iAATHE 
 UIIABLE 
 CHELD 
 
 DUNCAN 
 
 KB LBB^L 
 
 aaa FV AZik*. " " 
 <** IP^P TW . n 
 
 iifitiitiiittfti
 
 THE SUITABLE CHILD
 
 THE 
 
 SUIT 
 
 CHILD 
 
 DUN 
 
 Illti.vtnv.tecl \jy 
 Hlizabetfx 
 3 Ki p p e i\ 
 
 Flemin^V H I^yell
 
 Copyright, 1909, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Other Books 
 By NORMAN DUNCAN 
 
 Doctor Luke of the Labrador : A Novel. 
 The Cruise of the Shining Light : A Novel. 
 Every Man for Himself: A Collection of 
 
 Short Stories. 
 
 The Mother : A Short Novel. 
 The Adventures of Billy Topsail : A Story 
 
 for Boys. 
 
 The Way of the Sea: A Collection of 
 
 Short Stories. 
 Dr. Grenfell s Parish: The Deep Sea 
 
 Fishermen. 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
 
 To 
 
 my sister 
 
 Charlotte Foster Duncan, 
 
 the mother of the 
 
 best little girl 
 
 in the world, 
 
 this story is affectionately 
 
 dedicated 
 
 2129801
 
 STOP THIEF! 
 
 OT Labour is Life : Labour is a 
 thing accomplished in provision. 
 Love is Life ; and Love is di 
 versely concerned. Whoso loves 
 a child loves not himself but 
 God ; whoso delights a child 
 labours with God in His work 
 shop of the world of hearts ; whoso helps a child 
 brings the Kingdom of God ; whoso saves a child 
 from the fingers of evil sits in the seat with the 
 builders of cities and the procurers of peace. ^ Nor 
 happily is this divine achievement beyond the aspi 
 ration of such as are poor, such as are humble, such 
 as are ignorant, such as have tasted failure, such as 
 are stricken, such as are acquainted with the utmost 
 deprivation. Into the keeping of the humble is in 
 this reasonable way committed the salvation of the 
 world ; the poor and the meek and the broken in 
 heart, greater in multitude than the mighty, are 
 like the mighty in their power and in their wisdom 
 and in their many-riches of aims and means and 
 rewards. ^[ They who being able in any proper way 
 to provide those pleasures of Christmas which are 
 meet and due according to the established custom 
 
 [7]
 
 Stop Thief! 
 
 but still withhold them from children do thieve 
 jewels from the helpless ; and herein is a mystery : 
 that these stolen riches do in no way bent-fit the 
 robbers, but change in their very hands to the 
 weeds of selfish ways, which spring poisonously and 
 enfold and constrict. ^[Tliey who go about pro 
 claiming against the festival joy they who interpose 
 a specious wisdom they who would destroy the 
 fairy-fictions of the Time they who withdraw into 
 themselves they who are dried up and selfish and 
 self-sufficient and niggardly and suspicious and 
 narrow-believing they who preach a departure 
 from the customs of the fathers they who discover 
 selfishness in anxious generosity they who com 
 plain and sneer and ridicule they who stop their 
 ears against laughter and lift sour faces to the 
 morning : all such do aid and abet the theft of in 
 nocent delight and having spread corruption do 
 stand in peril of the same punishment. \ Let them 
 all beware lest they perish indeed ! Age is upon 
 them no tender hand of the years to beautify and 
 gladden : but terrible age of the spirit to wither and 
 to kill. Stop thief ! 
 
 N. D. 
 
 The Colonial, 
 
 North East, Pennsylvania, 
 
 [8]
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Little Lady in Black n 
 
 II. Tagged Through . . 25 
 
 III. The Borrowed Child . 42 
 
 IV. At Odds With God . 55 
 
 V. In Need . . . 71 
 
 VI. Outwitted . . -77 
 711. The New Mother , . 
 
 [9]
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS* 
 
 Page 
 
 "Listen ! " Said She, When They Re 
 appeared ..... Title 
 
 " Tagged Through to Winnipeg" . 26 
 
 " N-no-nobody N-never T-t-to-o-old 
 
 Me!" 45 
 
 " I Dorit Know? Says She . . 83 
 
 "And When Joe Jacket Saw Her He 
 
 Thanked God" 89 
 
 *Used by arrangement with " Harper s Magazine." 
 
 [10]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 T was Christmas Eve. 
 Thank God for that ! 
 Had it been dinner-time 
 of Thanksgiving Day with 
 nothing more promising 
 than a famished family 
 crew had it been six o clock in the morn 
 ing of the Fourth of July had it been any 
 common day of all the year had it been a 
 mere hour of the dreary passage from 
 place to place aboard train then the Lady 
 in Black and the Old Gentleman With the 
 Twinkling Eyes and the Negro Porter and 
 the Little Boy From the Day Coach and 
 the Big Farmer Who Told the Tale of the 
 Suitable Child never in the wide world 
 would have fashioned under the Hand of 
 God the Little Romance. So, say I, thank 
 God it was Christmas Eve I It was Christ 
 mas weather, too ; and thank God for that ! 
 Men respond to the ancient menace of the
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 weather ; it takes the bite and growl of 
 a white wind to stir the heart to wistful 
 recollection of the needy. And there was 
 a big white wind abroad that night a 
 howling, frosty, stifling, mighty blizzard, 
 swirling down from the Great Barrens in 
 the dark. It swept the track clean in the 
 flatlands, it shook the bridges, it packed 
 the cuts ; and it gripped and worried the 
 labouring Winnipeg West Bound Express 
 until the five passengers in the sleeping- 
 car were fairly startled into an expansive 
 attitude towards one another for once. 
 And thank God ! it was Christmas Eve. 
 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twink 
 ling Eyes and the woolly-white Negro 
 Porter put their heads together in Section 
 Twelve. 
 
 " What ! " ejaculated the old gentle 
 man, presently ; " you don t say so ! " 
 
 "Deed Idol" 
 
 " In the day coach ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; right up in the day coach o* 
 this here train o cars." 
 
 [12]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 The old gentleman threw back his head 
 and laughed like a noisy boy ; and having 
 heartily indulged his glee he whispered in 
 the porter s ear. 
 
 " I should estimate, sir," the porter re 
 plied, " bout seven." 
 
 " No!" the old gentleman shouted ; "you 
 don t mean it ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the porter, gravely ; 
 " bout seven, sir, accordin as I should es 
 timate." 
 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes adjusted his cravat, cleared his throat, 
 frowned, rubbed his hands, and smiled, all 
 in the way of one suddenly called upon to 
 speak before an assemblage. Then with 
 proper formality he got to his feet to ad 
 dress his fellow passengers. " Ladies and 
 gentlemen," he began and the pretty 
 Lady in Black looked up from her sad day 
 dream, and the Big Farmer moved down 
 the aisle with the most genial grin in the 
 world, and the English Church Clergyman 
 and I cocked our ears in expectation, and 
 the old gentleman, himself, smiled again,
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 delighting in his mystery " Ladies and 
 gentlemen," he repeated, softly, " this is 
 Christmas Eve. But," he demanded, in 
 sudden wrath, levelling a finger at each 
 of us in turn, " what are we doing ? " He 
 paused to let the accusation take effect ; 
 and so very dramatic was he so hurt and 
 indignant and accusing that though not 
 one of us had hitherto been conscious of 
 guilt we must now cast down our eyes. 
 " You may ask, What can we do ? " he pro 
 ceeded. "You may ask, What can five 
 adult travellers really do on Christmas Eve 
 aboard the Winnipeg West Bound Ex 
 press? We can do much," he maintained. 
 " It is not altogether impossible for a de 
 termined man with a small gratuity con 
 cealed in the palm of his right hand to open 
 a trunk in the baggage-car ; and I venture 
 to say that not one of us but could produce 
 some trifles of delight from that very source. 
 What do we lack, then," he asked, leaning 
 forward, " to the proper performance of 
 our duties as adults upon this occasion ? " 
 It seemed the question must have an 
 [H]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 answer; but not one of us ventured a 
 word, and I observed to my amazement 
 that the Lady in Black turned away with 
 a quick and pained little frown. 
 
 " Eh ? " the old gentleman repeated ; 
 "what do we lack?" 
 
 "I should say," the Big Farmer sug 
 gested, "that all we need is a kid and 
 a pair of stockings." 
 
 " Exactly," the old gentleman agreed, 
 with instant approval ; " those are the 
 simple elements : a child and a single 
 pair of long stockings without any holes 
 in the toes." 
 
 "Well," the Big Farmer drawled, "you 
 can t produce a kid from your silk hat, 
 can you?" 
 
 "I can do better than that," the old 
 gentleman promptly replied. 
 
 "You can?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," the old gentleman boasted. 
 
 "Then get busy!" cried the farmer, 
 jumping up. "It s past any kid s bed 
 time." 
 
 " No, it isn t," the old gentleman flashed. 
 [15]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 " Past nine o clock." 
 
 "That s all right," the old gentleman re 
 torted ; " but it s never past any kid s bed 
 time on Christmas Eve, and if you don t be 
 lieve it you may ask the first one you meet." 
 
 Indeed, now, the Big Farmer and the 
 English Church Clergyman and I were 
 most agreeably aroused. The Old Gen 
 tleman With the Twinkling Eyes, having 
 declared the freedom of all children on 
 Christmas Eve, was standing triumphant, 
 with his shoulders squared, and his head 
 on one side, and his hands deep in his 
 pockets, and his frock-coat defiantly thrown 
 wide ; and he radiated a festival jollity, too, 
 in the way of all bachelor old gentlemen 
 who in their own simple delight pursue 
 the pleasure of children. He was tall, and 
 he was straight, and he was slender, and 
 he had glowing cheeks and a crop of gray 
 hair and a close gray pointed beard ; and 
 I fancy now remembering his exquisite 
 manner that he was of a fashionable 
 and well-to-do world, but do not really 
 know, at all. At any rate, the Clergyman 
 [16]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 chuckled, beholding him, and the Big 
 Farmer from Saskatchewan fumbled for 
 his keys, the Negro Porter grinned, and I 
 was in sympathy with them all ; but the 
 little Lady in Black, who had covered her 
 pretty face in the depths of Section Seven, 
 exhibited no sympathy whatsoever. In 
 deed, she interrupted. 
 
 " May I say a word ? " she timidly asked. 
 
 I recall that she was very pretty and 
 little and seeming-tender that she was 
 pretty with colour and curls and bright 
 eyes and a gentle air and an appealing 
 delicacy and that she wore a pretty gown 
 \\ ; th the air of never having worn a coarse 
 one (to which, however, she would have 
 imparted grace) but that she was now 
 pale and woebegone. 
 
 "To be sure ! " cried the old gentleman, 
 with much politeness. " In this emergency, 
 a lady s suggestion " 
 
 " I regret that it is not a favourable sug 
 gestion/ said she. 
 
 " Never mind!" replied the old gentle 
 man. 
 
 [17]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 " I am sure," she began, picking at the 
 hem of a tiny handkerchief, her eyes cast 
 down, her voice a little broken, "that I 
 have no wish to to interfere with the 
 happiness of " and she came help 
 lessly to an end. 
 
