HIS JOURNEY TO THE GATES

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 2, 1 August 1924, Page 29

HIS JOURNEY TO THE GATES

MARION HILL

A Charming Story about Children that will Interest Every Mother

HE WAS ONLY A VERY SMALL BOY THAT WANTED LOTS OF LOVING— BUT BETWEEN MOLLY CODDLES AND MOTHER’S METHODS, HE ALWAYS SEEMED TO GET MISSED OUT SOMEHOW

PETTISON was not as comfortable within as might be. He dimly realised that his condition threatened to grow worse, and it disheartened him. In that house, the mere fact of being a little boy was trouble enough without being a little boy of unsettled insides. Though, to be sure, if you took Regina’s word for it, being a little girl was a bad business, too. That they were twins only made everything worse. Twins seemed to be something that had to be looked at a great deal. Twins apparently were everybody’s affair, even strangers’. Twins could not do a thing without being caught. Then, too, one was always being flourished before the other as a warning or an example—generally a warning. Also, it was held to be wrong in either of them to possess a characteristic which the other did not. Regina was constantly harried and hounded because she was not born a. philologist, as was her brother. Rex, in his turn, was exhorted day upon day to emulate his sister’s up-to-dateness of activity, whereas he loved calmly and philosophically to ruminate. Thenimpossible to believe, but truethe adults occasionally varied the schedule of complaints by begging Regina for pity’s sake to try to keep quiet like her brother, and by coldly advising Rex not to “parrot his elders,” but to try to talk naturally, like his sister. They were as unlike as a rhinoceros and a chipmunk, but they were made to feel that it was all due to their own wrong lack of interest in the vital matter of resembling each other. Why, if Rex grew untimely sleep-stricken, Regina, too, was sent to bed. If Regina felt wilted, Rex likewise was dosed with boiled water. At this particular moment he wondered if it were possible that she felt as queer as he. He would find out. They

were both in the garden, supposedly weeding it. “Sister, do you feel hollow in your body, shaky in your legs, giddy in your head, and hot while you are cold?” Regina grinned with interest. “How many guesses do I have?” she asked. “It’s not a conundrum,” said Rex, sadly. Regina looked and felt aggrieved. “No, I don’t. Why?” “I do.” “Why?” Making no attempt to explain, he put his head down on the garden bed and lay there quietly. Regina felt sorry for him, but she thriftily went on weeding. It was open-air exercise insisted upon by their mother, who at the expiration of the allotted time would appear, watch in hand, to see if they had performed their full duty, to commend them unenthusiastically if they had, to reprove them with dispassionate justice if they had not, and to lay out for them their next hour of the day. Mrs. Pettison believed in system. That is why Regina kept on weeding. Rex was deaf to the dictates of prudence. Now, if one could feel that one’s mother was just the best thing in the world to make a sick place well, there might be some fun in illness. Rex never dreamed of so much impossibility. From his very babyhood a mysterious fetish, called Molly Coddle, had kept him from his share of petting. What Molly Coddle had not robbed him of, self-reliance had. Mr. Pettison insisted that his son should not be Molly Coddled. Mrs! Pettison insisted that her son should be made self-reliant. Consequently, if Rex fell down he had to pick himself up again—so as to be-

come self-reliant. If he scratched his Unger, he first had to wash the microbes out of the sore and then had to forget it forever after —not to he a Molly Coddle. If he awoke in the night thirsty, he had to remember that there was a filter in the hall and that he could get water for himself without waking othersso as to be self-reliant. If he awoke frightened with dreams about ghosts, he was to remember that dreams and ghosts had no existence, and he wasn’t to cry out — as to escape being a Molly Coddle. Molly Coddles got rocked to sleep when they felt mother-loving; Rex never. Those who undervalued self-reliance had their . bumped places kissed; Rex had to ask Catherine for vinegar and anoint himself. Regina hazily was of the opinion that only a Molly Coddle would dare to lie on the grass when it ought to be weeding. She would not for anything be in a Molly Coddle’s shoes; for there was Mrs. Pettison bearing down upon them. Rex sat up, dizzier than ever. His mother stared at him sternly. Whether or not she felt as unpleasant as she looked is another matter. But obedience had been the platform of the Mothers’ Club for several years, and in conscientious effort to be all that she should as secretary of the association, Mrs. Pettison had become very disagreeable at home. The only break she had allowed herself in the monotony of firmness was a week or so after a lecture delivered upon “Letting Children Alone to Allow Them to Find Themselves.” For fourteen frantically giddy days Rex and Regina had been let alone, but they had found such a fearful lot of other things besides themselves that the severity when resumed had been of sterner stuff than before. The look which Rex now received was aweinspiring. Regina’s portion was a smile, dignified and temperate.

