The little figure first made its appearance by peeping through the hedge in front of Peter’s cottage. It was a boy-child, aged5 perhaps some seven summers, and was clad in short blue serge knickerbockers and a blue jersey6.
Peter himself was sitting by the door piping. The small figure thought his presence unobserved, but Peter’s blue eyes were watching him keenly. He sat very still as he piped, and the music was calling the child to him.
It was a friendly, seductive little tune7 that he was playing, and Peter saw the child move towards the gate. He did not look at him now, fearing by the slightest sign or movement to startle him. Suddenly Peter felt a light touch on his knee, gentle as the touch of a small bird’s wing. The child had stolen up the path and was beside him.
Peter’s heart leapt with pleasure. It was as if he had drawn9 a little wild woodland creature near him. He still did not move, but he let the music die away.
“I like that,” said the small boy, gazing at him with solemn eyes, “and I like you.”
Peter’s eyes wrinkled at the comers in sheer delight. It was a good many years since a child’s voice had spoken to him, since a child’s hand had been laid upon his knee.
“Oh,” said Peter, smiling with pretended laziness, “do you? Well, I fancy the appreciation11 is reciprocated12. What’s your name?”
“Dickie Gordon,” responded the small boy. “I’m staying with my aunt and Lady Anne at the White House. I like Lady Anne.”
Peter laughed. “Your judgment13 and intuition are faultless, my son. The Lady Anne is the divinest woman the good Lord ever created.”
“I might go farther than that,” said Peter reflectively; “adoration, worship, might be nearer my sentiments. But how, may I ask, did you find your way down here?”
Dickie smiled, an elfin smile of pure wickedness.
“I ran away from nurse. She’s got the baby in the perambulator. It’s a very young baby, and perambulators are dull things—they can’t get over stiles, or go across fields or even the tiniest kind of streams, not even streams with a plank15 across: the wheels are always too wide. And nurse doesn’t understand anything, not why fields are nicer than roads, and why it’s pleasant to stand still in a wood and listen, and why some walks are nice ways and some walks dull and horrid16. She thinks everything’s just all the same. And I can’t explain things to her, things I know in my inside. So I just ran away and came to see you.”
“You did, did you?” responded Peter. And back his mind swung to the memory of another small boy, one of whom the Lady Anne had written to him, and of another non-understanding grown-up. Oh, those Olympians who, from their heights of common sense, cannot stoop to the level of childhood!—for stooping they assuredly would term it, though Peter took another view of the respective levels. Yet, whatever the levels, the fact undoubtedly17 remained the same: their utter and entire incapacity of seeing eye to eye, of hearing ear to ear, of feeling heart to heart with a child. And, mused18 Peter, it was unquestionable whose was the greater loss. And then he roused himself.
“But how about my duty?” he demanded. “Oughtn’t I to bind19 you, fetter20 you, and carry you back a prisoner to that perambulator, that very young baby, and that non-comprehending nurse?”
Dickie looked at him.
“You won’t,” he said comfortably; “besides, I want to talk.”
“Humph!” said Peter, again smiling lazily; “well, talk. I shall doubtless make a good audience, since the hearing of speech is now something of a novelty to me.”
With a deep breath he began: “Nurse says this cottage is a bad place, and you’re friends with the Devil. Is he really an unpleasant person? You don’t look’s if you’d be friends with him if he were.”
“Hmm,” said Peter, dubious22, his eyes nevertheless twinkling; “I cannot say that I have honestly a very close acquaintanceship with him—at least, I hope not. But I have never fancied him a pleasant person. He has”—Peter sought wildly in his mind for the best reason for the averred23 unpleasantness—“so little idea of playing the game.”
“Yes?” It was Dickie’s turn to be dubious now.
“Oh,” thought Peter distractedly, “I have not only to make statements, but I have to substantiate24 them!” Aloud he spoke10, firmly, and with an air of conviction: “He does not play the game, because he pretends to be friendly when he isn’t, [Pg 188]and he tells us things are nice when they aren’t.” This, at all events, was good and orthodox teaching. Peter patted himself on the back, so to speak.
“Like the apple what Adam and Eve ate,” said Dickie solemnly; “they thought it was going to taste so nice, and make them very wise, but it was a sour apple, and they had to go away out of the garden ’cause they ate it.”
“Exactly!” said Peter, much relieved that Dickie should be taking the initiative as chronicler of biblical events, feeling, be it stated, somewhat hazy25 on these subjects himself.
There was a pause. Then, with a deep sigh, Dickie spoke again.
“I wish I knew things.”
“What things?” asked Peter, amused.