 " Out with it ! " said the old gentleman. 
 
 " It is such an extraordinary thing ! " she 
 wailed. 
 
 " Out with it 1 " the old gentleman com 
 manded. 
 
 " It may seem so so selfish ! " 
 
 " Dear lady ! " exclaimed the old gentle 
 man. 
 
 The Lady in Black looked up ; and she 
 began her complaint, speaking boldly, her 
 voice hard, her delicate brows drawn to a 
 frown, her little hands clenched in her lap, 
 her lips puckered ; and she was not at all 
 pretty, at the moment, I must say ! "I 
 have been visiting my sister in Toronto, 
 for a little," said she, " and I am now re 
 turning to my home in Winnipeg. I I 
 I had to go away to go away somewhere 
 for a little relief. It is a queer thing, per- 
 [18]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 haps, for a woman to be travelling alone 
 on Christmas Eve ; but I chose Christmas 
 Eve I chose it and I waited patiently for 
 the time to come because I wanted to es 
 cape to escape, you see, just for this one 
 first year, what goes on everywhere else on 
 Christmas Eve. You see that I am in 
 black ? You understand, do you not ? 
 So I am selfish and bold enough to ask 
 you, Can t you do what you are going 
 to do somewhere else? Can t you wait a 
 little ? Can t you put it off ? Can t you 
 won t you won t you indulge me and 
 do it somewhere else ? I can t bear it I 
 can t I just can t bear it to-night ! " 
 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twin 
 kling Eyes which were no longer twin 
 kling but all too tearful for that went near 
 the weeping little Lady in Black and leaned 
 close with much grace and sympathy. 
 
 " In the day coach," said he, gently, " is 
 a lonely little girl, seven years old, for 
 whom " 
 
 " Boss," the porter interrupted, " it s a 
 boy." 
 
 [19]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed the old gentleman, 
 turning away in disgust and strutting to 
 his seat. " I thought you said it was a 
 girl." 
 
 " I didn t say which sect," the porter re 
 torted. 
 
 " Huh ! " snorted the old gentleman. 
 
 " Well! 1 ejaculated the Lady in Black 
 with a toss of her pretty head, and with a 
 saucy little flush of anger, too, I fear ; and 
 she sat stiff in her seat, her eyes dry and 
 blazing. " Well!" she gasped, again, 
 with an angry stamp. " Well /" she 
 challenged, for the third time, surveying 
 the old gentleman in a royal rage, " will 
 you be good enough to tell me what dif 
 ference it makes ? " 
 
 " It makes no difference whatsoever," 
 the old gentleman replied, jumping up 
 again. " I am heartily ashamed of myself." 
 
 " I should think you would be 1 " said the 
 Lady in Black. 
 
 " A child is a child, gentlemen," the old 
 gentleman proceeded, returning to the 
 speech-making manner ; "and there being 
 
 [20]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 nothing better at hand than a boy, I pro 
 pose " 
 
 " I object to your putting it that way," 
 the lady broke in, with spirit. "I object 
 to it with all my might. It is unfair to 
 the child and it is odiously offensive to 
 me. In deed! Nothing better at hand 
 than a boy 1 Well ! Indeed ! I see no 
 reason at all why a little boy should be 
 slighted." She had risen, now ; and her 
 graceful little person a lovely fashioning 
 of God was drawn stiff and straight, and 
 her head was back, and the sweet colour 
 was in her cheeks, and she spoke with en 
 gaging fire. " It is infamous " ah ! but 
 she was indignant, indeed " it is perfectly 
 infamous," said she, " this discrimination 
 in favour of little girls. I m sure I don t 
 know why men are so foolish and and 
 so cruel." She paused, eyeing us each ac 
 cusingly ; and I fear that we could not meet 
 the reproachful glance. " Now," she went 
 on, grimly, fixing, if not vindictively trans 
 fixing, the Old Gentleman With the 
 Twinkling Eyes, " 7 have a suggestion to 
 
 [21]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 make. I propose that we instantly fetch 
 the little boy from the day coach. I pro 
 pose that we make a Christmas for him 
 that he will remember every day of all his 
 dear life. I propose," she cried, waving 
 her arms like an ecstatic stump-speaker, 
 " that we give him the best that we have 
 in our trunks and in our hearts. I ve 
 something in my trunks to please a boy. 
 Perhaps you ve nothing but girls things. 
 But / have boys } things boys toys. I 
 keep them there. I thought I d keep 
 them always always and die with them 
 die with them beside me. But I ll give 
 em away I ll give em away to the poor 
 lonely little soul in the day coach. Whdll 
 fetch that boy to me ? " 
 
 Every man of us sprang to his feet. 
 
 "One moment!" shouted the Old 
 Gentleman With the Twinkling Eyes. 
 
 We halted. 
 
 " Dear lady," said he, his eyes twinkling 
 and tearful, " / // fetch the little boy from 
 the day coach, if you will permit me. The 
 porter will make up his bed in the state- 
 
 [22]
 
 The Little Lady in Black 
 
 room. We can hang the stockings in Sec 
 tion Twelve. When the boy is stowed 
 away we will all go together to the bag 
 gage-car and take from our trunks what 
 we can find to please him. But will you, 
 dear lady, put him to bed ? " The little 
 Lady in Black nodded. " And will you tell 
 him a story the story of that Birth which 
 moves the world to kindness and the love 
 of children this night and always ? " In 
 deed, yes ! the little lady would do it. 
 " And will you hear his prayers ? " The 
 Lady in Black said softly that she would. 
 " And will you kiss him good-night ? " 
 The promise was passed. " Then, dear 
 lady," said the old gentleman, withdraw 
 ing a curious glance from the Lady in 
 Black, as though he had discovered her 
 mystery, " I beg of you to accept my 
 apology, and to permit me to say that I m 
 glad glad, thank God 1 that we have a 
 lonely little boy in the day coach, to whose 
 delight we may contribute from the wishes 
 that abide in all our hearts for all children. 
 Will you not forgive me ? " 
 [23]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 "It is not hard," the Lady in Black 
 whispered. 
 
 She put out her little hand ; and the Old 
 Gentleman With the Twinkling Eyes took 
 it gently, and pressed it in the most nat 
 ural way in the world, and kissed the tips 
 of the fingers, a thing which the little Lady 
 in Black seemed not to mind at all. 
 
 " Now," cried the jolly old fellow, " I ll 
 go fetch that youngster 1 " 
 
 And off he went. 
 
 [24]
 
 II 
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 HE train was running 
 through a rocky wilder 
 ness, hardly populated, the 
 stations far between ; and 
 the forests and cliffs and 
 great hills and isolated 
 
 houses were deep in snow 
 by the wind. Few folk 
 abroad : the little boy 
 
 mean board 
 and troubled 
 were travelling 
 was all alone in the day coach a lonely 
 little figure, indeed ! but still a courageous 
 one, appealing to the fatherly heart. He 
 was sitting straight up and anxiously wide 
 awake in a double seat ; and in his chapped 
 little fist he gripped an orange (worn shiny 
 with handling), and roundabout, on the 
 floor and crimson plush, peanut shells, and 
 scraps of peel, and a greasy newspaper, 
 and a multitude of crumbs, proclaimed the 
 orgie of an exceptional occasion. A sturdy,
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 black-headed, dark-eyed youngster, clad in 
 the home-made way and tagged through 
 to Winnipeg : he was a lad to be proud of, 
 I should think, for his manliness, except, 
 however, for his scowl, which was enor 
 mous and terrible. It was a perpetual, 
 deep-engraven scowl ; and it puckered his 
 forehead, and drew his brows, and am 
 bushed his great eyes, and puffed his lips, 
 and fairly rumpled his hair. Never before 
 was a scowl so fixed and furiously ominous. 
 One must pause and stare and gasp 
 but pass on smiling and in some strange 
 way warmly enlisted. 
 
 Pass on, it seemed, the Old Gentleman 
 With the Twinkling Eyes was about to 
 do ; but all of a sudden he took advantage 
 of a lurch of the train and precipitated 
 himself sprawling into the forward seat of 
 the two which the boy occupied. 
 
 " Ouch ! " he ejaculated, having recov 
 ered himself. 
 
 " Hurt yourself very much ? " the 
 boy solicitously growled. 
 
 The voice was slow and grave and still 
 [26]
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 more darkly deep than grave, a curious 
 basso pro/undo ; and there was no mitiga 
 tion of the scowl a lifting of the brows, 
 perhaps, permitting some sympathy to 
 emerge from the dark eyes, but no other 
 change. 
 
 " Whew"! " the old gentleman groaned, 
 with his mouth askew. " I say, would you 
 mind rubbing my elbow a bit?" 
 
 It seemed not ; the boy rubbed and 
 rubbed and rubbed the old gentleman s 
 funny-bone all as gravely and as consci 
 entiously as could be. 
 
 " Hurt you now?" he rumbled. 
 
 " You wouldn t mind rubbing it a bit 
 more, would you ? " 
 
 " I d jus s soon." 
 
 " Thank you," said the old gentleman, 
 presently. " It s very much better. I m 
 sure I don t know what I should have done 
 without you. I say, where you bound for ? " 
 
 " Sy-lum." 
 
 "I see \ " said the old gentleman. 
 
 " Or-phun not lun-a-tic," the boy 
 added, to make quite sure that the old gen-
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 tleman did see. " I m goin back 
 again they sent me back." 
 
 " Very poor taste, indeed 1 " the old gen 
 tleman declared. 
 
 " They wasn t to blame," said the 
 boy. 
 
 " No ?" the old gentleman inquired. 
 
 " No they wasn t" the boy insisted, 
 with a fearsome scowl and a resolute little 
 shake of the head. 
 
 " What you going backer f " 
 
 The boy sighed ; and an aching sigh it 
 was long and deep-drawn and discour 
 aged like the sigh of a worn-out man. 
 " They wasn t to blame," he replied. 
 
 " Come ! " said the old gentleman, put 
 ting a hand on the boy s shoulder ; "tell 
 me all about, it." 
 
 " Wasn t their fault. " 
 
 "Whose fault was it?" the old gentle 
 man demanded, with a trace of impatience. 
 
 " God sur-prised Miss-us Tomp- 
 kins Smith." 
 
 " What 1 " cried the old gentleman. 
 " How in the world did He manage that?" 
 [28]
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 " Ea-sy en-ough." 
 
 " Well, I d very much like to know how ! " 
 
 " Sent her one o her own when 
 she wasn t ex-pec-tin it that s 
 all." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " the old gentleman ex 
 ploded. 
 
 "Wasn t their fault," the loyal little 
 soul repeated. 
 
