps, without reasoning it out, Harmony was experimenting toward the end of establishing her relations with Peter still further on friendly and comradely grounds. Two men might smoke together; a man and a woman might smoke together as friends. According to Harmony’s ideas, a girl paring potatoes might inspire sentiment, but smoking a cigarette—never!
She did not like it. She thought, standing before her little mirror, that she looked fast, after all. She tried pursing her lips together, as she had seen Anna do, and blowing out the smoke in a thin line. She smoked very hard, so that she stood in the center of a gray nimbus. She hated it, but she persisted. Perhaps it grew on one; perhaps, also, if she walked about it would choke her less. She practiced holding the thing between her first and second fingers, and found that easier than smoking. Then she went to the salon where there was more air, and tried exhaling through her nose. It made her sneeze.
On the sneeze came Mrs. Boyer’s ring. Harmony thought very fast. It might be the bread or the milk, but again—She flung the cigarette into the stove, shut the door, and answered the bell.
