Woman's Sphere

‘WILBUR, dear,’ said Aunt Susan, ‘Rosa is very busy with the washing this morning, and if you will go down into the garden and gather this basket full of peas and then shell them for her to cook for dinner, I will —’ Aunt; Susan paused to reflect a moment and then continued, ‘I will give you a new ball for a birthday present.’

Aunt Susan smiled kindly at the flashing look of intense joy that Wilbur lifted to her face as he seized the basket she was holding out to him.

‘I — I’d just love to have it!’ he exclaimed. He was quite overcome with emotion and tore away toward the garden at top speed.

Wilbur’s mother was ill, and Wilbur had been sent to visit Aunt Susan in order that the house might be quiet. Aunt Susan was really Wilbur’s father’s aunt. She was grandma’s sister, and she was very old. Grandma was not old. Her hair was white, but it went in nice squiggles around her face, and she wore big hats with plumes and shiny, rustly dresses and high-heeled shoes. And when she kissed you she clasped you in a powerful embrace against her chest. Grandma was not old. But Aunt Susan, with her smooth gray hair and her wrinkled face and spectacles, her plain black dress and little shawl, and her funny cloth shoes, seemed to Wilbur a being inconceivably stricken of eld. You felt intensely sorry for her for being so old. You were so sorry that you felt it inside of you; it was almost as if your stomach ached. And she was always kind and gentle. You felt that it would be a grievous thing to hurt her feelings or trouble her in any way.

Wilbur’s birthday came on Thursday and this was only Monday. A long time to wait. Wilbur needed a ball very badly. He had made friends with a number of boys here in Aunt Susan’s town, and the baseball season was at its height. Wilbur’s friends owned several perfectly worthy bats and two or three gloves, but there was a serious lack of balls.

That afternoon, joining the boys on the vacant lot where they played, Wilbur informed them with great satisfaction of Aunt Susan’s promise.

‘ My aunt is going to give me a new ball on my birthday,’ he said to them.

They were more than pleased with the news. Wilbur found himself the centre of flattering interest. He told them that he guessed it would be a regular league ball.

Wilbur exerted himself earnestly to be helpful to Aunt Susan and Rosa all day on Tuesday and Wednesday. He felt that he could not do enough for Aunt Susan, and also that it would be well to remind her of her promise by constant acts of courtesy and service, for it was a long time before Thursday. But it did not seem possible that any one could really forget an affair so important and so agreeable as the purchase of a ball. Wilbur knew where Aunt Susan would get the ball: at Reiter’s store, of course. Reiter kept a store where books and magazines and athletic goods were sold. He kept all the standard things; the ball would be of a good make, Wilbur was sure.

Aunt Susan did not often go down town. Except when busy about her housekeeping, she was likely to spend the time rocking in her old-fashioned rocker on the front porch with a workbasket beside her, occupying herself with needlework or knitting. She knitted a great deal. There were many bright-colored wools in her workbasket.

On Wednesday afternoon Wilbur’s heart gave an excited jump when he saw Aunt Susan coming downstairs tying her little bonnet over her gray hair. Her black silk shopping-bag hung on her arm. Wilbur did not doubt that she was going down town with an eye single to Reiter’s store. He assumed an unconscious air, just as one did when mother went shopping before Christmas. He watched Aunt Susan out of sight and afterward hung about the front yard till he saw her returning. He ran to open the gate for her and took her parasol and bag, looking up at her with bright, trustful eyes. The bag seemed quite full of small parcels as he carried it for Aunt Susan.

Wilbur fell asleep that night wondering whether Aunt Susan would put the ball on the breakfast table next morning, where he would see it when he entered the dining-room. Perhaps she would bring it after he was asleep, and place it on the chair beside his bed, or perhaps on the old-fashioned bureau. There were many happy possibilities.

When the window opposite his bed began to grow bright with the pink and gold of sunrise, Wilbur woke and sat up, looking first at the chair, then at the bureau. No, it was not in the room. It would be in the dining-room, then. When he went downstairs he was surprised to find that Aunt Susan had not yet left her room. In the kitchen Rosa was only beginning her preparations for breakfast. Wilbur spent a long time, a restless but happy hour, waiting, idling about the dewy garden and the front yard, feeding the chickens and playing with the cat.

At last Rosa rang the bell and Wilbur went into the house. Aunt Susan, seated at the breakfast table, greeted him affectionately.

‘Many happy returns, dear!’ she said, holding out her hand. She drew him to her and kissed his cheek. Now, surely — But the ball was not on the table beside his plate. He could not see it anywhere in the room.

