THE LITTLE GIRL
BEFORE YOU READ
• Do you feel you know your parents better now, than when you were much
younger? Perhaps you now understand the reason for some of their actions
that used to upset you earlier.
• This story about a little girl whose feelings for her father change from
fear to understanding will probably find an echo in every home.
1. To the little girl he was a figure to be feared and avoided. Every
morning before going to work he came into her room and gave her a casual kiss,
to which she responded with "Goodbye, father ". And oh , there was a glad
sense of relief when she heard the noise of the carriage growing fainter
and fainter down the long road!
In the evening when he came home she stood near the staircase and heard his
loud voice in the hall. "Bring my tea into the drawing-room ...Hasn't the
paper come yet? Mother, go and see if my paper's out there _ and bring me my
slippers."
2. "Kezia, " Mother would call to her, " if you're a good
girl you can come down and take off father's boots. " slowly the girl would
slip down the stairs, more slowly still across the hall, and push open the
drawing-room door.
By that time he had his spectacles on and looked at her over them In a way
that was terrifying to the little girl.
"Kezia, hurry up and pull off these boots and take them outside. Have you been
a good girl today?"
"I d-d-don't know father."
"You d-d-don't know? If you stutter like that Mother will have to take you to
the the doctor."
3. She never stuttered with others people - had quite given it up - but
only with father, beacuse then she was trying so hard so say the words
properly.
"What's the matter ? What are you looking so wretched about? Mother, I wish
you taught this child not to appear on the brink of suicide..here, Kezia,
carry my teacup back to the table carefully."
He was so big - his hands and his neck especially his mouth when he yawned.
Thinking about him alone was like thinking about a giant.
4. On Sunday afternoon grandmother sent her down to
the drawing-room to have a "nice talk with Father and Mother" . But the little
girl always found Mother reading and Father stretched out on the sofa, his
handkerchief on his face, his feet on one of the best cushions, sleeping
soundly and snoring.
The little girl always found mother reading and father stretched out on the
sofa
She sat on a stool, gravely watched him until he woke and stretched, and asked
the time - then looked at her.
"Don't stare so, kezia. You look like a little brown owl."
One day, when she was kept indoors with a cold, her grandmother told her that
Father's birthday was next week, and suggested she should make him a
pin-cushion for a gift out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk.
5. Laboriously, with a double cotton, the little girl
stitched three sides. But what to fill it with ? That was the question. The
grandmother was out in the garden, and she wandered into Mother's bedroom to
took for scraps. On the bed-table she discoverd a great many sheets of fine
paper, gathered them, tore them into tiny pieces, and stuffed her case, then
sewed up the fourth side.
That night there was a hue and cry in the house. Father's great speech for the
port Authority had been lost. Rooms were searched; servents questioned.
Finally Mother came into Kezia's room.
"Kezia, I suppose you didn't see some papers on a table in our room?
"OH yes, " she said ," I tore them up for my surprise."
"What ! Screamed Mother. "Come straight down to the dining room this
instant
6. And she was dragged down to where father was pacing to and from hand
behind his back.
"Well?" He said sharply.
Mother explained.
He stopped and stared at the child. "Did you do that? "N-n-no", she
whispered
"Mother, go up to her room and fetch down the damned thing- see that the
child's put to bed this instant."
7. Crying too much to explain, she lay in The shadowed room
watching the evening light make sad little pattern on the floor.
Then father came into the room with a ruler in his hands.
"I am going to beat you for this, " he said
"OH, no, no" she screamed , hiding under the bedclothes.
He pulled them aside.
"Sid up," he ordered, "and hold out your hands. You must be taught once and
for all not to touch what does not belong to you," But it was for your
b-b-birthday."
Down came the ruler on her little, pink palms.
8. Hours later, when grand mother had wrapped her In a shawl and
rocked her in the rocking-chair, the child clung to her soft body.
"What did God make Father's for ? " she sobbed.
"Here's a clean hanky, darling. Blow your nose. Go to sleep, pet: you'll
forget all about it in the morning. I tried to explain to father but he was to
upset to listen tonight.
But the child never forgot. Next time she saw him she quickly put both hands
behind her back and a red colour flew into her cheeks.
9. The Macdonalds lived next door. They had five children. Looking
through a gap in the fence the little girl saw them playing 'tag' in the
evening. The evening. The father with the baby, Mao, I'm his shoulders, two
little girls hanging on to his coat pockets ran round and round the
flower-beds, shaking with laughter. Once she saw the the boys turn the hose on
him-and he tried to catch them laughing all the time.
Then it was she decided there were different sorts of father's.
Suddenly, one day, mother became ill, and she and grandmother went to
hospital. The little girl was left alone in the house with Alice, the cook.
That was all right in the daytime, but while Alice was putting her to bed she
grew Suddenly afraid.
10. "What'll I do if I have a nightmare?" She asked. "I often have
nightmares and then Grannie takes me into her bed-- I can't stay in the dark
-- it all gets 'whispery'....
"You just go to sleep, child, " said Alice, pulling off her socks, "and don't
you scream and wake your poor Pa."
But the same old nightmare came-- the butcher with a knife and a rope, who
came nearer and nearer, smiling that dreadful smile, while she could not move,
could only stand still, crying out, "Grandma ! Grandma! " she woke shivering
to see father beside her bed, a candle In his hand.
"What's the matter?" He said.
11. "OH, a butcher -- a knife -- I want grannie. "He blew out the
candle, bent down and caught up the child in his arms, carrying her along the
passage to the big bedroom.
A newspaper was on the bad -- a half - smoked cigar was near his reading-lamp.
He put away the paper, threw the cigar into the fireplace, then care fully
tucked up the child he lay down beside her. Half asleep still, still with the
butcher's smile all about her it seemed, she crept close to him, snuggled her
head under his arm, held tightly to his shirt.
Then the dark did not matter; she lay still.
"Here, rub your feet against my legs and get them warm." Said Father.
12. Tired out, he slept before the little girl. A funny feeling came
over her. Poor father, not so big, after all - and with no one to look after
him. He was harder than grandmother, but it was a nice hardness. And every day
he had to work and was too tired to be a Mr Macdonald...she had torn up all
his beautiful writing ......she stirred suddenly, and sighed. "What's the
matter ?" Asked her father. "Another dream?
"OH, " said the little girl, "my head's on your heart.
I can hear it going. What a big heart you've got, Father dear."
