In Like Manner Our Little Ones Have Masks To Fit The Character
Of The Homes They Are Bred In.
Here I recall a little girl I once met when I was walking somewhere on
the borders of Dorset and Hampshire.
It was at the close of an autumn
day, and I was on a broad road in a level stretch of country with the
low buildings of a farmhouse a quarter of a mile ahead of me, and no
other building in sight. A lonely land with but one living creature in
sight - a very small girl, slowly coming towards me, walking in the
middle of the wet road; for it had been raining a greater part of the
day. It was amazing to see that wee solitary being on the lonely road,
with the wide green and brown earth spreading away to the horizon on
either side under the wide pale sky. She was a sturdy little thing of
about five years old, in heavy clothes and cloth cap, and long knitted
muffler wrapped round her neck and crossed on her chest, then tied or
bound round her waist, thick boots and thick leggings! And she had a
round serious face, and big blue eyes with as much wonder in them at
seeing me as I suppose mine expressed at seeing her. When we were still
a little distance apart she drew away to the opposite side of the road,
thinking perhaps that so big a man would require the whole of its
twenty-five yards width for himself. But no, that was not the reason of
her action, for on gaining the other side she stopped and turned so as
to face me when I should be abreast of her, and then at the proper
moment she bent her little knees and dropped me an elaborate curtsey;
then, rising again to her natural height, she continued regarding me
with those wide-open astonished eyes! Nothing in little girls so
deliciously quaint and old-worldish had ever come in my way before; and
though it was late in the day and the road long, I could not do less
than cross over to speak to her. She belonged to a cottage I had left
some distance behind, and had been to the farm with a message and was
on her way back, she told me, speaking with slow deliberation and
profound respect, as to a being of a higher order than man. Then she
took my little gift and after making a second careful curtsey proceeded
slowly and gravely on her way.
Undoubtedly all this unsmiling, deeply respectful manner was a mask, or
we may go so far as to call it second nature, and was the result of
living in a cottage in an agricultural district with adults or old
people: - probably her grandmother was the poor little darling's model,
and any big important-looking man she met was the lord of the manor!
What an amazing difference outwardly between the rustic and the city
child of a society woman, accustomed to be addressed and joked with and
caressed by scores of persons every day - her own people, friends,
visitors, strangers!
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