The breakfasts at Aunt Susan’s were always good. There would be fried chicken and waffles or muffins and squashy corn bread. Indeed all mealtimes at Aunt Susan’s would have been periods of unmixed joy if Aunt Susan had not felt obliged to keep up a steady conversation. Aunt Susan made small talk laboriously. It distracted your mind. She had a strange delusion that one was avidly interested in one’s schoolbooks. She constantly dwelt upon the subject of school. It made things difficult, for school was over now and all its rigors happily forgotten. This morning, what with Aunt Susan’s talk and his excitement, Wilbur could hardly eat anything.

Breakfast was over. Aunt Susan and Rosa were in the pantry consulting on housekeeping matters. Wilbur sat down in a rocking-chair on the front porch and waited. He waited and waited, rocking violently. And then at last he heard Aunt Susan calling him.

He was out of his chair and in the hall like a flash.

‘Yes’m,’ he answered. ‘Yes’m? What is it, Aunt Susan?’

Aunt Susan was coming down the stairs.

‘Here is the ball I promised you, dear,’ she said. She placed in his outstretched hand —

Wilbur had visualized it so vividly, he imagined the desired thing with such intensity, that it was as if a strange transformation had taken place before his eyes. He was holding, not the hard, heavy, white ball he had seemed actually to see, with its miraculously perfect stitching and the trim lettering of the name upon it; a curious, soft thing lay in his hand, a home-made ball constructed of wools. There seemed to be millions of short strands of bright-colored wools all held together in the centre by some means and sticking out in every direction. Their smoothly clipped ends formed the surface of the ball.

It was the kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart.

Wilbur stood and gazed at it. The kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart! Then he looked up at Aunt Susan, and suddenly the sense of his great disappointment was lost in that immense, aching pity for her. She was so old, and she had made it herself, thinking it would please him.

‘It’s — it’s awful pretty!’ Wilbur stammered. He felt inexpressibly sorry for Aunt Susan. How could any one be so utterly without comprehension!

Aunt Susan patted his cheek.

‘You have been a good boy,’ she said. ‘I hope you will enjoy playing at ball with your little friends.’

Wilbur went cold. The other fellows! He foresaw well enough their attitude toward his misfortune. To them it would seem a subject for unsparing derision. The kind of thing you would give a baby in a go-cart! And he had said, ‘I guess it will be a regular league ball.’

Aunt Susan went away upon her housekeeping activities, and Wilbur, after standing for a while turning the woolly ball in his hands, went upstairs to his room. He hid the ball under the neatly folded garments in the upper drawer of the bureau. It was a relief to get it out of sight. He had a heavy, sickish feeling in his chest. The more he thought over his trouble the greater it seemed. A great dread of having the other boys know about it possessed him. He felt that he could not possibly bear the ignominy.

The morning dragged itself heavily away. Wilbur remained indoors. He could not go out for fear the other fellows might see him. He winced painfully at the thought of meeting them.

Rosa baked a fine cake for him, decorating it tastefully with nine pink candles, but Wilbur regarded it wanly.

At dinner Aunt Susan noticed his lack of appetite and fussed over him anxiously, dismaying his soul with dark hints of doses of medicine.

‘I don’t feel a bit sick, Aunt Susan,’ he protested, ‘honest, I don’t.’

He felt almost desperate. He was heavy-hearted with his disappointment, oppressed with the fear of discovery; and now he must be harried and pursued with threats of medicine.

It was a miserable afternoon. Wilbur undertook to write a letter to his mother. Usually Aunt Susan was obliged to urge him to this duty, but to-day it offered an excuse to remain indoors and Wilbur seized it gladly. Writing a letter was a business that took time and effort. After a while, as Wilbur sat in the attitude of composition, with his legs wrapped around the legs of his chair and his shoulders hunched over the table, Aunt Susan’s anxious eye detected the fact that he was not writing but was absently chewing his pencil.

‘Wilbur, dear,’ Aunt Susan said, ‘you are staying in the house too much. Put your letter away now and run out of doors. I think you need the fresh air. You can finish your letter to-morrow.’

‘Oh, I would rather finish it now, please,’ Wilbur said; ‘you know poppa is coming to see us this evening, and if I get it done I can give it to him to take to mamma.’

He hastily stuck out his tongue, and breathing heavily, began to write.

Throughout the afternoon Wilbur contrived by one excuse or another to remain in the house. After the early tea Aunt Susan sat down in one of the porch rockers with her knitting and Wilbur sedately took another. With great effort he sustained the conversation which Aunt Susan considered necessary. Presently, with a throb of alarm, Wilbur saw Henry, the boy who lived next door, climbing the fence dividing the two yards. With fascinated dread Wilbur watched him approach. He stood still at the foot of the porch steps.

