"I heard one of them go past me
in trouble when I was coming down. They're shy--so shy even with me." She
turned her face over her shoulder and cried again: "Children! Oh,
children! Look and see!"
"They must have gone off together on their own affairs,"
I suggested, for there was a murmur behind us of lowered voices broken by
the sudden squeaking giggles of childhood. I returned to my tinkerings and
she leaned forward, her chin on her hand, listening interestedly.
"How many are they?" I said at last. The work was finished, but I saw no
reason to go.
Her forehead puckered a little in thought. "I don't quite know," she said
simply. "Sometimes more--sometimes less. They come and stay with me
because I love them, you see."
"That must be very jolly," I said, replacing a drawer, and as I spoke I
heard the inanity of my answer.
"You--you aren't laughing at me," she cried. "I--I haven't any of my own.
I never married. People laugh at me sometimes about them because--
because------"
"Because they're savages," I returned. "It's nothing to fret for. That
sort laugh at everything that isn't in their own fat lives."
"I don't know. How should I? I only don't like being laughed at about
_them_. It hurts; and when one can't see.... I don't want to seem silly,"
her chin quivered like a child's as she spoke, "but we blindies have only
one skin, I think. Everything outside hits straight at our souls.
Pages:
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304