Mothers to Men. Zona Gale
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Mis' Emmons presented her.
"'This is my niece, Miss Sidney,' she told us. 'She has just come to me to-day—for as long as I can keep her. Will you all come to see her?'
"It wasn't much the way Mis' Sykes had done, singing praises of Miss Beryl Sessions for weeks on end before she'd got there; nor the way I was doing, wondering secret about my unknown niece, and what she'd be like. Mis' Emmons introduced her niece like she'd always been one of us. She said our names over, and we went towards her; and Miss Sidney leaned a little inside the frame of the doorway and put out her hand to us all, a hand that didn't have any glove on and that in spite of the rain, was warm.
"'I'm so sorry,' she says, 'I'm afraid I'm disgracing Aunt Eleanor. But I couldn't help it. I love to walk in the rain.'
"'That's what rain is for,' Insley says to her; and I see the two change smiles before Mis' Hubbelthwait's 'Well, I do hope you've got some good high rubbers on your feet' made the girl grave again—a sweet grave, not a stiff grave. You can be grave both ways, and they're as different from each other as soup from hot water.
"'I have, thank you,' she says, 'big storm boots. Did you know,' she adds, 'that somebody else is waiting out here? Somebody's little bit of a beau? And I'm afraid he's gone to sleep.'
"We looked at one another, wondering. Who was waiting for any of us? 'Not me,' one after another says, positive. 'We've all raced home alone from this church since we was born,' Mis' Uppers adds, true enough.
"We was curious, with that curiosity that it's kind of fun to have, and we all crowded forward into the entry. And a little to one side of the shining lamp path was setting a child—a little boy, with a paper bag in his arms.
II
"Who on earth was he, we wondered to ourselves, and we all jostled forward, trying to see down to him, us women lifting up our skirts from the entry wet. He was like a little wad of clothes, bunched up on the top step, but inside them the little fellow was all curled up, sleeping. And we knew he hadn't come for any of us, and he didn't look like he was waiting for anybody in particular.
"Silas fixed up an explanation, ready-done:—
"'He must belong down on the flats,' says Silas. 'The idear of his sleepin' here. I said we'd oughter hev a gate acrost the vestibule.'
"'Roust him up an' start him home,' says Timothy Toplady, adviceful.
"'I will,' says Silas, that always thinks it's his share to do any unclaimed managing; and he brought down his hand towards the child's shoulder. But his hand didn't get that far.
"'Let me wake him up,' says Robin Sidney.
"She laid her umbrella in the wet of the steps and, Silas being surprised into giving way, she stooped over the child. She woke him up neither by speaking to him nor grasping his arm, but she just slipped her hands along his cheeks till her hands met under his chin, and she lifted up his chin, gentle.
"'Wake up and look at me,' she says.
"The child opened his eyes, with no starting or bewildering, and looked straight up into her face. There was light enough for us all to see that he smiled bright, like one that's real glad some waiting is done. And she spoke to him, not making a point of it and bringing it out like she'd aimed it at him, but just matter-of-fact gentle and commonplace tender.
"'Whose little boy are you?' she ask' him.
"'I'm goin' with whoever wants me to go with 'em,' says the child.
"'But who are you—where do you live?' she says to him. 'You live, don't you—in this town?'
"The child shook his head positive.
"'I lived far,' he told her, 'in that other place. I come up here with my daddy. He says he might not come back to-night.'
"Robin Sidney knelt right down before him on the wet steps.
"'Truly,' she said, 'haven't you any place to go to-night?'
"'Oh, yes,' says the child, 'he says I must go with whoever wants me to go with 'em. Do—do you?'
"At that Miss Sidney looked up at us, swift, and down again. The wind had took hold of a strand of her hair and blew it across her eyes, and she was pushing it away as she got up. And by then Insley was standing before her, back of the little boy, that he suddenly stooped down and picked up in his arms.
"'Let's get inside, shall we?' he says, commanding. 'Let's all go back in and see about him.'
"We went back into the church, even Silas taking orders, though of course that was part curiosity; and Insley sat down with the child on his knee, and held out the child's feet in his hand.
"'He's wet as a rat,' he says. 'Look at his shoes.'
"'Well-a, make him tell his name, why don't you?' says Mis' Sykes, sharp. 'I think we'd ought to find out who he is. What's your name, Boy?' she adds, brisk.
"Insley dropped the boy's feet and took a-hold of one of his hands. 'Yes,' he says, hasty, 'we must try to do that.' But he looked right straight over Mis' Sykes's shoulder to where, beyond the others, Robin Sidney was standing. 'He was your friend first,' he said to her. 'You found him.'
"She come and knelt down beside the child where, on Insley's knee, he sat staring round, all wondering and questioning, to the rest of us. But she seemed to forget all about the rest of us, and I loved the way she was with that little strange boy. She kind of put her hands on him, wiping the raindrops off his face, unbuttoning his wet coat, doing a little something to his collar; and every touch was a kind of a little stroke that some women's hands give almost without their knowing it. I loved to watch her, because I'm always as stiff as a board with a child—unless I'm alone with them. Then I ain't.
"'My name's Robin,' she says to the little fellow. 'What's yours, dear?'
"'Christopher,' he says right off. 'First, Christopher. An' then John. An' then Bartlett. Have you only got one name?' he asked her.
"'Yes, I've got two,' she says. 'The rest of mine is Sidney. Where—'
"'Only two?' says the child. 'Why, I've got three.'
"'Only two,' she answers. 'Where did your father go—don't you know that, Christopher?'
"That seemed to make him think of something, and he looked down at his paper bag.
"'First he bringed me these,' he says, and his face lighted up and he held out his bag to her. 'You can have one my cream-puffs,' he offers her, magnificent. I held my breath for fear she wouldn't take it, but she did. 'What fat ones!' she says admiring, and held it in her hand while she asked him more. It was real strange how we stood around, us older women and all, waiting for her to see what she could get out of him. But there wasn't any use. He was to go with whoever asked him to go—that was all he knew.
"Silas Sykes snaps his watch. 'It's gettin' late,' he gives out, with a backward look at nothing in particular. 'Hadn't we best just leave him at the police station? Threat Hubbelthwait and me go right past there.'
"Mis' Toplady, she sweeps round on him, pulling her shawl over her shoulders—one of them gestures of some women that makes it seem like even them that works hard and don't get out much of anywhere has motions left in them that used to be motioned in courts and castles and like that. 'Police station! Silas Sykes,' says she, queenly, 'you put me in mind of a stone wall, you're that sympathizin'.'
"'Well, we can't take him, Amandy,' Timothy Toplady reminds her, hurried. 'We live too far. 'Twouldn't do to walk him 'way there.' Timothy will give, but he wants to give to his own selected poor that he knows about; an' he won't never allow himself no luxuries in givin' here an' there, when something just happens to come up.
"'Land, he may of come from where