The Little White Bird

Sometimes the little boy who calls me father brings me an invitation from his mother: “I shall be so pleased if you will come and see me,” and I always reply in some such words as these: “Dear madam, I decline.” And if David asks why I decline, I explain that it is because I have no desire to meet the woman.

“Come this time, father,” he urged lately, “for it is her birthday, and she is twenty-six,” which is so great an age to David, that I think he fears she cannot last much longer.

“Twenty-six, is she, David?” I replied. “Tell her I said she looks more.”

I had my delicious dream that night. I dreamt that I too was twenty-six, which was a long time ago, and that I took train to a place called my home, whose whereabouts I see not in my waking hours, and when I alighted at the station a dear lost love was waiting for me, and we went away together. She met me in no ecstasy of emotion, nor was I surprised to find her there; it was as if we had been married for years and parted for a day. I like to think that I gave her some of the things to carry.

Were I to tell my delightful dream to David’s mother, to whom I have never in my life addressed one word, she would droop her head and

Heaven help all mothers if they be not really dears, for their boy will certainly know it in that strange short hour of the day when every mother stands revealed before her little son. That dread hour ticks between six and seven; when children go to bed later the revelation has ceased to come. He is lapt in for the night now and lies quietly there, madam, with great, mysterious eyes fixed upon his mother. He is summing up your day. Nothing in the revelations that kept you together and yet apart in play time can save you now; you two are of no age, no experience of life separates you; it is the boy’s hour, and you have come up for judgment. “Have I done well today, my son?” You have got to say it, and nothing may you hide from him; he knows all. How like your voice has grown to his, but more tremulous, and both so solemn, so unlike the voice of either of you by day.

“You were a little unjust to me today about the apple; were you not, mother?”

Stand there, woman, by the foot of the bed and cross your hands and answer him.

“Yes, my son, I was. I thought⁠—”

But what you thought will not affect the verdict.

“Was it fair, mother, to say that I could stay out till six, and then pretend it was six before it was quite six?”

“No, it was very unfair. I thought⁠—”

As I enter the club smoking-room you are to conceive David vanishing into nothingness, and that it is any day six years ago at two in the afternoon. I ring for coffee, cigarette, and cherry brandy, and take my chair by the window, just as the absurd little nursery governess comes tripping into the street. I always feel that I have rung for her.

While I am lifting the coffeepot cautiously lest the lid fall into the cup, she is crossing to the post-office; as I select the one suitable lump of sugar she is taking six last looks at the letter; with the aid of William I light my cigarette, and now she is rereading the delicious address. I lie back in my chair, and by this time she has dropped the letter down the slit. I toy with my liqueur, and she is listening to hear whether the postal authorities have come for her letter. I scowl at a fellow-member who has had the impudence to enter the smoking-room, and her two little charges are pulling her away from the post-office. When I look out at the window again she is gone, but I shall ring for her tomorrow at two sharp.

If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl she will say, “Why, of course, I did, child,” and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, “What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did.” Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, “Why, of course, I did, child,” but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother’s name. Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat. Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl. This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.

Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age is one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one.

“All your ways of playing,” she said with her big eyes on him, “are quite, quite wrong, and not in the least like how boys play!”

Poor Peter uttered a little moan at this, and he cried for the first time for I know not how long. Maimie was extremely sorry for him, and lent him her handkerchief, but he didn’t know in the least what to do with it, so she showed him, that is to say, she wiped her eyes, and then gave it back to him, saying “Now you do it,” but instead of wiping his own eyes he wiped hers, and she thought it best to pretend that this was what she had meant.

She said, out of pity for him, “I shall give you a kiss if you like,” but though he once knew he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, “Thank you,” and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss. Poor little boy! he quite believed her, and to this day he wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcely anyone who needs a thimble so little.