 Curiously, the old gentleman could not 
 for a moment utter a word ; the ejaculation 
 of Good Lord I seemed quite to have ex 
 hausted him. And his lip trembled a little 
 (I think) and there were tears in his faded 
 eyes (I fear) which were used to the mer 
 riest twinkling and it seemed he could do 
 nothing but look upon the little boy in pity 
 exceeding expression. A foolish old gen 
 tleman, of course ! a sentimental old fel 
 low, meddlesome and unmanly. But, in 
 deed, he was deeply moved, and all too 
 suddenly to have command of the emotion. 
 Perhaps he perceived beyond the pathos of 
 the situation confronting him a grown-up 
 tragedy the tragedy of some woman s
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 hope and despair and patient waiting and 
 bitterly premature capitulation with the 
 Fate which had flouted her in the Great 
 Surprise. Perhaps they were not to blame 
 for disposing of the adopted child : per 
 haps not an adopted child is only an 
 adopted child, after all ; blood is thicker 
 than water, and the love of other people s 
 offspring, though they walk alone and help 
 less in an evil world, is admirable and pos 
 sible only in so far as it is expedient, as 
 everybody knows. Of course, they must 
 send him back, lest trouble come of his re 
 maining. Still, I hope that the old gentle 
 man s tears sprang rather from sympathy 
 with the boy who had been sent back be 
 cause Mrs. Tompkins Smith could not love 
 him any more in the face of God s indul 
 gent surprise. 
 
 " Don t you care ! " he burst out, at any 
 rate. " Don t you care a bit / " 
 
 The boy sighed, and murmured, almost 
 under his breath, because it was so great 
 a lie : 
 
 " I d jus s soon." 
 [30]
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 " Don t you care," the old gentleman re 
 peated. " You ll get another mother, and 
 you ll get another father, too." 
 
 A wise, wise shake of the head was the 
 reply to this. 
 
 " Yes, you will 1 " the old gentleman in 
 sisted. 
 
 The boy almost smiled so unsophisti 
 cated in the ways of adoption (perhaps) 
 did the old gentleman appear. " No I 
 won t neith-er," he drawled. 
 
 " You will, I say ! " the old gentleman 
 scolded. 
 
 " How d you know ? " 
 
 The old gentleman was taken aback by 
 this direct and anxious question. " Never 
 you mind," said he, mysteriously. " I 
 know. You ll have another mother. before 
 you know it, and you ll have another father, 
 and maybe you? II have a brother just about as 
 old as you are ! Eh ? how d you like that ? " 
 
 " I d jus s soon." 
 
 I observed, now, that all at once he 
 looked the old gentleman over from head 
 to foot, with his head cocked and a crafty, 
 [31]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 speculative eye, as though well, who 
 could tell what might happen ? and would 
 it be an advantageous arrangement if 
 something really did happen ? It was un 
 lovely, no doubt ; and I hoped that the old 
 gentleman did not perceive the meaning of 
 the glance, lest, being unaware of the ne 
 cessities of orphans, he should save it up 
 against the child. I blamed the old gentle 
 man for this encouragement for these 
 veiled promises. But I might be unjust 
 (thought I). Perhaps, after all, it was in 
 his mind to take the little waif with whom 
 he had so strangely fallen in. Come ! 
 (thought I) I will not judge him cruel or 
 indiscreet until I know. 
 
 "I ll bet you," the old gentleman de 
 clared, striking his fist into his palm, " that 
 you ll have a better mother than any 
 mother you ever had before." 
 
 " No I won t nei-ther." 
 
 " I tell you, you will ! " 
 
 They who stand in line for adoption 
 seem early to learn what is accounted ad 
 mirable in the world and in what they lack. 
 [32]
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 "I scowl too much," the boy ex 
 plained, almost smiling for the second 
 time. 
 
 "Scowl?" cried the old gentleman, all 
 excitement. " I can fix that for you right 
 now. Yes, I can ; and it won t hurt a bit. 
 Let me see," said he, putting on his glasses, 
 and tipping up the lad s face, like a doctor 
 about to look at a tongue. " Exactly ! " 
 he muttered to himself. " I thought so. 
 Nothing easier in the world. Look here, 
 young man ! " gravely, to the boy ; "do 
 you know what you ve got down there?" 
 vaguely indicating the astonished child s 
 interior. "No? Well, I ll tell you what 
 you ve got. You ve got grins not smiles, 
 mind you ! but real, simon-pure grins. 
 You ve got thousands and millions and 
 trillions and oceans of grins. You ve got 
 the finest assortment of grins down there 
 that ever I saw in my life! Yes, you 
 have ; and I ll stake my professional repu 
 tation on it. There s a grin of most excel 
 lent appearance and quality near the left- 
 hand corner of your mouth at this very 
 [33]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 minute lying right in the middle of that 
 little dimple. I can see it from here with 
 out my glasses. And if I wanted to and 
 if you wanted me to I could pull it out. 
 It wouldn t hurt a bit, either. What s the 
 matter with you, anyhow ? " he demanded, 
 fiercely. "Eh? / // tell you what s the 
 matter with you : your grins are stuck ! 
 All you need is to have three or four ex 
 tracted ; and then they ll come easier, and 
 after that you won t scowl so much, and 
 you ll be all right." 
 
 At this point the little grin which the old 
 gentleman had discovered in the dimple 
 nearly emerged of its own accord. 
 
 " Ah, ha ! " the old gentleman cried. 
 " One of em s loose already ! " 
 
 There was a smile growing large in the 
 boy s eyes. 
 
 " By Jove ! " the old gentleman declared. 
 " I ll pull that grin out. Yes, I will I ll 
 pull it out." 
 
 The boy s lips were twitching with 
 amusement. 
 
 "Eh? What d ye say?" 
 [34]
 
 Tagg e d Th r o ug h 
 
 " I d jus s soon." 
 
 Instantly the old gentleman seized the 
 boy s head in the manner of a dentist 
 about to pull a tooth ; and like lightning 
 he made believe to insert a horrible instru 
 ment in the dimple and to grip the grin ; 
 and he pulled and he hauled and he twisted, 
 and he gasped and he grunted, and he 
 puffed and he ejaculated, and such was his 
 enthusiasm, and so heartily did he exert 
 himself, that he lost his glasses and turned 
 red in the face. Presently, with a satisfied 
 ejaculation of " Ha 1 she s coming ! " he 
 sat back a bit, still grasping the imaginary 
 forceps, and continued to pull, now with 
 both hands and the grimmest determina 
 tion. " She s coming 1 " he shouted, again ; 
 " hold still ! don t move for your life 1 " It 
 was a desperate effort : the old gentle 
 man s mouth was all screwed, and his 
 cropped gray beard bristled, and his eyes 
 blazed ; but he clung like a sturdy work 
 man to the little boy s grin, and hauled 
 and twisted with increasing vigour, mean 
 while drawing inch after inch of the grin 
 [35]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 from the dimple. And all at once the mus 
 cles of the boy s scowling countenance gave 
 way and he grinned most expansively 
 and he could not check the grin, at all and 
 it spread and swelled and grew gigantic 
 and at last it fairly exploded in a delicious 
 chuckle. 
 
 The old gentleman fell back against the 
 seat. " There ! " he sighed, exhausted, but 
 much delighted. " I knew I could do it 1 " 
 
 " It didn t hurt none." 
 
 "Of course, it didn t hurt!" the old 
 gentleman exclaimed ; " and it ll do you 
 lots of good. In exactly three minutes," 
 he proceeded, with a peep at his watch, 
 " I ll pull another ; and I ll pull six, in all, 
 and when I ve pulled six, and loosened em 
 all up, they ll tumble out of that dimple so 
 fast that you won t be able to stop em. 
 Why ! " he cried, enthusiastically ; "there ll 
 be neither time nor room for a scowl to 
 get out." 
 
 A little grin popped out of the dimple. 
 
 "Look at that!" exclaimed the admir 
 ing old gentleman. 
 
 [36]
 
 Tagged Through. 
 
 Another little grin popped out. 
 
 " I tell you," the old gentleman earnestly 
 declared, "it won t be long before you ll 
 have to have your scowls pulled ! " 
 
 I looked for another little grin to come. 
 None emerged. The boy s face fell again 
 into the settled scowl and melancholy ; and 
 he sighed, abruptly, and turned away, his 
 interest in the Old Gentleman With the 
 Twinkling Eyes and in the old gentle 
 man s jolly make-believe apparently gone 
 out. Nor could the old gentleman rouse 
 him : neither with laughter nor tomfoolery 
 nor make-believe of any sort, nor even by 
 means of the extraordinary expedient of 
 grabbing an American silver dollar from 
 the vacant air and dropping it in the boy s 
 jacket pocket, and of grabbing another 
 from nothing and nowhere for the second 
 jacket pocket, and a third for the third, 
 and of filling the first and second trousers 
 pockets and an obscure hip pocket from 
 the same mysterious source and in the 
 same mysterious way. It was all to no 
 purpose ; the little boy whom the gift of 
 [37]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 God had supplanted gave small attention 
 to these antics, but looked out of the win 
 dow, sad and scowling, in an abstracted 
 effort to descry the forest and rocky land 
 in the wild night. It seemed to me that 
 he remembered the leave-taking and was 
 oppressed by the vision of a discredited 
 return ; and I fancied that in his childish 
 way he knew that he walked alone in the 
 world, notwithstanding the accident of the 
 old gentleman s genial friendship, and that 
 he was afraid, and that he was lonely, and 
 that he wished, most woefully, for some 
 secure and natural attachment to his elders, 
 such as other children were safe and happy 
 in having. 
 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes all at once lifted the boy and sat him 
 on his knee. 
 
 " What s the matter, boy ? " he asked. 
 
 " Nothin ." 
 
 The old gentleman s voice was unaf 
 fected now ; and his way was simple and 
 genuinely affectionate, and his fine kind 
 face was infinitely melancholy with sym- 
 [38]
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 pathetic understanding of the little woe he 
 held in his arms. They had forgotten, it 
 seemed, the presence of an eavesdropping 
 onlooker. 
 
 "What s the matter?" the old gentle 
 man repeated. 
 
 " NothinV 
 
 The old gentleman adjusted the lad s 
 little body more closely to his own, in the 
 intimate way of such as are used to loving 
 children ; and like the knowing fathers of 
 children, who deal with them at bedtime, 
 he put his hand on the boy s head. The 
 scowling, woebegone face, the cheeks now 
 wet, fell against the frock-coat most nat 
 urally as though, indeed (and by this I 
 was amazed), the boy had from the very 
 beginning been used to this particular 
 protection and affection. Amazed? In 
 deed, yes ! I was amazed and informed. 
 What manner of man (thinks I) is this ? and 
 what great secret of the hearts of children 
 does he know? and in what manner and 
 to what purpose has he practiced the 
 divine dissimulation of fatherly love ? Of 
 [391
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 course, I was informed, never having seen 
 the like of it before ; and herein, too, not 
 only was enlightenment, but invitation to 
 do likewise. They had quite forgotten the 
 onlooker : the boy s head was lying against 
 the old gentleman s frock-coat, and the old 
 gentleman, for the moment at a loss, but 
 evidently with his mind furiously at work, 
 was softly whistling some sentimental bal 
 lad, quite out of tune. 
 
 "What s the matter?" he whispered, 
 presently. 
 
 " Nothin ." 
 
 " Better tell me, boy." 
 