“My little girl’s diligence pleases mother. 1 am happy.” This admission, according to the best authorities, was the noblest reward a child could receive. Regina looked frightened to death. What on earth was her proper reply? In that house one had to say something immediately when a pause came; if one waited • too long, one got badgered into making some statement of so horrible a nature that one got punished for it. “Yes, mamma,” said Regina desperately. It passed. “But you, Rex, have disappointed me. grieved me, astounded me.” In the impelling, majestic pause Rex merely blinked with an unconcern which appealed to his sister as nothing short of suicidal. “You have been moping for several days, but I have not reproved you, trusting you would come to your senses of your own accord.” Come to his senses! He was several thousand miles away from them right now, in Regina’s moderate estimation, for he maintained his fateful serenity. Even his mother felt thrilled with a species of fright. She resorted to a remark calculated to electrify. “I shall be obliged to punish you. Do you understand ?” Rex clawed some sand —peaceably, nonchalantly. “Do you hear me, sir?” The intensity of that “sir” was successful — a measure. Rex lifted his troubled eyes and spoke. “I can’t put ‘peripatetic’ back in the bag,” he said. Appearances to the contrary, he had been very busy while he lay on the ground. His memory was a store-house of long words—words caught surreptitiously from grown-up conversations, or plucked laboriously from printed pages. He had been rolling those treasured words of his around like so many marbles. His glittering favourite was “peripatetic.” There was, therefore, a certain coherence in his speech. He said it again, more faintly: “Peripatetic. It won’t go back in the bag.” His mother dropped on her knees and folded him in her arms. He felt himself being carried into the house. Was he to be punished? What form would it take? Evidently none, just at present, for there was fear, not anger, in his mother’s voice as she called to Catherine and gave the order: “Telephone to Doctor Wismer.” Doctor Wismer! Hearing this, Rex felt more than ewer uneasy, lacking confidence in the man who, the last time he was called in, had inconsiderately and carelessly left behind him a strange baby which they had to look after ever since. True, Mrs. Pettison said that the doctor had been but an agent of heaven— God had sent the baby. But Rex, being a Christian and wishing to remain one, preferred to consider Doctor Wismer the sole offender. He came. He made himself obnoxious from the start, and had Rex put to bed. “What is the matter with me?” the invalid asked of Regina. She had been listening to the Wismerian directions im-

parted to her mother. She knit her brows and seoAvled in honest endeavour to remember. “Bites,” she said at length. “Bites “Mierobites.” . She looked doubtful and miserable. She hated to fail her brother in time of need. Microbes had something to do Avith it anyhow. She heard the doctor say so. “Is it catching?” “I think so.” “Is there a sign on our house?” With one long, glorified, hopeful, rapturous look at the kindly brother avlio had made such a lovely thing possible, Regina slid out to make an examination. She came back on Avings. She at once began to spell, so as not to forget: “S-C-A-R-L-E-T F-E-V-E-R AV-I-T-H-I-N.” She Avas hustled out of the room, and it Avas Aveeks before she got in again.

Rex really did not miss her, so many odd things happened. About the oddest was the disappearance of whole pieces of the day. Any hour of the twenty-four was liable to drop right out of sight—like a board from the bottom of a washtuband leave a gap. After one of these gaps he came back from somewhere and found that he was in the best spare bedroom. Spare? It was spare enough now, goodness knows, because the white curtains were gone, the pictures were removed, the rugs were up, and the portieres were down. “Spare” was the word. There came some more gaps. Then Rex discovered that the spare room belonged to someone else beside himself. She was a quiet lady who wore a cap and an apron, even at night. People called them trained nurseswhy, he did not know. She was very quiet. He used to forget she was there. Then, first thing he knew, a spoon would glide through the air and stop under his nose. She would be on the other end of it. Whenever she had not anything else to do she would make him take a dry smoke— a. glass cigarette.