‘Hello,’ he said in his deep and husky voice.

‘Hello,’ Wilbur replied coldly.

‘Good evening, Henry,’ said Aunt Susan; ‘sit down and make us a visit. How is your father? How is your mother? When is your married sister coming home for a visit?’ And so on.

Henry sat down on the steps, answering Aunt Susan with weary civility. Wilbur rocked and rocked with nervous violence. Sitting in a chair like a grown person, he felt a certain aloofness from Henry on the steps. It was a poor enough security, but he clung to it. And then suddenly Aunt Susan was saying, —

‘Wilbur, get the ball I gave you and play a game of ball with Henry.’

The moment of discovery had come. And Wilbur found himself wondering dully what Aunt Susan’s idea of a ball game could be like. His mind seemed to fumble stiffly with the unimportant thought. He rose heavily. Henry had snapped up briskly from his place on the steps as Aunt Susan spoke.

‘That’s right!’ he said. ‘Let’s get out there in the road and warm up.’

Wilbur turned to enter the house.

‘I’ll go with you,’ Henry said.

They ascended the stairs, Wilbur lagging on every step and Henry breasting forward like a homeward-bound horse. They crossed the little upstairs hall and stood at the door of Wilbur’s room. The woolly ball lay on the bureau, its many colors garish in the sunset. Wilbur had left it in the drawer, but Rosa had been in the room putting away his freshly ironed clothes, and had taken it out and placed it on top of the bureau for all the world to see.

Wilbur shut his eyes and waited for a bitter outcry from Henry. There was, however, a moment of silence, and then Henry demanded impatiently,—

‘Well, where is it at?’

Wilbur opened his eyes and regarded Henty stupidly. Henry then did not even recognize the strange, bright object on the bureau as a ball. Probably he took it for a pincushion. The shock of the unexpected reprieve made Wilbur feel faint and confused.

‘It’s here — it’s right in this room,’ he stammered.

‘In the bruy-yo?’ Henry asked, pointing toward the old-fashioned bureau.

‘I — I left it in the top drawer of the bruy-yo.’

Henry went and opened the drawers one by one and rummaged in them.

‘It ain’t here!’ he exclaimed; ‘I bet somebody’s stolen it from you! The colored girl! I bet she’s stolen it!’

‘Aw, she wouldn’t steal! She’s nice!’ Wilbur exclaimed; but even as he spoke, he saw his mistake. Henry had made the descent to a course of deceit, of hideous disloyalty to a dear friend, fearfully easy! Wilbur descended. ‘Maybe,’ he faltered, ‘maybe she needed a ball awfully and just had to take it! Maybe she needed it awfully!’

‘Well, ain’t you going to try to get it back from her?’

‘Oh, no!’ Wilbur cried in horror. ‘I won’t say a word about it. It would hurt her feelings. She’s nice — ’

‘Well, I bet if it was my ball and anybody stole it I would raise an awful row!’

‘I won’t say anything about it,’ Wilbur repeated. ‘It would hurt her feelings. And I guess you better go home now, Henry. Maybe your mother is wondering where you are.’

Wilbur adopted the formula with which other boys’ mothers were wont to put him on the social inclined plane. He felt a desperate need to be rid of Henry. Henry departed without resentment.

A little later Wilbur’s father came. It was a comfort to have poppa there. Wilbur’s tired spirit leaned against his big, quiet strength. In the dusk Aunt Susan and poppa sat on the porch and talked. Wilbur stood beside poppa’s chair. It was peaceful and cool in the late evening. Wilbur liked to hear the noise the katydids made in the trees. It went on, over and over and over —

Suddenly, as if recollecting something he had forgotten, poppa put his hand into his coat pocket and drew out — It was the ball of Wilbur’s dreams. Poppa, still talking to Aunt Susan, was holding it out to him. He saw it in all its utterly desirable excellence, its natty charms, hard and heavy and smooth and gleaming white. Wilbur’s small brown fingers curved themselves feebly upon its taut sides. He did not speak, but his long-lashed eyes, brooding upon the perfection within his grasp, lifted for a moment to his father’s face a deep look of such intensity that poppa was startled.

‘It’s your birthday, old chap,’ he said, putting his arm around Wilbur. ‘I thought you might like a new ball.’

He felt Wilbur trembling slightly and wondered whether, in spite of the little fellow’s seemingly perfect health, he could be an over-strung and nervous child.

‘Now you have two balls,’ Aunt Susan said fatuously, rocking herself in her old rocker.

‘Yes’m,’ said Wilbur. From the security of his immense felicity he smiled at her kindly, very kindly, very indulgently, for how could she understand?