 The boy looked up sat back and put 
 his hands on the old gentleman s shoulders 
 and looked him in the eye like a man 
 acting, now, in anxious inquisition. 
 
 " Do you want one? " he demanded. 
 
 "Want what?" 
 
 " Want a norphan f " 
 
 The old gentleman was taken unaware ; 
 but he cleverly rallied, and dodged the 
 direct question, almost before it was asked, 
 so that there was no denial and no offense.
 
 Tagged Through 
 
 " Look here ! " said he ; " are you for 
 rent?" 
 
 The boy did not comprehend. 
 
 " If you are," the old gentleman de 
 clared, " I ll borrow you for the night. 
 What d ye say to that?" 
 
 " I d jus s soon." 
 
 " Good ! " cried the old gentleman. 
 "But first," said he, "I ll pull out the 
 second grin." 
 
 The grin was triumphantly extracted; 
 and off we went to the sleeping-car, where 
 the Big Farmer and the English Church 
 Clergyman and the Lady in Black were 
 waiting. And I determined (I recall) that 
 if the Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes failed the child he held by the hand 
 I determined, while we staggered 
 through the corridors of the train I de 
 termined that I myself 
 
 Why not ?
 
 Ill 
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 HE Lady in Black took the 
 boy from the Old Gentle 
 man With the Twinkling 
 Eyes with an air of au 
 thority he could not defy. 
 He yielded, somewhat of 
 fended, and vastly amazed ; and the child 
 seemed willing, I recall, to pass from his care, 
 however engaging it had been, into the softer 
 keeping of a woman. The stateroom bed 
 was made up, and the door was wide open ; 
 and within the cozy little place there was 
 the quiet glow of yellow light and the 
 softest and whitest invitation to turn in 
 and go to sleep. No sooner had the little 
 boy clapped eyes on the pillows and sheets 
 than he began to blink in an owlish way, 
 and to yawn and rub his eyes. But the 
 selfish Lady in Black would not let him 
 go until she had satisfied the hunger of 
 her arms ; she held him close, and 
 [42]
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 smoothed his hair, and crooned in his ear, 
 and stole little kisses from the back of his 
 neck, as mothers do when their very own 
 little children transport them. The Big 
 Farmer fretted and growled that it was 
 past nine o clock that it was long past 
 nine o clock and that the boy ought to 
 be stowed away ; but the Old Gentleman 
 With the Twinkling Eyes lifted a warning 
 finger in his direction and winked in a 
 warning way, as if some mystery might be 
 brewing, which must not on any account 
 be interrupted. 
 
 At last, however, reverting to his make- 
 believe of terrible manner, the old gentle 
 man shouted : 
 
 "Off with em!" 
 
 The little boy was by this frightened 
 into wide wakefulness. 
 
 " Off with his stockings ! " the old gentle 
 man commanded. 
 
 While the smiling little lady picked at 
 the hard knots with her delicate fingers the 
 child stared at the old gentleman in a way 
 most bewildered. 
 
 [43]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 " Time to hang em up," said the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 The little boy puzzled upon this for a 
 moment, his head lying very still, his leg 
 abandoned to the hands of the Lady in 
 Black, who still fumbled with the lace of 
 his shoe, which she would not yield to any 
 of us. I observed that his dark eyes 
 moved from face to face amongst us, and 
 I saw that dwelling here they brooded, 
 and that dwelling there they brooded, 
 pondering. Presently, he started, trem 
 bled, sat up with a jerk ; and for an 
 instant he was stock still, and stared at 
 the old gentleman, open-eyed and pale in 
 the presence of a great revelation. All at 
 once he squirmed roughly from the lady s 
 lap and faced us with his feet spread and 
 his hands clenched and every muscle of 
 his little body quivering. 
 
 Whereupon he gasped : 
 
 "// j Christmas /" 
 
 " Of course, it is," said the old gentle 
 man, heartily. 
 
 The boy threw back his head, and his 
 [44]

 
 "N-NONOBODY N-NEVEB T-T-TO-O-OLD ME!
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 mouth fell wide open, and a flood of tears 
 descended from Jiis puckered eyes, and he 
 bawled in wrath : 
 
 " N-no-nobody n-never t-t-to-o-old me ! " 
 There was no laughter on our part, you 
 may be sure. Not one of us but under 
 stood the wrong that had been done him 
 the theft of all the hours of glorified expec 
 tation so nearly the theft of Christmas joy 
 itself that sacrilege 1 Not one of us, I 
 am sure, but felt the ache that hurt him, 
 and were in wrath like his. Not one of us 
 so strangely had we fallen in together 
 but acknowledged (nor had ever dreamed 
 of questioning) the Divine Right of chil 
 dren to all the delights of Christmas. 
 Whoso deprives them (thought I) but, 
 then, as everybody knows, the rage of a 
 gray bachelor concerning this runs away 
 with him, and he emerges red and perspir 
 ing from the argument, with the indulgent 
 laughter of parents to distress him : I will 
 not tell what I thought in contempt for the 
 selfish and pretentiously advanced persons 
 who deprive helpless little children of their 
 [45]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 high and divinely ordained festival. The 
 Lady in Black exchanged horrified glances 
 with the Old Gentleman With the Twin 
 kling Eyes ; and there was a general ex 
 change of horrified glances the Big 
 Farmer with me, and the English Church 
 Clergyman with the Lady in Black, and 
 the Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes promiscuously, and the whole of us to 
 gether. Following the example of the 
 Lady in Black we turned up our noses and 
 sniffed ; and had Mrs. Tompkins Smith 
 been there and had the old gentleman and 
 I betrayed her as the author of this cruel 
 perfidy it had surely gone hard with her. 
 
 "Well, I never!" exclaimed the Lady 
 in Black. 
 
 " Shoot it ! " exploded the Old Gentleman 
 With the Twinkling Eyes, being unable, in 
 the presence of the lady, to utter his dis 
 gust with more relieving warmth. 
 
 Well, of course, we comforted the Boy 
 From the Day Coach. A little loving by the 
 Lady in Black, a little scolding by the Old 
 [46]
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 Gentleman With the Twinkling Eyes, a 
 little encouragement by the Big Farmer 
 from Saskatchewan, a little rash promising 
 by the English Church Clergyman, all pro 
 ceeding simultaneously with a general 
 backing up of the whole by the Story 
 Teller, and the thing was nearly accom 
 plished. At any rate, the pain of the child s 
 wound was eased, the loud expression of 
 his grief mollified ; but before he was re 
 stored to good humour and thoroughgoing 
 satisfaction with his situation the Old Gen 
 tleman With the Twinkling Eyes must ex 
 tract three grins in rapid succession, which 
 he set about doing with every evidence of 
 professional delight, and achieved with tri 
 umphant success, each time in the midst of 
 loud applause from the company. Then 
 off came the stockings ! and the bare little 
 toes wriggled with joy ; and out came the 
 hat pins ! and the chapped little fingers 
 that drove them through the stockings and 
 into the cushion shook and blundered with 
 joyous excitement ; and apart stood we all 
 to view the effect ! and we clapped our 
 [47]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 hands and cheered and exclaimed and pre 
 dicted and hoped, just as all good fathers 
 and mothers and uncles and aunts and big 
 sisters and brothers and friends of the fam 
 ily do on Christmas Eve, everywhere in 
 Christian lands, and will continue to do un 
 til pure Christianity has vanished from the 
 hearts of men and children are no more. 
 
 The little Lady in Black said, by and by, 
 softly and with shining eyes and a rosy 
 flush and in the most tender of loving 
 mother-voices indeed, she was an ador 
 able little lady ! the little Lady in Black 
 admonished the child ^in the magical way 
 that children do not misunderstand that it 
 was time for all good little boys to be in bed. 
 
 " I d jus s soon," said the sleepy 
 Boy From the Day Coach. 
 
 Then off they went, the two of them 
 hand in hand, laughing as they staggered 
 in response to the motion of the train off 
 they went to the stateroom, to which the 
 woolly-white Negro Porter had already 
 fetched the little boy s very little bag. 
 The Lady in Black closed the door ; but a 
 [48]
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 lurch of the car, which seemed, somehow, 
 to be in league with our desire, promptly 
 opened it a little, so that we might hear 
 what went on within. We were very still ; 
 there was no agreement to this end no 
 spoken word, no meaning glance. We 
 just kept very still ; and four tongues were 
 idle, and four heads were cocked, and four 
 left ears were wide open, and four hearts 
 were eager to know the soft truths of life 
 and love which disclose themselves when 
 a mother puts her child to bed. The train 
 creaked and rumbled and clattered ; we 
 heard little enough only a crooning mut 
 ter and an occasional childish chuckle. 
 But presently the train stopped ; it 
 screamed and jerked as it ran complain 
 ing into some lost drifted station of the 
 line, but there stopped, and silence came, 
 except for the long howl of the winter 
 wind and the gale s passionate beating on 
 the windows. What then I heard I shall 
 never forget. It was nothing to move a 
 man ; the words are spoken, perhaps, every 
 night, in every household of the land where 
 [49]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 children dwell in their mothers care. 
 Simple words, indeed ! but they stirred 
 me, and I shall ever remember them be 
 cause of the loneliness of the child, it may 
 be, and because of the loneliness of the 
 little Lady in Black. 
 
 " Now, dear prayers ! " said the brisk 
 little Lady in Black, as she patted the pil 
 low. 
 
 " I d jus s soon," said the boy. 
 
 We leaned a little forward, and we lis 
 tened yet more intently; but we heard 
 nothing definite, after all nothing but a 
 word or two of sleepy patter to indicate 
 that the ancient childish prayer was once 
 more ascending. Though it was but a 
 low mutter to remind us, we knew it, every 
 word. " Jesus, tender shepherd, hear me ! " 
 and " I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep," 
 and " God bless papa and mama." We 
 had once been children ; we remembered. 
 They say the God-bless variously ; they 
 include uncle and auntie and sister and 
 grandmother and the intruding Mister 
 This and That. It is surely saving to be 
 [50]
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 prayed for by little children who have in 
 their hearts that purity of faith which the 
 grown-up world must watchfully preserve 
 and never can perfectly possess again. . . . 
 
 The Winnipeg West Bound Express 
 proceeded according to its daily schedule 
 (but now much behind) ; the shivering 
 conductor waved his lantern, the station- 
 master, warm in his bay-windowed office, 
 ticked the message of departure, the engi 
 neer pulled the throttle, the steam an 
 swered to this compulsion, and the wheels 
 groaned, and the train ran breasting into 
 the storm. Then appeared from the state 
 room the Lady in Black, securely closing 
 the door behind her ; and she was no 
 longer woebegone, no longer pale, no 
 longer suffering from a cynical discour 
 agement ; she was, indeed, elated, and 
 wore the sweet flush of elation, so that we 
 wondered (I am speaking for myself) at 
 her young motherly beauty. She dis 
 closed to us a wondrous charm not of 
 hair and eyes and tender form but a 
 [51]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 beauty of the spirit, which comes enrav- 
 ishingly to mothers. She protested, in 
 stantly and it was entrancing to listen to 
 this unsophisticated prattle she protested 
 that the slow, deep, grave voice of the 
 boy, and his sturdy body, his manly ways, 
 his courage and self-sufficiency, his very 
 scowl, were most fetching (as she said). 
 Then we grew really friends together : 
 made friends not only by the accident of 
 our situation, which was no solder of 
 friendship, but by our common interest in 
 a child. Very soon, all being eager, we 
 went hilariously to the baggage-car, and 
 from our luggage extracted what seemed 
 to us most pleasing to the boy who lay 
 asleep in our care ; and, as you may guess, 
 the Lady in Black had the best of us in this. 
 
