Everybody's Lonesome — Chapters 03 and 04

FINDING THE FIRST FAIRY

The next few days were spent in sightseeing; and Mary Alice would never have believed there could be any one so enchanting to see sights with as Godmother.

They looked in all the wonderful shop-windows and "chose" what they would take from each if a fairy suddenly invited them to take their choice.

No fairy did; but they hardly noticed that.

Then they'd go and "poke" in remnant boxes on the ends of counters in the big department stores, and unearth bits of trimming and of lace with which Godmother, who was clever with her needle and "full of ideas," showed Mary Alice how to put quite transforming touches on her clothes.

They visited art galleries, and Godmother knew things about the pictures that made them all fascinating.

Instead of saying, "Interesting composition, that!"

or "This man was celebrated for his chiaroscuro," Godmother was full of human stories of the struggles of the painters and their faithfulness to ideals; and she could stand in front of a canvas by almost any master, and talk to Mary Alice about the painter and the conditions of his life and love and longing when he painted this picture, in a way that made Mary Alice feel as if she'd like to _shake_ the people who walked by with only an uninterested glance; as if she'd like to bring them back and prod them into life, and cry, "Don't you see?

How _can_ you pass so carelessly what cost so much in toil and tears?"

Godmother had that kind of a viewpoint about everything, it seemed.

When they went to the theatre, she could tell Mary Alice--before the curtain went up, and between the acts--such things about the actors and the playwright and the manager, as made the play trebly interesting.

On the East Side they visited some of the Settlements and "prowled" (as Godmother loved to call it) around the teeming slums; and Godmother knew such touching stories of the Old World conditions from which these myriads of foreign folk had escaped, and of the pathos of their trust in the New World, as kept Mary Alice's eyes bright and wet almost every minute.

One beautiful sunny afternoon they rode up on top of a Fifth Avenue motor 'bus to 90th Street, and Godmother pointed out the houses of many multi-millionaires.

She knew things about many of them, too--sweet, human, heart-touching things about their disappointments and unsatisfied yearnings--which made one feel rather sorry for them than envious of their splendours.

Thus the days passed, and Mary Alice was so happy that--learning from Godmother some of her pretty ways--she would go closer to that dear lady, every once in a while, and say: "Pinch me, please--and see if I'm awake; if it's really true."

And Godmother always pinched her, gravely, and appeared to be much relieved when Mary Alice cried "Ouch!

I _am_!"

They didn't see anybody, except "from a distance" as they said, for fully a week; they were so busy seeing sights and getting acquainted.

Every night when Godmother came to tuck Mary Alice in, they had the dearest talks of all.

And every night Mary Alice begged to be told the Secret.

But, "Oh, dear no!

not yet!"

Godmother would always say.

One night, however, she said: "Well, if I'm not almost forgetting to tell you!"

Mary Alice jumped; that sounded like the Secret.

But it wasn't--although it was "leading up to it."

"Tell me what?"

she cried, excitedly.

"Why, to-day I saw one of your fairies."

"My what?"

"Your fairies that you said were left out of your christening party."

"You did!

Where?"

"I'll tell you that presently.

But it seems, from what this fairy said, that there are a great number of your fairies with gifts for you, all waiting quite impatiently to be found.

She says that it is considered quite 'ordinary' now, to send all of a great gift by one fairy--yes, and not at all safe.

For if that one fairy should miss you and you should not find her, you'd be left terribly unprovided for, you see.

So the gift is usually divided into many parts, and a different fairy has each part.

Now, the gift of beauty, for instance; she is one of the fairies who has that gift for you."

Mary Alice's eyes opened wide.

Her belief in this wonderful Godmother was such that she was almost prepared to see Godmother wave a wand and command her to become beautiful--and then, on looking into a mirror, to find that she was so.

"What did she say?"

she managed at last to gasp.

"She said: 'Has she pretty hair?'

And I answered, 'Yes.'

'Then,' the fairy went on, 'the one who had that gift must have got to the christening, somehow.

Maybe the mother wished for her--and that is as good as an invitation.'

" "She did!"

cried Mary Alice.

"She's always said she watched me so anxiously when I was a wee baby, hoping I'd have pretty hair."

"Well, that's evidently how that fairy got to you.

But it seems there were two.

This one I saw to-day says there are two beauties in 'most everything--but especially in hair--one is in the thing itself and the other is in knowing what to do with it.

It seems she is the 'what to do' fairy."

And so she proved to be.

For, when she came to luncheon next day, she told Mary Alice how she had always been "a bit daft about hair."

"When I played with my dolls," she said, "I always cared much more for combing their hair and doing it up with mother's 'invisible' pins, than for dressing them.

And it used to be the supreme reward for goodness when I could take down my mother's beautiful hair and play with it for half an hour.

I'm always wanting to play with lovely hair.

And when I saw yours at the theatre the other evening, I couldn't rest until I'd asked your godmother if she thought you'd let me play with it."

So after luncheon they went into Mary Alice's room and wouldn't let Godmother go with them.

"Not at all!"

said the "what to do fairy," "you are the select audience.

You go into the drawing-room and 'compose yourself.'

When we're ready for you, we'll come out."

Then, behind locked doors, with much delightful nonsense and excitement, she divested Mary Alice's head of sundry awful rats and puffs, combed out the bunches which Mary Alice wore in her really lovely hair, brushed smooth the traces of the curling iron, and then made Mary Alice shut her eyes and "hope to die" if she "peeked once."

When permission to "peek" was given, Mary Alice didn't know herself.

"There!"

said the fairy, when the excitement of Godmother's delight had subsided, "I've always said that the three most important beauty fairies for a girl to find are the how-to-stand fairy, the how-to-dress fairy, and the what-to-do-with-your-hair fairy.

