The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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      Lottie Legh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sara had not been a motherly person, she would have found her tiresome. Lottie had been sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine what else to do with her. Her young mother had died, and as the child had been treated like a favorite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling little creature. When she wanted anything or did not want anything she wept and howled; and, as she always wanted the things she could not have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in wails in one part of the house or another.

      Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grownup people talking her over in the early days, after her mother’s death. So it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge.

      The first time Sara took her in charge was one morning when, on passing a sitting room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to suppress the angry wails of some child who, evidently, refused to be silenced. She refused so strenuously indeed that Miss Minchin was obliged to almost shout—in a stately and severe manner—to make herself heard.

      “What IS she crying for?” she almost yelled.

      “Oh—oh—oh!” Sara heard; “I haven’t got any mam—ma-a!”

      “Oh, Lottie!” screamed Miss Amelia. “Do stop, darling! Don’t cry! Please don’t!”

      “Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” Lottie howled tempestuously. “Haven’t—got—any—mam—ma-a!”

      “She ought to be whipped,” Miss Minchin proclaimed. “You SHALL be whipped, you naughty child!”

      Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss Minchin’s voice rose until it almost thundered, then suddenly she sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flounced out of the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter.

      Sara had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or amiable.

      “Oh, Sara!” she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile.

      “I stopped,” explained Sara, “because I knew it was Lottie—and I thought, perhaps—just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try, Miss Minchin?”

      “If you can, you are a clever child,” answered Miss Minchin, drawing in her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by her asperity, she changed her manner. “But you are clever in everything,” she said in her approving way. “I dare say you can manage her. Go in.” And she left her.

      When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted on. Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then another.

      “Poor darling,” she said one moment, “I know you haven’t any mamma, poor—” Then in quite another tone, “If you don’t stop, Lottie, I will shake you. Poor little angel! There—! You wicked, bad, detestable child, I will smack you! I will!”

      Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and excitedly.

      “Miss Amelia,” she said in a low voice, “Miss Minchin says I may try to make her stop—may I?”

      Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. “Oh, DO you think you can?” she gasped.

      “I don’t know whether I CAN”, answered Sara, still in her half-whisper; “but I will try.”

      Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie’s fat little legs kicked as hard as ever.

      “If you will steal out of the room,” said Sara, “I will stay with her.”

      “Oh, Sara!” almost whimpered Miss Amelia. “We never had such a dreadful child before. I don’t believe we can keep her.”

      But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an excuse for doing it.

      Sara stood by the howling furious child for a few moments, and looked down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down flat on the floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie’s angry screams, the room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss Legh, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people protest and implore and command and coax by turns. To lie and kick and shriek, and find the only person near you not seeming to mind in the least, attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut streaming eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl. But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things. And she was looking at her steadily and as if she was merely thinking. Having paused for a few seconds to find this out, Lottie thought she must begin again, but the quiet of the room and of Sara’s odd, interested face made her first howl rather half-hearted.

      “I—haven’t—any—ma—ma—ma-a!” she announced; but her voice was not so strong.

      Sara looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of understanding in her eyes.

      “Neither have I,” she said.

      This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia, who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her. She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and, after a sulky sob, said, “Where is she?”

      Sara paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mamma was in heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts had not been quite like those of other people.

      “She went to heaven,” she said. “But I am sure she comes out sometimes to see me—though I don’t see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room.”

      Lottie sat bolt upright, and looked about her. She was a pretty, little, curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet forget-me-nots. If her mamma had seen her during the last half-hour, she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be related to an angel.

      Sara went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself. She had been told that her mamma had wings and a crown, and she had been shown pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns, who were said to be angels. But Sara seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely country where real people were.

      “There are fields and fields of flowers,” she said, forgetting herself, as usual, when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream, “fields and fields of lilies—and when the soft wind blows over them it wafts the scent of them into the air—and everybody always breathes it, because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about in the lily fields and gather armfuls of them, and laugh and make little wreaths. And the streets are shining. And people are never tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like. And there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are low enough for the people to go and lean on them, and look down onto the earth and smile, and send beautiful messages.”

      Whatsoever