 We complained a little. 
 
 " Never mind," she comforted. " I," 
 said she, " was the mother of a son ; but 
 not one of you has anything but a niece 
 or a daughter." 
 
 " I have a niece," said the Old Gentle 
 man With the Twinkling Eyes, defiantly. 
 [52]
 
 The Borrowed Child 
 
 " I hope," said the little Lady in Black, 
 seriously pitiful, " that you are not feeling 
 hurt?" 
 
 " Not at all, dear lady ! " the old gentle 
 man replied, in great indignation ; " not in 
 the least, I assure you ! " 
 
 We returned to the car from our ravished 
 trunks ; and presently the long little stock 
 ings were filled were packed and jammed 
 and distorted and there was an overflow 
 of gifts disposed advantageously upon both 
 seats of Section Twelve. Of course, the 
 Lady in Black had the best of it ; having 
 been the mother of a lusty boy, she had a 
 steam-engine to contribute (the boy s), and 
 a Spaulding Intermediate ball (the boy s, 
 stained by his very hand), and a mask of 
 the same overcoming trade-mark (also the 
 boy s), and a motor, with sufficient wire for 
 practical purposes and two pretty nearly 
 fresh batteries (all the boy s), and a tele 
 graph instrument (often touched by the 
 boy s own hand, which had been cleverly 
 used, said she, to the Morse code), and a 
 what-not of boyish possessions I cannot 
 [53]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 remember. We produced our puzzles and 
 paints and games (having with wry faces 
 left our dolls and their wardrobes and 
 trinkets in our trunks) ; and we added 
 what we could to the boy-things which the 
 saucy little Lady in Black had freely given 
 of those sacred and religiously treasured 
 possessions of her own very son, whom she 
 had lost by death. 
 
 And then we stood back to gaze ! 
 
 " Dear lady ! " said the Old Gentleman 
 With the Twinkling Eyes. 
 
 The little lady wiped two diamond- 
 sparkling tears from her eyes with the 
 little handkerchief. 
 
 " Dear lady," the old gentleman re 
 peated, " you have made us very happy." 
 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes bent over the little lady s hand again, 
 in the most natural way in the world, and 
 once more kissed the tips of her fingers, in 
 a fashion most courtly. 
 
 [54]
 
 IV 
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 T was yet early for grown 
 ups. The English Church 
 Clergyman protested that 
 to go to bed before mid 
 night of Christmas Eve 
 was error like unright 
 eousness : nor would he absolve a soul at 
 early service in the car next morning (said 
 he) who committed the sin that night. It 
 turned out that we were all fortunately 
 of his mind ; and so down we sat inti 
 mately together in Section Eleven (save 
 the Story Teller, who must occupy the arm 
 of the opposite section) to talk of Christ 
 mas delights and doings and all things. 
 The stateroom door was closed tight, as I 
 have pointed out, and we fancied our gifts 
 secure from discovery ; but in this we were 
 mistaken and you may be sure that the 
 adventure left us with palpitating hearts 
 and much less breath than we could com- 
 [55]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 fortably do with. For a long time before 
 the trying incident, however, we sat talk 
 ing, in the spirit of that feeling Christmas 
 Eve, of the affections and of children, 
 and of the fine love which is apart from 
 selfish seeking, and of bounty, and of re 
 ceiving. " Somehow," said the Big Farmer 
 From Saskatchewan, at last, "the little kid 
 in the stateroom reminds me of old Joe 
 Jacket. It didn t happen on Christmas 
 Eve ; it didn t need to happen then. It 
 was just one of those Christmas things 
 which may happen any time without being 
 ashamed of itself " and he looked inquir 
 ingly at the Lady in Black. 
 
 The little lady graciously inclined her 
 head. 
 
 "Joe Jacket," the Big Farmer began, 
 " took up land in Saskatchewan, north of 
 the railroad at Flatland Station, a good 
 many years ago, when the prairie was raw 
 and didn t have to be coaxed to be good. 
 He got along, too, right from the start. 
 He got along so well that to-day he knows 
 all about high power automobiles and has 
 [56]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 the hobby of keeping abreast of the latest 
 fashions in farm implements. That means 
 a lot, you understand ; it means as much 
 unmortgaged land as any man could care 
 to farm it means barns and fences, a 
 homestead and blue-ribbon stock, cash on 
 deposit, and a credit at the Flatland Bank 
 that the Almighty Himself might envy. 
 It wasn t all his own fault ; his wife had a 
 good deal to do with it, in the way of good 
 wives. A little girl from North Perth, she 
 was, sweet and blooming when she mar 
 ried Joe Jacket, God knows ! but sour as a 
 choke-cherry before she got old enough to 
 quit playing the square piano she had 
 fetched from the East. 
 
 " I got to do something about this, Joe 
 Jacket used to think in those days ; but it 
 was a long, long time, my friends, before 
 he hit on the right idea. 
 ; " They had one child, born late a little 
 girl that got the late-coming baby s wel 
 come. Elizabeth Jacket had coaxed the 
 Lord so hard for that one child that just 
 from force of habit she would sometimes 
 [57]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 pray for a baby in her sleep ; and when it 
 came when it actually came at last she 
 didn t wait to take two looks before she 
 loved it more than she loved the Lord who 
 sent it. Neither did Joe : Joe was always 
 satisfied with whatever pleased Elizabeth, 
 anyhow ; and in ten squally minutes this 
 particular child had got a good deal fur 
 ther along with Elizabeth than just pleas 
 ing. Being a woman, Elizabeth thought, f 
 of course, that it was an answer to prayer ; 
 and Joe Jacket thought so, too, in Joe 
 Jacket s own way Whether it is or not, 
 says he, it s just like an answer to prayer, 
 and that s all I know about it. 
 
 " What do you mean by that? said I. 
 
 " I mean, says he, that it s just like 
 an answer to prayer. 
 
 " What does that mean ? said I. 
 
 " Well, the Lord is as kind as kind can 
 be, says he, but cunning in a temper ; 
 and when you tease Him, says he, He s 
 likely to answer in the way you least ex 
 pect. 
 
 " That wouldn t be an answer, said I. 
 [58]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 " It wouldn t, eh ? says he. Well, ac 
 cording to my notion, it s just exactly the 
 kind of answer you want to look out for 
 when you tease too much. 
 
 " Didn t she get what she asked for? 
 
 " Ye-e-s, says he ; she got a real baby, 
 all right ! 
 
 "It was a real baby ; and it grew up to 
 be a real little girl of seven or thereabout 
 >. sweet and soft, a loving, bright little 
 thing, with glorious black hair and big 
 gray eyes. I never looked into eyes as 
 deep and mild in any other child ; and I 
 tell you, my friends, God gives the glory of 
 hair like Amy s only to one sort of all the 
 children He makes. Elizabeth loved her, 
 and I loved her; everybody knew her, 
 and everybody loved her everybody from 
 Flatland Station to Indian Ferry ; and 
 that s just as far as Joe Jacket s name 
 carried, just as wide a stretch of prairie 
 as Elizabeth Jacket s Christmas gifts to 
 poor children could be taken over with 
 any safety through the snow. Maybe the 
 circumstances were peculiar : I don t know ; 
 [59]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 but anyhow, Elizabeth Jacket s love didn t 
 stop in Amy there was enough of it left 
 to go on, right through, and bless the chil 
 dren of all the prairie roundabout Flatland 
 Station. Elizabeth Jacket took that child 
 as a gift from the Lord s own hands ; and 
 being a grateful and pious and practical 
 woman, she started out to give value re 
 ceived in good deeds and Joe Jacket s 
 money. 
 
 " Look here, Lizzie, says Joe ; you re 
 getting away with a lot of money this 
 Christmas. 
 
 " I m only thanking God, said she. 
 
 " All right, Lizzie, says he. It isn t 
 the money ; there s more where that came 
 from. But my dear, says he, are you 
 sure it s just thankfulness? Aren t you 
 trying to buy God off? 
 
 " I m afraid of God ! said she. 
 
 "I thought so, says he. 
 
 " And you know that Amy, says she, 
 isn t very strong. 
 
 " That s just it, says he ; but you can t 
 square Him, Lizzie He ll go right ahead 
 [60]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 and have His own way no matter what 
 good deeds you may do. The only way 
 to head Him off is to take good care of 
 Amy. 
 
 " Perhaps, says she ; but I ve got the 
 habit, now, and I want that money. 
 
 " She got the money she got all the 
 money she wanted, of course and she 
 took good care of Amy and she kept 
 busy being kind to all the world accord 
 ing to the Lord s own directions ; but it 
 didn t do any good at all. . . . Poor little 
 Amy died just the same. . . ." 
 
 The little Lady in Black started when 
 the Big Farmer From Saskatchewan came 
 to this sad and unexpected climax. 
 
 " Died ? " she whispered. 
 
 " Just the same," the farmer replied. 
 
 We wondered what happened then to 
 Elizabeth Jacket ; and I drew closer, to 
 hear the better, for the train was running 
 more freely, now, and there was a larger 
 clatter and rumble. 
 
 "After that, as always happens," the 
 [61]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 farmer continued, " Elizabeth Jacket didn t 
 quite resemble herself. She didn t look 
 enough like her old self to be mistaken for 
 a jilted elder sister ; she didn t even keep 
 a hint of the sweet family resemblance that 
 all the daughters of love seem somehow to 
 have. You take the mother of a thirteenth 
 papoose and I m talking of real mothers, 
 mind you, not of the sulky sort you take 
 the mother of a thirteenth little Indian, and 
 when it comes right down to the things 
 that count, she s twin sister to the silk- 
 skirted mama of a baby with rose-leaf lips. 
 But Elizabeth poor Elizabeth Jacket 
 when the good Lord kindly supplied Amy 
 with the angel s outfit of feathers and gold 
 poor Elizabeth Jacket lost all the sweet 
 ness of look and life that had made her lit 
 tle footprints loved by all them that were 
 needy and in pain on the prairie near Flat- 
 land Station. Joe Jacket s pocketbook 
 was just as fat the day after Christmas as 
 the day before which is a thing to make 
 any pocketbook ashamed to look its own 
 master in the eye ! And there wasn t any 
 [62]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 help for it : Elizabeth Jacket wouldn t have 
 a neighbour s child about the place ; she 
 couldn t pass the section schoolhouse at 
 recess, she couldn t watch the boys go gal 
 loping by, she couldn t hear talk of measles 
 and chicken-pox, she couldn t even bear to 
 see the little garments of a child swinging 
 in the wind to dry. She couldn t stand chil 
 dren any more ! And most of all just be 
 cause Amy had had a sweet little pipe of 
 her own she couldn t stand it to hear the 
 children singing Jesus Loves Me in the 
 Sunday-school ; and that s why, I suppose, 
 the Jackets quit going to church. 
 
