The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1911-05-27

"Wash your faces and hands" Grand
mother Pollard turned to the little table set
for them near the kitchen fire.
Something in her manner imposed silence;
even Valera made her toilet in the adjoining
wash-room quietly, with only an intermit-
tent sob.
As she helped them to supper there was
a trembling in their grandmother's hands.
With pang, Narcissa saw it. 1t was what
they had told her that made it. "Poor old
Mis- Pollard!" She recalled Betsy Smiths
words. Her poor, dear granny made to
suffer for-what? Anyway she would
speak to Valera and no matter what they
heard again -
"And she called my mamma "a ren-a-
gade!' 1t burst from Valera, as the full
force of the outrage freshly occurred to
her, "and my papa sneak!'
Beneath the table Narcissa's slim little
foot swung out towards her sisters ankle;
the contact was painful, but brought Valera
up, expectant. Their eyes met.
"Your father is not sneak" quivered
the grandmother's voice, "and he loved
your mamma"
Valera controlled the maddening i'm
pulse to go on.
"And-" a little voice said, "could
there be much wrong if your papa and your
mamma loved"
The kitchen door opened and closed with
firm gentleness.
"Henryp Grandmother Pollard cried
out, joyously.
The twins waited. Their father stood
there, smiling at them all. Smiling as
though but for something, he would smile
more, as though there was reason why his
arms did not open, why he did not laugh
out and call to them.
Grandmother Pollard rose and went to
him. He took her in his arms and she
kissed him as though he were little boy in
stead of a very tall man. He came to the
table and bent over each of the twins, kiss
ing them too.
"Papa!" Valora's little tongue chung
whisperingly to the word.
II came across the river on some bust
ness" he said to his mother, so got away
to see you"
"Your rooms all ready"
"OhP' thought Narcissa, eff Grand
mothers face could be like that all the
time"
81 can't STOP" he said, "they need me
now, we're so busy at the factory"
He wanted no supper and he did not sit
down. Hat in hand he walked back and
forth in his great high boots, talking to his
mother. He did not seem like any little
girls papa-he seemed like their grand
mothers son, a boy, with hair curling back
from such white forehead, and then below
the line made there by his hat, brown tan.
He stopped again and looked down at his
children. Narcissa watched her sister. 1t
might be that Valera would cry out to him
the words of Mrs. Spencer. But she was
looking up from her plate shyly, smiling
engagingly at him. From his pocket he
drew two bright new thinking silver dollars
and put one down before each of them and
turned away.
There was something, he told his
mother, in his rooms upstairs that he
wanted, and he left the kitchen. 1t was
when Narcissa rose from the table and was
placing her chair back against the wall,
that she peeked past her grandmother into
the little parlor and saw before she could
be firmly drawn back, her papa, standing
before her mammals picture. There was
positive warning in her grandmother's
eyes, as at the tight clutch of her arm,
Narcissa looked into them.
Then she knew why the picture hung
there, not turned to the wall, and she whis-
pered it that night when they were in bed
to Valera. Because papa loves it-like
he loves mamma"
And Valera understood.
The only way we can get even with
Betsy Smith" said Valera the next day in
the leaf-carpeted playhouse, sis to play
her"
"I'll be Smith," agreed Narcissa, "only
if get drunk and beat you, you mustn't
cry too real; you always spoil"
I'm going to play her lovely" Valera
was hugging the block of wood. "Of
course Betsy hasn't any children, but I
couldn't play any lady without a child"
Just play Betsy has" 1t was simple to
Narcissa and while Valera could play
animal or tag or anything of the kind like
Others did, she could not play a childless,
human grown-up. I'm off to my shoe
shop" Narcissa took up her crooked stick
and hobbled away.
And Valora's fancy, quite out of keeping
with the Betsy Smiths circumstances,
clothed the block-of-wood child in embroid-
cries and lace, frills upon frills of it, bows of
shell-pink, booties of it in leather and socks
to match. And it was such a beautiful
baby too, with curB and blue eyes. And
how it could cry and had to be walked with,
I'D and down on the r11ct1ino Leaf carr>A+ and