And at last we arrived at the old snowball guarding the open gate of the
Little House and we went under its low boughs and up the walk. But we
did not march to an undisputed and stealthy raid on the tea cake box
above the kitchen table. The Little House was no longer the deserted
scene I had left it, but was teeming with human and juvenile activities
which streamed out to meet us at the door.
"You can't come in here, Auntie Charlotte," was the command that greeted
me at the very doorstep as young Charlotte faced me with short skirts
outspread determinedly, while behind her Mikey of the red head, Jimmy,
Sue, Maudie, the sister of Mikey, and other known and unknown juveniles,
presented a solid support of defiance. "We are doing some Lord's work
and we don't need you, but we'll let the nice little boy and the lovely
dog come in. We do need them. Come in, little boy!" and as she spoke
Charlotte held out a welcoming hand to the Stray, who faltered and
looked up into my face to see if he might accept the invitation which
evidently swayed him by its commanding tone.
"Couldn't I come in for just a second?" I asked with all due meekness.
"Not for even a second," answered Charlotte sternly. "You'd interrupt
Minister. You go away and leave the boy."
"Then how'll I get him back to his mother?" I pleaded, but as I spoke I
allowed the little fingers to slip from mine and I pushed the waif
towards Charlotte with the greatest confidence, which evidently
communicated itself to both him and the dog, for they left me
simultaneously and went towards the enemy's camp.
"Shoo, it's only little Stray Ensley. I'll take him home when I go," the
redoubtable Mikey assured me with a wide smile at the kiddie, which was
answered with a rapture of hero worship.
"What's his name?" demanded Charlotte as if seeking a passport.
"Just Stray," answered Mikey in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "He
ain't got no father, dead or alive."
"Then Stray is just short for stranger, because everybody else has
fathers, dead, alive or drunk," said Charlotte, in the same
matter-of-fact tone that Mikey had used, and he in no way seemed to feel
her remark personally derogatory to his paternal parent.
"Well, let's take him to Minister to be learned his verses of the song
and dance. Come on, for we are keeping him and the Lord waiting," said
Charlotte as she marshaled them all into the Little House and calmly
shut the door in my face and left me standing alone in the middle of the
walk. Even the yellow pup had squeezed into the door before it was shut
and only I was left in the outer darkness away from the grand opera
voice that I could hear booming with a juvenile chorus out at the back
of the cottage where I knew the rehearsal was being held under the twin
of the old apple tree from which the front roof tree over my head was
eternally separated by the Little House. With actual sadness and a queer
feeling of shut-outness I did the only thing left to me and sauntered
slowly on up the hill under the tall old elm trees that the Town had
planted a century ago to keep the heat from the heads of the like of me
while the toilers down in the Settlement had no such proof of ancestral
care.