 " Joe, said I, what s the use ? " God 
 moves in a mysterious way." 
 
 " Yes, says he ; that s right, I guess ! 
 
 " Well, then/ said I, what s the use of 
 asking why? You can t find out, and it 
 wouldn t be much comfort if you could. 
 
 " Don t want to find out, says he ; that 
 isn t what troubles me. 
 
 " What does ? said I. 
 
 " Elizabeth, says he ; she s all broken 
 down. 
 
 [63]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 " Of course, said I ; but what are you 
 going to do about it ? 
 
 " I think/ says he, that if I m devilish 
 clever I can do something! 
 
 " That s all right, said I; but what 
 can you do ? 
 
 " Well, says he, I look at it this way : 
 Here s God and us. God wants His way 
 and we want ours. That s natural : He s 
 the father and we re the children. Maybe 
 His way s the best ; but I don t see it I 
 just carit see it. So what I want to know 
 just now isn t what God intends for our 
 good, nor why He intends it ; it s some 
 thing else. 
 
 " What is it? said I. 
 
 " I just want to know, says he, how I 
 can get around Him in this particular 
 case. 
 
 " I wouldn t try, said I. 
 
 " That s because you re a perverted 
 Christian, says Joe ; just because you re 
 one of God s sweet toadies, and don t know 
 any better. 
 
 " Isn t this thing an act of Providence ? 
 [64]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 " Yes, says he ; and if it isn t, it s just 
 like one. 
 
 " Haven t you heard of such a thing as 
 pious resignation ? 
 
 " I ve heard, says he, but haven t at 
 tended. 
 
 " You won t give in ? 
 
 " Not at once, says he. I ll do what 
 I can to have what I want. 
 
 " Well, says I, it looks to me as if 
 you d begun to monkey with the buzz-saw. 
 
 " Oh, I don t know, says he, with a 
 queer little laugh and twinkle, just the sort 
 of look Joe Jacket had when he didn t want 
 you to know whether he was in earnest or 
 not Oh, I don t know, says he ; but I 
 guess a little show of spirit won t cost me 
 any of the Lord s respect. 
 
 The Big Farmer laughed. 
 
 " Good for Joe Jacket ! " exclaimed the 
 Old Gentleman With the Twinkling Eyes. 
 
 "You must not think," said the Big 
 
 Farmer to the Lady in Black, " that Joe 
 
 Jacket was a blasphemous fellow. Not at 
 
 alll" he protested; " nothing of the sort ! 
 
 [65]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 Joe Jacket was just Joe Jacket. It was 
 just like him to say that he would try to 
 outwit the Lord ; but once the Lord pointed 
 out the error, Joe Jacket would be con 
 vinced. And whether he outwitted God or 
 God outwitted him you may tell when my 
 story is done." 
 
 The English Church Clergyman was 
 willing to wager that Joe Jacket did not 
 accomplish the feat. 
 
 " About two years after Amy s death," 
 the farmer continued, " Joe Jacket got the 
 idea that he was after. It was unselfish 
 enough in the beginning: all he wanted 
 to do was to restore Elizabeth s comfort ; 
 but by and by, when he had brooded be 
 yond what he was used to, it turned into 
 a more selfish wish than Joe Jacket was in 
 the habit of putting up over night. He d 
 adopt a child (thinks he) ; but not a girl 
 no girl for him ! What he wanted was a 
 boy : a wire-haired lad with black eyes a 
 lad that would laugh and howl and get 
 in mischief and generally raise the devil 
 [66]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 about the place a lad of spirit a lad 
 that would stand off and look Joe Jacket 
 in the eye when it came time for a licking 
 just the sort of lad that Joe Jacket fan 
 cied he used to be himself. And it was 
 the picture of a harum-scarum bullet- 
 headed little devil with black eyes that he 
 had in mind when he broached the subject 
 to Elizabeth one night at the supper table. 
 
 " Elizabeth/ says he, I don t think we 
 can do better than adopt. 
 
 " It depends/ said she. 
 
 " Of course/ says he, we wouldn t be 
 in a hurry ; and we ve got the money to 
 get about anything we want. 
 
 " I wouldn t object/ said she, if we 
 could find a suitable child/ 
 
 " What sort do you fancy ? says he. 
 
 " That s the trouble/ said she. I don t 
 know. Sometimes I think that one like 
 Amy would suit ; and then I don t see how 
 I could stand it how I could bear to be 
 reminded of Amy every minute of the day. 
 But I m sure/ said she, that I don t want 
 any one so so very different. I d be so 
 [67]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 jealous, Joe. I d be so jealous that I don t 
 know what would happen. So I don t 
 know, you see, just what would be suitable. 
 
 " Go ahead, says he, and give me an 
 idea. 
 
 " It s so hard, said she. I can only 
 tell about the little things the little things 
 that don t matter, after all. . . . Brown 
 eyes, I should think. 
 
 " All right, says Joe ; brown eyes for 
 one thing. 
 
 " It wouldn t really matter, you know/ 
 said she. I should not insist. But it 
 would be rather nice, I think. 
 
 " Brown eyes it is, says Joe. What 
 next ? 
 
 " So far as such little things go, said 
 she, there s nothing else to care about but 
 hair. Curls, I suppose. 
 
 " Curls ! Joe Jacket roared. What do 
 you want curls for ? 
 
 " Why, Joe ! said she ; surely you re 
 not thinking of a boy, are you ? 
 
 " Eh ? says he ; what put that in your 
 head ? 
 
 [68]
 
 At Odds With God 
 
 " You know perfectly well, said she, 
 1 that it s only boys that don t need curls. 
 
 " Well, says Joe, I guess we don t 
 want any fool boy around this place 1 
 
 " And Elizabeth thought so, too. 
 
 " Elizabeth said she wouldn t go to 
 Winnipeg to look for the suitable child. 
 Joe joked her, and argued that it was a 
 woman s business to match samples ; and 
 anyhow (says he) the man of the house al 
 ways made a mess of it when he went to 
 market for the women. But Elizabeth 
 wouldn t budge ; she d stay home (says 
 she), and maybe, if she didn t have any 
 thing to do with the choosing, but sud 
 denly found a little orphaned child in the 
 house, with no other woman to look to but 
 her, she d be far more likely to take to it. 
 
 " If a child came now, said she ; if 
 some forsaken little child came out of the 
 dark and asked me to love her, I think I 
 could to-night. 
 
 " Of course, you could ! says Joe. 
 
 " A ragged child, said she ; a sick 
 [69]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 little girl a child without a mother. Yes, 
 said she, I m almost sure I could. 
 
 " You d have a hard time, says Joe, to 
 keep from loving her. 
 
 " I don t know, said Elizabeth. 
 
 " You just couldn t help it, said Joe. 
 
 " I don t know, said she. 
 
 " You ll be hard to suit, maybe, Eliza 
 beth, says Joe ; but I ll try to fit you out. 
 
 " You must find one, said she. I tell 
 you, Joe you just must ! 
 
 " Joe Jacket looked in Elizabeth s eyes, 
 and knew, then, that he must that he 
 just must and p. d. q., too / . . . I beg 
 your pardon!" the Big Farmer immedi 
 ately burst out, looking at the Lady in 
 Black. " Really, I " 
 
 Then came the adventure. 
 
 [70]
 
 In Need 
 
 T was not a head-on col 
 lision. The train did no( 
 even jump the track. But 
 we five travellers could 
 hardly have been startled 
 more. With the Boy 
 From the Day Coach put to bed, we had 
 thought our Christmas gifts secure from 
 discovery ; but in this we were mistaken. 
 It was not a lurch of the train that opened 
 the stateroom door; it was a hand the 
 child s hand! And before we had quite 
 perceived our peril and before the im 
 pulse to save ourselves could result in 
 action the door was wide and the boy 
 was about to issue. The quick-witted and 
 marvellously agile Old Gentleman With 
 the Twinkling Eyes saved us ; at a bound 
 and with a roar he reached the thresh 
 old ; and so did he seem to lengthen out 
 and broaden, and so cleverly did he ar-
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 range his elbows and employ the tails of 
 his coat, that he completely filled the 
 doorway, thank God 1 and the boy could 
 not so much as peep beyond. 
 
 We followed precipitately, the little lady 
 first, a screech having relieved her paraly 
 sis ; and presently, peering over the old 
 gentleman s shoulders, we faced the Boy 
 From the Day Coach, now in his night 
 dress, who stood swaying by the tousled 
 bed. 
 
 " What s the matter with you f " the old 
 gentleman demanded. 
 
 The little boy scowled ; his lips pouted, 
 his nostrils flared, his eyes glared from be 
 hind his fallen eyebrows, and, in all, his 
 face was like a thunder-cloud. The little 
 Lady in Black, much perturbed, slipped 
 under the old gentleman s elbow, like a 
 swift shadow, and so kneeled, the mean 
 time putting her arms about the child, that 
 she could look directly into his eyes. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" she asked, most 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Don t none o you want one ? " 
 
 [72]
 
 In Ne e d 
 
 The eyes of the old gentleman met 
 mine ; but neither the Big Farmer nor the 
 English Church Clergyman nor the Lady 
 in Black understood, and they were all be 
 wildered, and they were all silent. 
 
 " Not no one ? " the boy wailed. 
 
 " Aren t you well ? " asked the Lady in 
 Black. " You re you re not sick are 
 you?" 
 
 " Naw ! " the boy replied. 
 
 "We don t understand, dear," said the 
 Lady in Black, tenderly. " Speak plainly, 
 won t you ? tell us what the matter is. 
 What is it that you think we do not want ? " 
 
 The boy snuffled. 
 
 " Tell me, dear," the Lady in Black be 
 sought, as though it were some secret, fit 
 only for women s ears. "Won t you?" 
 she invited, drawing the little boy close, so 
 that he might whisper in her ear. 
 
 " Don t none o you want one?" he 
 repeated. 
 