Anybody can find them all; and nobody who has found them all needs to feel very bad if she can't find some of the others who have her christening gifts."

Mary Alice began looking for the others, right away.

But even one fairy had transformed her, outside, from an ordinary-looking girl into a young woman with a look of remarkable distinction; just as Godmother had transformed her, within, from a girl with a dreary outlook on life, to one who found that "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."

"Is this the Secret?"

she asked Godmother, that night.

"Oh, dear, no!"

laughed Godmother, "only the first little step towards realizing it."

IV BEING KIND TO A TIRED MAN

One day when Mary Alice had been in New York nearly two weeks--and had found several fairies--Godmother was obliged to go out, in the afternoon, to some sort of a committee meeting which would have been quite uninteresting to an outsider.

But Mary Alice had some sewing to do--something like taking the ugly, ruffly sleeves of cheap white lace out of her blue taffeta dress and substituting plain dark ones of net dyed to match the silk; and she was glad to stay at home.

"If an elderly gentleman comes in to call on me, late in the afternoon but before I get back home," said Godmother, in departing, "ask him in and be nice to him.

He's a lonely body, and he'll probably be tired.

He works very hard."

Mary Alice promised, and went happily to work on the new sleeves which were to give her arms and shoulders something of an exquisite outline, in keeping with the fairy way of doing her hair, which Godmother had taught her to admire in a beautiful marble in the Metropolitan Museum.

About five o'clock, when Godmother's neat little maid had just lighted the lamps in the pretty drawing-room and replenished the open fire which was one of the great compensations for the many drawbacks of living in an old-fashioned house, the gentleman Godmother had expected called.

Mary Alice went in to see him, and explained who she was.

He said he had heard about her and was glad to make her acquaintance.

He seemed quite tired, and Mary Alice asked him if he had been working hard that day.

"Yes," he said, "very hard."

"Wouldn't you like a cup of tea?"

she asked.

And he said he would.

When the tea came, he seemed to enjoy it so much that Mary Alice really believed he was hungry.

Indeed, he admitted that he was.

"I haven't had any luncheon," he said.

Mary Alice's heart was touched; she forgot that the man was strange, and remembered only that he was tired and hungry.

The little maid brought thin slices of bread and butter with the tea.

Mary Alice felt they must seem absurd to a hungry man.

"I know what's lots nicer with tea," she said.

"What?"

he asked, interestedly.

"Toast and marmalade," she answered.

"I'm going to get some."

And she went to the kitchen, cut a plateful of toasting slices and brought them back with a long toasting fork and a jar of orange marmalade.

"At home," she said, "we often make the toast for supper at the sitting-room fire, and it's _much_ nicer than 'gas range toast.'

" "I know it is," he said; "let's do it."

So they squatted on the rug in front of the open fire.

Both wanted to toast, and they took turns.

"I don't get to do anything like this very often--only when I come here," he said, apologizing for accepting his turn when it came.

"Don't you live at home?"

asked Mary Alice.

"Well, no," he answered, "I'd hardly call what I do 'living at home.'

" There was something about the way he said it that made Mary Alice feel sorry for him; but she didn't like to ask any more questions.

They had a delightful time.

Mary Alice had never met a man she enjoyed so much.

He liked to "play" as much as Godmother did, and they talked most confidentially about their likes and dislikes, many of which seemed to be mutual.

Mary Alice admitted to him how she disliked to meet strangers, and he admitted to her that he felt the very same way.

Godmother tarried and tarried, and at six o'clock the gentleman said he must go.

"Oh, dear!"

sighed Mary Alice.

"I'm sorry!

I'm having such a nice time."

"So am I," he echoed gallantly, "but I'm hoping you will ask me again."

"Indeed I will!"

she cried.

"We seem to--to get on together beautifully."

"We do," he agreed, "and if it's a rare experience for you, I don't mind telling you it is for me too."

He couldn't have been gone more than ten minutes when Godmother came in.

"That gentleman called," Mary Alice told her.

"He's just gone.

We had a lovely time."

"I know," said Godmother, "I met him down-stairs and we've been chatting.

He says he doesn't know when he's spent a pleasanter hour."

"Poor man!"

murmured Mary Alice, "he seems to be a lonely body."

"He is," said Godmother.

"He likes to come in here, once in a while, for a cup of tea and an hour's chat.

And I'm always glad to have him."

"I should think so!"

agreed Mary Alice.

"He ate nearly a whole plate of toast."

Godmother laughed so heartily that Mary Alice was a little mystified.

She didn't see the joke in being hungry.

She didn't even see it when Godmother told her who the man was.

"Not really?"

gasped Mary Alice.

Godmother nodded.

"Why, he told me him_self_----!"

Mary Alice began; and then stopped to put two and two together.

It was all very astounding, but there was no reason why what he had told her and what Godmother said might not both be true.

"If I had _known_!"

she said, sinking down, weak in the knees, into the nearest chair.

"That was what gave him his happy hour," said Godmother.

"You didn't know!

It is so hard for him to get away from people who know--to find people who are able to forget.

That's why he likes to come here; I try to help him forget, for an hour, once in a while, at 'candle-lightin' time.'

" "I see," murmured Mary Alice.

The man was one of those great world-powers of finance whose transactions filled columns of the newspapers and were familiar to almost every school child.

That night when Godmother was tucking Mary Alice in, they had a long, long talk about the caller of the afternoon and about some other people Godmother knew, and about how sad a thing it is to take for granted about any person certain qualities we think must go with his estate.

"And now," said Godmother, "I'm going to tell you the Secret."