And now he had gone before she had had a chance to grow up, and Mary-'Gusta felt an unreasonable sense of blame. But real grief, the dreadful paralyzing realization of loss which an ***** feels when a dear one dies, she did not feel.
She was awed and a little frightened, but she did not feel like crying. Why should she?
"Mary-'Gusta! Mary-'Gusta! Where be you?"
It was Mrs. Hobbs calling. Mary-'Gusta hurriedly untwisted her legs and scrambled from beneath the dust cover of the surrey. David, whose slumbers were disturbed, rose also, yawned and stretched.
"Here I be, Mrs. Hobbs," answered the girl. "I'm a-comin'."
Mrs. Hobbs was standing in the doorway of the barn. Mary-'Gusta noticed that she was not, as usual, garbed in gingham, but was arrayed in her best go-to-meeting gown.
"I'm a-comin'," said the child.
"Comin', yes. But where on earth have you been? I've been hunting all over creation for you. I didn't suppose you'd be out here, on this day of all others, with--with that critter," indicating David, who appeared, blinking sleepily.
"I must say I shouldn't think you'd be fussin' along with a cat today," declared Mrs. Hobbs.
"Yes'm," said Mary-'Gusta. David yawned, apparently expressing a bored contempt for housekeepers in general.
"Come right along into the house," continued Mrs. Hobbs. "It's high time you was gettin' ready for the funeral."
"Ready? How?" queried Mary-'Gusta.
"Why, changin' your clothes, of course."
"Do folks dress up for funerals?"
"Course they do. What a question!"
"I didn't know. I--I've never had one."
"Had one?"
"I mean I've never been to any. What do they dress up for?"
"Why--why, because they do, of course. Now don't ask any more questions, but hurry up. Where are you goin' now, for mercy sakes?"
"I was goin' back after Rose and Rosette. They ought to be dressed up, too, hadn't they?"
"The idea! Playin' dolls today! I declare I never see such a child! You're a reg'lar little--little heathen. Would you want anybody playin' dolls at your own funeral, I'd like to know?"
Mary-'Gusta thought this over. "I don't know," she answered, after reflection. "I guess I'd just as soon. Do they have dolls up in Heaven, Mrs. Hobbs?"
"Mercy on us! I should say not. Dolls in Heaven! The idea!"
"Nor cats either?"
"No. Don't ask such wicked questions."
Mary-'Gusta asked no more questions of that kind, but her conviction that Heaven--Mrs. Hobbs' Heaven--was a good place for housekeepers and grown-ups but a poor one for children was strengthened.
They entered the house by the kitchen door and ascended the back stairs to Mary-'Gusta's room. The shades in all the rooms were drawn and the house was dark and gloomy. The child would have asked the reason for this, but at the first hint of a question Mrs. Hobbs bade her hush.
"You mustn't talk," she said.
"Why mustn't I?"
"Because 'tain't the right thing to do, that's why. Now hurry up and get dressed."
Mary-'Gusta silently wriggled out of her everyday frock, was led to the washstand and vigorously scrubbed. Then Mrs. Hobbs combed and braided what she called her "pigtails" and tied a bow of black ribbon at the end of each.
"There!" exclaimed the lady. "You're clean for once in your life, anyhow. Now hurry up and put on them things on the bed."
The things were Mary-'Gusta's very best shoes and dress; also a pair of new black stockings.
When the dressing was finished the housekeeper stood her in the middle of the floor and walked about her on a final round of inspection.
"There!" she said again, with a sigh of satisfaction. "Nobody can say I ain't took all the pains with you that anybody could. Now you come downstairs and set right where I tell you till I come. And don't you say one single word. Not a word, no matter what happens."
She took the girl's hand and led her down the front stairs. As they descended Mary-'Gusta could scarcely restrain a gasp of surprise.
The front door was open--the FRONT door--and the child had never seen it open before, had long ago decided that it was not a truly door at all, but merely a make-believe like the painted windows on the sides of her doll house. But now it was wide open and Mr. Hallett, arrayed in a suit of black, the coat of which puckered under the arms, was standing on the threshold, looking more soothy than ever. The parlor door was open also, and the parlor itself--the best first parlor, more sacred and forbidden even than the "smoke room"--was, as much of it as she could see, filled with chairs.
Mrs. Hobbs led her into the little room off the parlor, the "back settin'-room," and, indicating the haircloth and black walnut sofa against the wall, whispered to her to sit right there and not move.
"Mind now," she whispered, "don't talk and don't stir. I'll be back by and by."
Mary-'Gusta, left alone, looked wide-eyed about the little back sitting-room. It, too, was changed; not changed as much as the front parlor, but changed, nevertheless. Most of the furniture had been removed. The most comfortable chairs, including the rocker with the parrot "tidy" on the back, had been taken away. One or two of the bolt-upright variety remained and the "music chair" was still there, but pushed back into a corner.
Mary-'Gusta saw the music chair and a quiver of guilty fear tinged along her spine; that particular chair had always been, to her, the bright, particular glory of the house. Not because it was beautiful, for that it distinctly was not; but because of the marvellous secret hidden beneath its upholstered seat. Captain Marcellus had brought it home years and years before, when he was a sea-going bachelor and made voyages to Hamburg. In its normal condition it was a perfectly quiet and ugly chair, but there was a catch under one arm and a music box under the seat. And if that catch were released, then when anyone sat in it, the music box played "The Campbell's Are Coming" with spirit and jingle. And, moreover, kept on playing it to the finish unless the catch was pushed back again.