 " Want what, dear ? " 
 
 " A norphan ? " 
 
 It is not my wish ever again to be on- 
 [73]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 looker when a woman suffers an agony 
 peculiar to women. She groaned ; it was 
 the expression, almost, of a physical pain ; 
 had she been wounded to death, I fancy, 
 she could not have suffered more. She 
 was heart-broken and lonely, of course, 
 and complaining of her desolation, having 
 lost her son ; and it has seemed to me 
 since that she must at that moment have 
 had a vision of the pain and need of a 
 child that had no mother she must have 
 learned the lesson that her loneliness was 
 not equal to a loneliness like that despair. 
 Perhaps shame was mixed with sympathy ; 
 perhaps in a flash of loving wisdom she 
 discovered the cure of woe like his and 
 hers ; perhaps the seed of a resolution, 
 cast here by the all-wise hand of God, 
 found fruitful soil. She hugged the child ; 
 she hugged him so swiftly, so hard, so 
 long, that it hurt him so hard that the 
 breath was crushed out of him and his 
 little ribs complained so hard that in 
 pain and amazement and in ecstatic hope 
 (as I translate his astounding expression) 
 [74]
 
 In Need 
 
 he caught her by the shoulders and in a 
 man s rough way tried to push her back, 
 so that he could look into her eyes, and 
 ask her what she meant. 
 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes closed the door upon this ; and we 
 sat down again, in Section Eleven, and 
 on the arm of Section Twelve, to wait ; and 
 we were ashamed to look one another in 
 the eye, too deeply embarrassed to say 
 even one conventional word, because each 
 had caught the other in a tearful emotion. 
 The Old Gentleman With the Twinkling 
 Eyes whistled his sentimental ballad, 
 Neath the Shade of the Old Apple Tree, 
 quite out of tune, to prove that he didn t 
 care ; but the English Church Clergyman 
 and the Big Farmer From Saskatchewan 
 and I, less devil-may-care than he, looked 
 at the floor, and twirled our thumbs, and 
 snuffled and coughed, in an effort to con 
 trol the unmanly display, but dared not 
 face each other. 
 
 When the Little Lady in Black appeared, 
 she left the door wide open. 
 [75]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 " He s sound asleep," said she, smiling. 
 
 We saw, peering inquisitively, that he 
 was sound asleep; we saw that the un 
 fortunate orphan s head appeared to be in 
 imminent danger of wringing his neck, 
 that his mouth was wide open, that he was 
 in a dangerous sweat (so concerned were 
 we for his health), and that he was in peril 
 of strangling himself with his own bare 
 arms. 
 
 " I should like to hear the rest of the 
 story/ said the Lady in Black, when we 
 were seated again. 
 
 I watched her countenance for some ink 
 ling of what had passed between her and 
 the child ; but she betrayed never a sign 
 unless, indeed, her very reserve might be 
 taken for a sign ! And I was disap 
 pointed. . . . 
 
 [76]
 
 VI 
 
 Outwitted 
 
 OU can find almost any 
 thing you want in the in 
 stitutions at Winnipeg," 
 the farmer resumed. "It s 
 a great market for or 
 phans a sort of distribut 
 ing point for the West. Domestic or im 
 ported you can get anything you can 
 match what you want in colour, age, sex, 
 disposition, defects and religious faith. If 
 you want a red-headed Presbyterian boy 
 of seven with green eyes, they ll supply 
 you within six months of the required age ; 
 and if you want a Baptist brunette with a 
 lisp, all you got to do is say so. Joe 
 Jacket found what he wanted right away : 
 a brown-eyed little girl with curls and red 
 cheeks roguish brown eyes and golden 
 curls the very thing he was looking for 
 right out of the Christmas Number of the 
 Illustrated London News. He loved her 
 [77]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 from the first ; the minute he saw her in 
 the line, he suspected that God had relented 
 a little, and maybe had quite changed His 
 mind. 
 
 " There, says he to the superintendent ; 
 that s the one I want. 
 
 " Oh, I m so sorry ! says she. Wouldn t 
 another one do ? 
 
 " No, says Joe ; it s that one or none. 
 
 " She s spoken for, says the superin 
 tendent. 
 
 " Well, says Joe, you got to get 
 around it somehow. I ve just got to have 
 that little tyke ! 
 
 " It wasn t so hard to manage, after all, 
 once the superintendent found out that she 
 couldn t pass off something just as good 
 on Joe Jacket. The fact is, they wanted 
 to keep Nellie at the orphanage for them 
 selves. She was so sweet to the eye, you 
 see, and so grateful to the heart so lov 
 able and loving that they couldn t bear 
 to let her go. She was the one perfect bud 
 in that scrawny little garden, and they 
 loved her for her truth and affection and 
 [78]
 
 Outwitted 
 
 childish loveliness. Somebody else wanted 
 her ; that was true enough some perfectly 
 proper old maid of Edmonton, with money 
 enough to make good the child s future. 
 But the arrangement was pending, and the 
 superintendent thought it could be squared 
 for Joe, who had enough human kindness 
 in his heart, enough money in his pocket, 
 to make him a desirable father. 
 
 " Well? says Joe. Come, now! 
 How about it ? 
 
 " Take her, says the superintendent ; 
 4 and God bless her ! 
 
 " God and me and the mother of Amy 1 
 says Joe. Wdll take care of Nellie. 
 
 " She was never afraid of Joe Jacket. 
 Maybe she had wondered, in her little way, 
 about the father that would come to take 
 her away ; and if she had, she was content 
 with the big man who carried her off on 
 the train. She seemed to love him all at 
 once to accept him without doubt or any 
 curiosity. She called him father from the 
 start just as she had expected to do, I 
 suppose and treated him just as trustingly 
 [79]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 and dependently and lovingly as if she had 
 never known the lack of him. It was 
 Father, I m thirsty ! and Father, I m 
 tired ! and Father, I love you ! and she 
 kissed him without fear, and went to sleep, 
 by and by, with her head on his shoulder 
 and her arms round his neck, just like a 
 child of his own. 
 
 " When the train stopped, once, she woke 
 up ; and she didn t know where she was, 
 for a moment, and she was frightened. 
 
 " You re all right, says Joe. 
 
 " Oh, goody ! says she. I remem 
 ber ; and I m so glad it s you father. 
 
 " And she snuggled down and went right 
 straight to sleep again in Joe Jacket s arms. 
 
 " When Joe Jacket got off the train at 
 Flatland Station he was ready to pat him 
 self on the back for fetching out of Winni 
 peg the most suitable child in the world. 
 He hadn t a doubt that Nellie would win 
 Elizabeth s love just the way she had cap 
 tured his. There she was affectionate 
 and mannerly and most beautiful 1 What 
 [80]
 
 Outwitted 
 
 more could any woman ask in the way of 
 a ready-made child ? Elizabeth would 
 have to be won, of course ; he expected 
 that. Maybe she wouldn t give in at once 
 (thinks he) ; but she couldn t help it in the 
 end. She wouldn t need much more 
 (thinks he) than a moist kiss, and the feel 
 of Nellie s head and arms, and a sleepy 
 whisper of Mother, I love you ! It made 
 Joe Jacket laugh way down deep, some 
 where, where a man s chuckles are some 
 thing like sobs it made the old fool cry 
 just to think of little Nellie in the house, 
 loved and loving. I tell you, my friends, 
 Joe Jacket was proud and happy when he 
 carried that drowsy burden into his own 
 home that night. 
 
 " Elizabeth, says he, I got a good one. 
 
 " Is she asleep, Joe ? 
 
 " Yes, says Joe ; she s been sound asleep 
 in my arms all the way from Flatland Station. 
 
 " Poor motherless little thing I says 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 " Not now, thank God ! says Joe. 
 
 " Poor little child in the house of 
 [81]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 strangers ! says Elizabeth. Have you 
 taken to her, Joe ? 
 
 " Taken to her ? says Joe. Why t 
 Elizabeth, I love her. 
 
 " Elizabeth looked at him, then, in a queer 
 sort of way. Do you ? says she, quietly. 
 
 " She s a beautiful child, says Joe. You ll 
 love her, too. You won t be able to help it. 
 
 " Beautiful ! says she, turning away 
 from Joe, cut to the quick because he had 
 called her beautiful. Of course, she s 
 beautiful. They re all beautiful 1 
 
 " Here, says Joe ; take her and put 
 her to bed. 
 
 " Elizabeth took her. She has wonder 
 ful hair, says she. 
 
 " She s got a good deal more than that, 
 says Joe. Just you wait till you see her 
 in the morning. 
 
 " Nellie stirred a little, then, but didn t 
 quite wake up ; and she kissed Elizabeth 
 in her sleep, and put one arm around her 
 neck, and snuggled her head in the place 
 where the heads of children lie most softly. 
 It seemed to frighten Elizabeth. She 
 [82]
 
 "I DON T KNOW," SATS SHK.
 
 Outwitted 
 
 trembled a little and held her head away 
 from the child s curls. 
 
 " Isn t it good, says Joe, to feel a little 
 child lying there again ? 
 
 " Elizabeth didn t answer. 
 
 " Eh ? says Joe. Don t it feel fine, 
 Elizabeth ? 
 
 " I don t know, says she. I don t 
 know. 
 
 " Joe kissed Nellie good-night, just the 
 way he used to kiss Amy, and Elizabeth 
 carried her up-stairs, just the way she used 
 to carry Amy, when Amy would fall asleep 
 by the fire. Joe was anxious by this time ; 
 he wasn t quite sure that he had done as 
 well in Winnipeg as he had given himself 
 credit for. But he couldn t tell why. If 
 Nellie didn t suit, what child would ? Any 
 how, he waited until Elizabeth had put 
 Nellie to bed he could tell by the sounds, 
 just the way he used to know when Amy 
 was stowed away and then he wondered 
 why Elizabeth didn t come down the way she 
 used to do when Amy was alive. But Eliza 
 beth didn t come ; she stayed up-stairs for 
 [83]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 a long, long time, and Joe could hear her 
 in Amy s old room, where Nellie was 
 asleep could hear her pacing the floor, 
 walking, walking, back and forth, like a 
 woman in trouble. He didn t go up to her ; 
 he waited until she came, and when she 
 did come, at last, she was so white and hard 
 and bitter that Joe was frightened. 
 
 " What is it, Elizabeth ? says he. 
 
 " Never mind, says she, in a passion. 
 
 " But Elizabeth, says he, I must know. 
 You re in a dreadful way. Tell me what s 
 the matter. 
 
 " Matter? says she. I m jealous. 
 That s what s the matter. 
 
 " That s strange, says he. 
 
 " No, it isn t, says she. It isn t strange 
 at all. It s the most natural thing in the 
 world : I ve just put that child to bed. 
 
 " I don t see any cause of trouble in 
 that, says he. 
 
 " Can t you understand? says she. 
 I ve just put that child to bed. I ve un 
 dressed her, I tell you, and put her to bed. 
 
 " My dear, says he, I can t understand. 
 
 [84]
 
 Outwitted 
 
 " She s beautiful, says Elizabeth ; she s 
 strong and rosy and fat she hasn t a 
 blemish. She has a perfect body soft 
 and strong and beautiful. If she d been 
 awake, Joe, she could have gone to bed 
 ivithout my help. She wouldn t have 
 needed me. I didn t know that God made 
 children like that. I had forgotten. And 
 I m sorry that I know again. I m jealous. 
 I thought I d be. I told you so. I m jeal 
 ous, I tell you I m jealous and hateful. 
 
 " What are you jealous for ? says he. 
 You ought to be proud. The child is 
 yours, now, isn t she ? 
 
 " Elizabeth laughed. The child isn t 
 mine, says she. You are very stupid, Joe. 
 Amy was my child. That s why I m jealous. 
 
 " I understand, says Joe, and I m sorry. 
 
 " What s to be done ? says she. 
 
 " Couldn t you try to like her ? 
 