“Lots of things,” said Dickie. There was a world of unconscious yearning26 in the child’s voice. “I want to know lots of things. What made God think the world? Did He think me from the beginning, ’cause He knew everything? Why did He wait till now to make me? I’d so lots sooner have been a Viking. Why doesn’t He let us choose what we are to be? Why are some days nice and other days horrid, though everything looks just ’xactly the same and just as sunny? Why don’t I know the whys of things?”
“Oh!” said Peter with a long-drawn breath, and a silence fell, while suddenly, and perhaps for almost the first time in his life, Peter faced the great eternal Question—the Everlasting27 Why of the Universe. And because he had no answer to give, because he had not as yet the faintest inkling of the answer, he was silent, though, all unconsciously, the child had put before him the problem his soul was inarticulately striving to solve.
“Why?” said Dickie again, gazing at him. And then Peter replied.
“You had better ask Lady Anne,” he responded, basely shifting the responsibility. Yet though he half acknowledged the baseness, he knew confidently that she must be better able to deal with the question than he, for surely she, enshrined where she was in his thoughts, would have some knowledge, some answer to give, something to which he might listen with as great confidence as the child beside him would listen.
And then suddenly down the lane came a shrill28 voice, causing Dickie to start and Peter to look up quickly.
“Master Dickie, Master Dickie!” The tones were unquestionably somewhat strident.
“That’s nurse,” whispered Dickie.
“So I concluded,” said Peter dryly. “What’s to be done?”
“S’pose I must go,” announced Dickie ruefully.
“Master Dickie!” The voice was close now, and the next moment a heated woman in nurse’s garb29 and wheeling a perambulator came into view.
Peter got up and went down to the gate, holding Dickie’s small brown hand close in his big one.
“I believe,” said Peter courteously30, “that you are looking for Master Dickie; here he is.”
The woman paused, flabbergasted. “With you!” she ejaculated.
“With me,” said Peter, smiling. “And after all he has heard about me,” he continued seriously, “it’s a wonder that he ventured near this cottage.”
The nurse looked at Peter. There was something in his manner that checked the outburst of indignation that was perilously31 near the surface.
“I’ve been that worried!” she said, and she stopped to wipe her face with a large white handkerchief.
Peter appreciated her concern. It is unquestionably trying to lose a small boy entrusted32 to your care, especially on an exceedingly warm summer day, and have no notion what has become of him. Peter felt a bit of a culprit.
“I’m very sorry you’ve been bothered,” he said contritely33. “He—” and Peter paused; he could not give Dickie away.
“I came to see him,” announced Dickie calmly, “because I wanted to find out what he was like. Now if you want me I’ll come home. Good-bye, Mr. Piper.” He held out his hand, which Peter shook gravely.
Dickie scorned a reply.
“He really hasn’t come to any harm,” said Peter apologetically.
“That’s as may be,” said the nurse with majestic35 significance, divided between her previous conception of Peter and the now very obvious fact that he was of gentle birth; “that’s as may be. But his aunt won’t care to hear of his goings-on, nor my Lady either, for that matter.”
“Lady Anne will understand,” protested Dickie, voicing Peter’s own opinion.
“She may and she mayn’t,” was the tart8 reply. “Now you’ll please to come home; we’re half an hour late as it is.”
“I said I was ready before,” remarked Dickie calmly.
The nurse jerked the perambulator round in a manner that caused the very young baby within to open its eyes in a kind of mild protest.
“I’ll come and see you again,” said Dickie confidently to Peter.
The nurse pulled him by the arm. “You’ll do nothing of the kind, Master Dickie.”
“Huh!” said Dickie, “you don’t know. I shall ask Lady Anne.”
And then the three disappeared down the lane.
“The Lady Anne,” remarked Peter to himself, “is evidently a divinity to another and much smaller person than I. I don’t exactly love that nurse,” he continued reflectively, “but I fancy she has her hands full.”
And whistling airily, Peter passed up the little path to the cottage.
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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fraught
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| adj.充满…的，伴有(危险等)的；忧虑的 | |
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pebble
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| n.卵石，小圆石 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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tart
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| adj.酸的；尖酸的，刻薄的；n.果馅饼；淫妇 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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reciprocated
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| v.报答，酬答( reciprocate的过去式和过去分词 )；（机器的部件）直线往复运动 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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fetter
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| n./vt.脚镣，束缚 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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averred
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| v.断言( aver的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；证明…属实；作为事实提出 | |
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substantiate
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| v.证实；证明...有根据 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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courteously
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| adv.有礼貌地，亲切地 | |
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perilously
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| adv.充满危险地，危机四伏地 | |
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entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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contritely
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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