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Page 6
Margaret MacLean, grown, could look back at tiny Margaret MacLean and
see her very clearly as she straightened up in the little iron crib and
answered in a shrill, tense voice: "I'm not Thumbkin. I'm a foundling.
I don't belong to anybody. I never had any father or mother or
nothing, but just a hurt back; they said so. They stood right
there--two of them; and one told the other all about me."
This was the end of the story, and the beginning of Trustee Days for
Margaret MacLean.
She soon made the discovery that she was not the only child in the ward
who felt about it that way. Her discovery was a matter of intuition
rather than knowledge; for--as if by silent consent--the topic was
carefully avoided in the usual ward conversation. One does not make it
a rule to talk about the hobgoblins that lurk in the halls at night, or
the gray, creeping shapes that come out of dark corners and closets
after one has gone to bed, if one is so pitifully unfortunate as to
possess these things in childhood. Instead one just remembers and
waits, shivering. Only to old Cassie, the scrub-woman, who was young
Cassie then, did she confide her fear. From her she received a
charm--compounded of goose eggshells and vinegar--which Cassie claimed
to be what they used in Ireland to unbewitch changelings. She kept the
charm hidden for months under her pillow. It proved comforting,
although absolutely ineffectual.
And for months there had been a strained relationship between the Old
Senior Surgeon and herself, causing them both much embarrassment. She
resented the story he had made for her with all her child soul; he had
cheated her--fooled her. She felt much as we felt toward our parents
when we made our first discovery concerning Santa Claus.
But after a time--a long time--the story came to belong to her again;
she grew to realize that the Old Senior Surgeon had told it
truthfully--only with the unconscious tongue of the poet instead of the
grim realist. She found out as well that it had done a wonderful thing
for her: it had turned life into an adventure--a quest upon which one
was bound to depart, no matter how poorly one's feet might be shod or
how persistently the rain and wind bit at one's marrow through the rags
of a conventional cloak. More than this--it had colored the road ahead
for her, promising pleasant comradeship and good cheer; it would keep
her from ever losing heart or turning back.
A day came at last when she and the Old Senior Surgeon could laugh--a
little foolishly, perhaps--over the child-story; and then, just because
they could laugh at it and feel happy, they told it together all over
again. They made much of Thumbkin's christening feast, and the gifts
the good godmothers brought.
"Let me see," said the Old Senior Surgeon, cocking his head
thoughtfully, "there was the business-like little party on a
broomstick, carrying grit--plain grit."
"And the next one brought happiness--didn't she?" asked little Margaret
MacLean.
He nodded. "Of course. Then came a little gray-haired faery with a
nosegay of Thoughts-for-other-folks, all dried and ready to put away
like sweet lavender."
"And did the next bring love?"
Again he agreed. "But after her, my dear, came a comfortable old lady
in a chaise with a market-basket full of common-sense."
"And then--then-- Oh, couldn't the one after her bring beauty? Some
one always did in the book stories. I think I wouldn't mind the back
and--other things so much if my face could be nice."
Margaret MacLean, grown, could remember well how tearfully eager little
Margaret MacLean had been.
The Old Senior Surgeon looked down with an odd, crinkly smile. "Have
you never looked into a glass, Thumbkin?"
She shook her head.
Children in the wards of free hospitals have no way of telling how they
look, and perhaps it is better that way. Only if it happens--as it
does sometimes--that they spend a good share of their life there, it
seems as if they never had a chance to get properly acquainted with
themselves.
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