 " No, says she; it wouldn t be any 
 use. I hate her too much. 
 
 " For shame, dear ! says Joe. 
 
 "I tell you, Joe, says she, I hate her. 
 I m ashamed of myself. I d like to call it 
 [85]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 dislike but I can t. I hate her. I hate 
 her for Amy s sake. You ll have to take 
 her back, Joe. You can catch the morning 
 express for the East, can t you ? There s 
 no other way out of it, Joe. You ll have 
 to take her back. 
 
 " Yes, says Joe ; she must go back. 
 
 " I m sorry, says Elizabeth. Oh, I m 
 sorry ! 
 
 " Never mind, says he ; she s not a 
 suitable child for you and me, and neither 
 you nor I can help it. 
 
 " Elizabeth cried all that night in shame 
 and sorrow. Next morning Joe started 
 back to Winnipeg with Nellie. . . . And 
 I guess Nellie didn t lose much, after all ; the 
 old maid of Edmonton has done well by 
 her. . . . 
 
 "Then," the farmer continued, "Joe 
 Jacket wondered what he d do next. He 
 wasn t yet willing to quit trying to get 
 around the will of God. There must be 
 something (thinks he) to make Elizabeth 
 happy again ; and that something must be 
 [86]
 
 Outwitted 
 
 a child. There wasn t anything else in the 
 world that Elizabeth wanted. But what 
 child ? where was the suitable child ? It 
 struck Joe that the Rev. Charles Ellis 
 Rangton might know ; and when Joe got 
 that idea he was sure that he was right. 
 The Rev. Charles Ellis Rangton had been 
 the home missionary in those parts when 
 Amy was born; he knew the family, he 
 knew the situation, he knew Elizabeth 
 better than she knew herself, and he was 
 the kindest and cleverest man Joe Jacket 
 had ever known. He was now in Toronto 
 had a big Episcopal church there and 
 was doing a whole lot of what they call 
 institutional work. So with Elizabeth s 
 permission Joe sat down and wrote wrote 
 everything all about Nellie, too, and why 
 Elizabeth wouldn t have her and begged 
 the Rev. Charles Ellis Rangton to use his 
 own judgment and send them as soon as 
 possible some kind of a child that he 
 thought would do. 
 
 " It was two weeks and three days be 
 fore he got an answer ; but it was a tele- 
 [87]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 gram, and just the sort of answer that 
 pleased Joe Jacket : 
 
 " Have sent child named Amy. Arrive 
 Flatland west-bound express Friday. Meet 
 her. 
 
 " There, Elizabeth ! says Joe. That s 
 businesslike ; and I guess that fixes it. 
 
 " Named Amy, says Elizabeth. They 
 must have given her a new name. 
 
 " Anyhow, says Joe, it s a sort of 
 homelike thing to be expecting Amy. 
 
 " Yes, says Elizabeth ; that s true. 
 
 " You better get things ready, says Joe. 
 
 " I don t need to, says she. I always 
 keep things ready in Amy s room. 
 
 " Which Amy? says Joe, with a laugh. 
 
 " Why, Joe, says Elizabeth, it is nice 
 to be looking for Amy. That was clever 
 of Dr. Rangton. 
 
 " Friday noon, when Joe set out for Flat- 
 land Station, Elizabeth was in a dreadful 
 state again. It was no use (says she) ; 
 here she was as hateful and nervous as 
 ever she couldn t, she just couldn t, take 
 [88]
 
 "AND WHEN JOE JACKET SAW HER HE THANKED GOD."
 
 Outwitted 
 
 this strange child to her heart. Joe left 
 her crying in bed (she wouldn t get up) ; 
 and if he hadn t had to get out to Flatland 
 Station to meet the orphan, he wouldn t 
 have dared leave her at all. It was a 
 wretched time, my friends, for poor Joe 
 Jacket, while he waited for the train ; and 
 when the train came, and went on again, 
 with no child turning up on the platform, 
 he was more relieved than disturbed. But 
 there was a child, after all ; she was sitting 
 on her own poor little bag in the lee of 
 the station-master s bay-window a queer, 
 patient little girl, with a canary-like way 
 of moving her head, and bird-like black 
 eyes and when Joe Jacket saw her he 
 thanked God, and was all at once so filled 
 with joy and tenderness that he didn t 
 have time to keep back the first tears. 
 
 " Hello ! says he. What s your 
 name ? 
 
 " It was said in such a jolly and friendly 
 way, I suppose, that the little girl smiled. 
 
 " I have two, says she. 
 
 " That s the queerest thing I ever 
 [89]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 heard, says he. Which one do you like 
 best? 
 
 " I m fond of the old one, says she, 
 for I ve been acquainted with it all my 
 life ; but I hope that I shall like the new 
 one better. 
 
 " What is it ? says he. 
 
 " Would you like to know the old, 
 says she, or the new ? 
 
 " The new, says he. 
 
 " Amy, says she. 
 
 " It s the sweetest name I ever heard, 
 says he. I love it. But tell me, says he ; 
 what in the world are you doing here ? 
 
 " It s the place I started for, says she. 
 The name of the gentleman who is to 
 meet me is on my tag. 
 
 " " Mister Joseph Jacket," says Joe. 
 How would you like me to be Mister 
 Joseph Jacket ? 
 
 " I should like it very much I think. 
 
 " Well, my dear, says Joe and he 
 
 took the little thing very carefully up in 
 
 his arms, and hugged her with the greatest 
 
 care, and kissed her in a way that no child 
 
 [90]
 
 Outwitted 
 
 could misunderstand Well, my dear/ 
 says he, I am Joe Jacket. 
 
 " I rather thought you were, says she. 
 
 " Then he drove her home ; and he was 
 sure but yet wondered that the suitable 
 child had been found. And he wondered, 
 too, whether, after all, he had outwitted 
 God, or God had outwitted him. It 
 seemed to him very much like the will of 
 God that he should be driving home with 
 that very little girl in his arms. 
 
 " Elizabeth ! Joe called from the hall. 
 I ve brought Amy home. 
 
 " There wasn t any answer. 
 
 " Elizabeth ! he called again. Where 
 are you ? 
 
 " She wouldn t answer ; but he found her 
 in the sitting-room, close by the fire, which 
 had gone to little flames and red coals. 
 It was dusk, then ; and there was no lamp 
 only a warm glow of light. Elizabeth 
 wouldn t look up ; she kept staring at the 
 fire, from the rocking-chair, with her chin 
 in her hands. Joe had time to unwrap the 
 [91]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 blanket from the child and take her close 
 to Elizabeth before he spoke again. 
 
 " She s a cripple] he whispered, just 
 like little Amy / 
 
 "Then Elizabeth turned and caught the 
 hunchback child to her breast and kissed 
 her, and rocked her, and kissed her again 
 and sobbed: I love you! I love you! Oh, 
 thank God thank God you ve come ! 
 
 It was the end of the story. 
 
 " It s the sweetest story I ever heard ! " 
 sobbed the dear little Lady in Black. " It is 
 a lesson," said she ; " it is a Christmas lesson." 
 
 " And I," said the Big Farmer, with a 
 queer little smile, " am Joe Jacket, and 
 know that I have told the truth ; and / 
 love my crippled girl ! " 
 
 " Surely," mused the Lady in Black, 
 with her grave eyes looking into the state 
 room where the boy lay sleeping, " God 
 has spoken to me this night." 
 
 We were not disappointed, then. The 
 Old Gentleman With the Twinkling Eyes* 
 fairly smacked his lips with satisfaction. 
 [92]
 
 VII 
 
 The New Mother 
 
 AME the morning ; came 
 Christmas morning came 
 the very morning of Christ 
 mas, with the train labour 
 ing forward towards Win 
 nipeg, and the wind fallen, 
 and the snow gone from the air, and 
 the dawn rosy and promising. Came 
 the Old Gentleman With the Twin 
 kling Eyes from his berth, with bleared 
 eyes, which declared his sad habit of 
 dissipation in the late hours ; came 
 the meek Clergyman, befuddled by the 
 wakefulness of the night ; came the Big 
 Farmer, fresh as a wheat stalk with the 
 dew of morning on it ; came the Story 
 Teller, anxiously inquisitive, but blinking ; 
 came the little Lady in Black, with bright 
 eyes, and with smiles, and with a joyously 
 garrulous and excitedly inconsequent chat 
 ter, and in the most charming disarray 
 [93]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 (which discomposed her not at all) ; and 
 CAME THE CHILD ! 
 
 I may say no more I need say no 
 more I will not say another word. It 
 is not necessary ; it would be wasteful 
 of words, it would fall lamentably short 
 of the truth of delight, it would be hope 
 less, insufficient, infinitely disappointing: 
 for who can describe a child s joy and 
 pale gasping surprise of a Christmas 
 morning ? Not I ; not the poor Story 
 Teller, who chanced, by God s favour, to 
 participate in this unmeasured opportunity. 
 Let it pass, and be imagined ; let it pass, 
 because such as can imagine can imagine, 
 but those who cannot, cannot be informed ; 
 and why attempt to convince? Whoso 
 deprives a child of this fearful Christmas 
 emotion but there I go again : the con 
 demnation must not be passed by a bach 
 elor ! Let me say that our child was 
 pleased (a mild exposition of his state) ; 
 and I will say no more. 
 
 Afterwards this was after breakfast in 
 [94]
 
 The New Mother 
 
 the dining-car, and long after the English 
 Church Clergyman had said his prayers 
 and absolved and blessed us all after 
 wards, the little Lady in Black closeted 
 herself with the little Boy From the 
 Day Coach. She was resolute, then 
 she was at once triumphant and defiant 
 and positively insulting. She looked us 
 in the eye in a way that put us in our 
 places. What business was it of ours ? she 
 seemed to say. None at all, of course ; but 
 had she known our fervent wishes had 
 she been aware of the old gentleman s 
 subtle managing had she been informed of 
 my poor wish she would have done noth 
 ing of the sort ; she would have sought for 
 sympathetic help, she would not have ex 
 pected the mean, conventional blame of the 
 world, which we chanced to appear to rep 
 resent before her (but did not really). 
 
 Afterwards, I say, the boy and the lady 
 went into the stateroom ; and the little 
 Lady in Black tightly closed the door. 
 
 " Listen ! " said she, when they reap 
 peared. 
 
 [95]
 
 The Suitable Child 
 
 The little boy, who held the little hand 
 of the little Lady in Black, advanced before 
 her ; and he spread his fat legs, and estab 
 lished himself firmly, notwithstanding the 
 stagger of the train, and he scowled, and 
 he seemed (I recall) perfectly willing to 
 fight, and to down us heartily, as he 
 squared his shoulders, and defiantly faced 
 us. 
 
 And he said : 
 
 This here wom-an s my m oth 
 er!" 
 
 We congratulated the happy pair. 
 
 " I am very happy," said the little Lady 
 in Black, with the sweetest Christmas smile 
 in all the world. 
 
 The boy grinned without the aid of the 
 forceps of the Old Gentleman With the 
 Twinkling Eyes. 
 
 [96]
 
 000115501 g