He did everything she mentioned. Her voice made him. She, the doctor, and his mother, all spoke in the same tone —as if he, Rex, had pig-headedly chosen to be ill, in spite of their best advice to the contrary. He grew discouraged. One day, while ■he stayed in bedfor he could see the ceiling all the time—he and the bed and the ceiling went to an awful place, full of bad sounds and wild beasts. The nurse was very much of a brick that time. She put her arms around him and kept the things away. Then came the day that he was dying. He talked all the time. He could hear it himself. The doctor seemed to be there every moment. Catherine came in, too, and begged that Father Jennings be sent for, because Father Jennings had the Avay with him. Regina was brought in and was lifted up to kiss him. His father and mother were both —holding on to each other. Right in the middle of the dying business the ceiling fellon top of everybody, the nurse, the doctor, Catherine, Regina, and his father and mother. Then the usual calm followed and he went to sleep. The hall clock woke him. It struck “one”- —midnight. The room was dark, except in one corner, where there was a shaded lamp. * All the world Avas asleep. The world Avas solemnand cold, too. Only he, of all the Avorld, Avas aAvake. No, there Avas his mother. She Avas close beside the bed, in a rocking-chair, but she did not rock. She had on a blue Avrapper. It looked very nice around the neck, because it. had no collar. He thought no collar must feel much nicer than the stiff, high Avhite one that she ahvays Avore. She looked very tired. Her hair Avas plaited like Regina’s. She Avas like someone else’s mother. He remembered that he had not spoken to her, oh, for years and years. He spoke, and bis voice boomed like the clock, yet it Avas a tiny voice, too. “Mamma.” “Yes, my baby.” Her baby! Then Wismer had been at his old trick. — Avonderful — he, Rex, Avas her baby, for she Avas leaning over him, her hand on his. The Avorld Avas still asleep, still quiet and dark, but it did not seem cold or lonely any more. To have a hand to hold —that makes the difference. “Does my boy Avant something?” Truly, nothing, but to Avonder at the queerness and nieeness of having conversation in the middle of the night. “Does my little one Avant a drink?” “Yes,” said Rex, experimentally, curious of Avhat might folloAv. What did Avas the total smashing of self-reliance. She brought the drink, she held the glass, she raised his head, she put it back on the pilloAv, she replaced the glass. He had only to sAvallow. Oh, the bliss of lying there in bed and being eared for without being scolded! She seemed shining with happiness to think that there was something she could do for him. She did not appear to worry at all that self-reliance Avas on its last legs.

His mind wandered irresistibly to thoughts of Molly Coddle. Was Molly Coddle dead, too? He would soon see. “M.Qmrri q “Yes, my dearest.” “The bed hurts.” “My poor baby.” “Won’t you rock me —just this once?” Molly Coddle was everlastingly squelched. His mother made a cooing sound, the way a eat does when she comes back to her basket of kittens, and cuddled him in her arms. She put him inside the blue wrapper and tucked the ends around his feet. He lay in a warm, dark nest. It was soft and lacy. When he put up his hand there was a locket to play with. And all the time he was rocked. It was lovely. He was happy. Was he happy? Surely; yet why.did tears slip from his eyes and wet his cheek ? Why did he feel as if he had been spanked—and had not done anything at all? “Mamma.” “Yes, sonny.” “I am glad I came back.” “From where, dear?” “I don’t knowbut haven’t I been away ?” “Once I was afraid so, my darling.” “Well, I’m glad I came back.” “And I, my own.” “Mamma.” “Yes, baby.” “Tell me a story.” “Once upon a time —” she began, and stopped. “That’s the way. Go on.” “Once upon a time—” again she stopped. He waited, wondering. The lips that were pressed regretfully against his curly head were barren of tales and helplessly ignorant of their sweet witchery. How dim the light was! How cool the stillness! And the househe never dreamed a house could be so silent. And at night one seems to be truly, truly one’s self—not the self that other people want one to be— in the daytime. One dares say anything, “Mamma.” “Yes, Rex.” “You are crying.” “Yes, my baby.” “Why?” “Because I cannot tell my little sick boy a story.” She kissed him, actually kissed —without stopping to consider that she might give him germs of some sort, diphtheria, maybe, or that lovely long word that makes one think of potatoestuberculosis. The kiss put miraculous strength into his weak arms, and he flung them tightly around her neck and clung there. He was not afraid of germs. He liked them. He liked his mother, —now. She had turned into the kind that other boys have the kind that tags around after one, and tickles one in the ribs, and picks things upthe proper sort. “Never mind about that story, mamma; never mind. I’d like ” “What, dear?” “Something to eat.” Eating between meals was usually never

