The Heart's Kingdom

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.