Miranda. Grace Livingston Hill
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begin to set the table, but it was early yet for Mr. David would be late coming home from the office to-day on account of the time be had taken off for the wedding; and instead she took a bowl and went out to see if she could find some late yellow raspberries on the vines, though she knew quite well there were not likely to be any.
Humming a lively little tune she approached the berry vines, her sharp eyes studying the while the great leaves of pieplant growing next the hedge. They were moving now, stirring gently, almost imperceptibly, one minute, the next bobbing vigorously back and forth as if they had suddenly become animate. Miranda watched them stealthily, the while walking deliberately past them and humming her tune. The leaves became absolutely still as she passed them, though she did not turn her eyes down to them noticeably, but went on a little further and knelt down by the berry bushes voicing her tune in words now :
"Thur wuz a man in our town,
An' he wuz wondrus wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush
An' scratched out both his ey-i-es;
An' when he saw his eyes were out
'ith all his might an' main,
He jumped into another bush
An' scratched 'em in again."
"Land sakes!" she ejaculated suddenly. "Wisht I hed a boy t'hep hunt berries. Guess I'm gettin' near-sighted in the dark. Here's three whole ras’berries right clost together an' I come real nigh missin’ ’em."
She cast an eye toward the pieplant leaves, but they remained motionless. Perhaps she had made a mistake after all. Perhaps there had been no dark little figure stealing along by the hedge. Perhaps her imagination had played her false.
She kept on feeling after berries that were not there, and finally after having secured not more than a handful, she crept softly back by the pieplant bed, for she thought she had heard a soft gasp like the catching of breath, and something stirred within her. She must find out what was moving the leaves.
Suddenly she set her bowl down on the grass and made a soft dive with her hands, lifting up two or three broad leaves and peering under.
It was almost dark now and the forlorn little figure close under the hedge could scarcely be seen, but Miranda's eyes were keen and kind, and she made out the outline of Nate Whitney's curly head, so sleek in the morning, now tousled and rough. He shrank back with his face in the grass, as she lifted the leaves, hoping to escape her notice, but she reached out her two strong hands and drew him forth resisting furiously.
"Lemme alone. I ain't doin' you any harm!" he declared sulkily as she drew his head and shoulders out from the entangling stalks.
There was light enough in the garden to see his face, tear-stained and smeared with mud streaks. His collar was crushed and twisted awry, and his jacket had a great jagged tear in one elbow.
"You poor little motherless sinner! " ejaculated Miranda in a tone she had never used in her life before except for little Rose.
Suddenly she sat down plump on the garden walk and took the forlorn little fellow into her arms, at least as much as she could get hold of, for he was still wriggling and twisting away from her strong hand with all his discomfited young might.
She stooped over his dirty fierce young face and laid her lips on his forehead.
"You poor little soul, I know how you feel and don't blame you one mite," she whispered, her strong young arms enwrapping him gently.
Then quite suddenly the struggling ceased, the fierce wiry body relaxed, the dirty face and curly head buried themselves quite childishly in her arms, the boy sobbed as if his heart would break, and clung to her as if his life depended on it.
Something wonderfully sweet and new sprang up in Miranda's breast, motherhood stirring in her soul. The clinging hands, the warm wet face, the pitiful sight of this sorrowful child in place of the saucy, impudent, self-possessed boy who dared any mischief that his bright restless mind suggested, touched her heart in a new way. A fierce desire seized her to protect and love him, this boy who needed some one sorely, and for the first time a regret stole into her heart that she was not his new mother. What a thing it would be to have those clinging arms belong to her! Then a wicked exultant thrill passed through her. She had not "walked pride" with Nathan Whitney, but his son had turned to her for comfort, and she loved the boy for it with all her heart. Maria Bent might hold her head high and reign severely in his home, but she, Miranda Griscom, would love the little son and help him out of his scrapes from this time forth.
"There, there," she soothed, passing her rough, work-worn hand over the tumbled curls and exulting in their tendency to wrap about her fingers. How soft they were, like a baby's, and yet they belonged to that hard, bad little boy she had always called a "brat!"
“There, there! Just cry it out,” she murmured. "I know. I jest guess I know all how you feel. You needn't to mind me. I've been fixed myself, so I didn't like things pretty much, an' I kin see you ain't overly pleased at the change over to your house. You jest cry good an' hard oncet, an' it'll make you feel better. Ef you can't do it hard 'nough by yerself he'p you—" and Miranda laid her freckled face on the little muddy cheek of the boy and let her tears mingle with his.
Perhaps it was those hot tears falling on his face, tears that were not his own, that called him back to his boy senses and brought to an end the first crying spell he remembered since he was six years old when Aunt Jane sneered at him and called him a cry-baby, that time he had cut his foot on a scythe. He had been a self-contained, hard, bad, little man ever since till now, when all the foundations of his being seemed shaken with this unexpected sympathy from one whom he had hitherto ranked among his enemies.
His sobs stopped as suddenly as they had begun and for some time he lay still in her arms, his head pressed against her shoulder where she had drawn it, his breath coming hot and quick against her face.
"Can't you tell me what's the matter? Is't anythin' special?" asked the girl gently. One would scarcely have known Miranda's voice. All the hardness and sharpness and mirth were gone. There was only gentleness and tenderness, and a deep understanding. "Course I know 'tain't altogether pleasant hevin' a stranger—especially ef she's one you've known afore an' ain't fond of —”
"I hate her! " came with sudden fierce vehemence from the lips of the boy. There was a catch in his throat, hut his lips were set and no more tears were allowed to come.
"Well, 'course that ain't the way you're expected t' feel, but I onderstand, and I guess they wouldn't enny of 'em do much better in your place. I never did admire her much myself, so I ken see how you look at it."
"I hate her!" reiterated the boy again, but this time not so fiercely. "I hate her and I won't let her be my mother, ever! Say, why didn't you be it?"
The question was balm and pride to the heart of Miranda. She put her arms the closer around the lonely boy and rocked him gently back and forth, and then smoothed his hair back from his hot dirty fore-head. The marvel was he let her do it and did not squirm away.
"Why didn't I? Bless him! Well, I didn't think I'd like it enny better'n you do her. B'sides, ef I had, you'd a hated me then."
The boy looked at her steadily through the twilight as though he were turning it over in his mind and then suddenly broke into a shy smile.
"Mebbe I would," he said with honest eyes searching her face, and then half shamefaced, he added shyly:"But anyhow I like you now."
A wild sweet rush of emotion flooded Miranda's soul. Not since she left her unloved, unloving grandmother Heath who lived next door, and came to live with David and Marcia Spafford receiving wages, doing honest work in return, and finding a real home, had such sweet surprise and joy come to her. Sweeter even than the little cherished Rose's kisses was this shy, veiled admiration of the man-child whose lonely life she seemed somehow strangely to understand. All at once she seemed to know how and why he had got the name of being a bad boy, and her heart went out to him as to a kindred spirit. She had seen the soul of him looking out of his beautiful brown eyes in the dusk at her, and she knew he was not all bad, and