to be mentioned, never to be thought of. The middle of the night was, from its very nature, between meals. Rex knew it, but he took chances that this third bugaboo was weeping over the tomb of Molly Coddle and therefore inoperative so far as he was concerned. He was right. “You are hungry? Oh, Rex, I am so glad.” She really said it. She seemed actually excited over it. She put him gently back into his bed, and then she flew into the next room and awakened the nurse. Together they set to work and prepared him something. He got it. It was hotrather thin, perhaps, but fairly comforting. “Mamma, I want to go to sleep.” “Good-night, precious.” “But, mamma ” “Yes, boy.” “The bed hurts.” “Then come to mother’s arms, Rexie.” She took —she did. To and fro, in a drowsy nest, he was rocked into Sleepytown. The rapture of it was almost enough to keep him awake. But it did not. When morning came he was in his bed, and the nurse alone was on guard. “Where is my mamma?” “Sleeping.” “Sleeping? The sun is shining.” “But she is tired. She held you until daybreak.” “Break? I always wonder what it breaks.” “The darkness!” said the nurse, smiling. “Look!” She raised the curtain. For the first; time in many days he saw the outside world. It was too glaring to look at for long. The trees were so green that they hurt his eyes. The leaves flashed like the sun. The green seemed to flame and burn. Had the trees always been so blazing and beautiful? If so, why had he wished for anything more exciting than just to be allowed to go out and get closer to the glory? The nurse drew down the curtain. “Here is your breakfast,” she said. “You have solid food this morning, you see. You are much better. You will soon be well.” The dab of milk toast looked anything but —positively airy— one who could have made away with a saddle of mutton. “How nice that was,” he sighed, finishing it. The word “nice” annoyed him. It was so short. Being the pith of the sentence, it ought to be longer. “Please get me my dictionary.” That much the nurse did; but she was adamant about letting him look into it. She compromised by reading him a few things that he felt the need of. What he wanted worse than the dictionary was that new mother of his. He longed and ached for some comfort. * “Where is my mamma?” was his constant question. He had bethought himself of several thousand indulgences which he intended to hint for. Finally she appeared. One would never guess she had been up all night, so trim and fresh was she, so snug as to belt and so high as to collar. “Oh, mamma,” he cried, rapturously holding out his arms, “I have had a squeamish breakfast, and I think I’d like

some squeamish pie for dinner.” “Squeamish?” said Mrs. Pettison, hurling a haughty look at the nurse. “Squeamish?” said the nurse, casting an appealing look at Rex. “It is in the dictionary,” he answered. “You read it yourself. It says, squeamish means particular, nice. That’s what the milk toast was. That’s what I’d like the pie to be.” “Little boys should use words that they understand,” advised his mother, quite in the old way. “And you will catch cold if you hold out your arms. Put them under the quilt;” “But I’d like you to rock me.” “Rock?” queried the mother with eyebrows drawn very high. “A big boy like you does not require rocking. It would be ridiculous.” “It wasn’t ridiculous last night, was it?” asked Rex. He really wanted to know. His mother austerely laid her finger across her lips. “Hush,” she said, “even a sick little boy must not be impertinent to his mother.” Impertinent! Rex’s chin quivered. He wildly cast about for something to say. The glass of water at his hand gave him an idea. “I -I want a drink,” he murmured. Heavy tears were in his eyes, but the disappointment in his heart was heavier still. “I want a drink! I want a drink!” “Well, why don’t you take it?” asked his mother, in tones of critical exasperation. With utter despair he brought the glass to his lips and took a gulp. The water was harder to swallow than marbles. His task done, he turned his face to the wall and lay silent. He—miserable he—better ; and, horror of horrors, he would soon be well.