"Don't try, ma, Loui' good," lisped the infant on the floor, while Mrs. Kennedy, drying at last her tears, told to the wondering Maude that Louis was not like other children--that he would probably never have the use of his feet--that a hunch was growing on his back--and he in time would be--she could not say "deformed," and so she said at last--"he'll be forever lame."
Poor little Maude! How all her childish dreams were blasted! She had anticipated so much pleasure in guiding her brother's tottering footsteps, in leading him to school, to church, and everywhere, and she could not have him lame.
"Oh, Louis, Louis!" she cried, winding her arms around his neck, as if she would thus avert the dreaded evil.
Very wonderfully the child looked up into her eyes, and raising his waxen hand he wiped her tears away, saying as he did so, "Loui' love Maude."
With a choking sob Maude kissed her baby brother, then going back to her mother, whose head still lay upon the table, she whispered, "We will love poor Louis all the more, you and I."
Blessed Maude, we say again, for these were no idle words, and the clinging, tender love with which she cherished her unfortunate brother ought to have shamed the heartless man who, when he heard of his affliction, refused to be comforted, and almost cursed the day when his only son was born. He had been absent for a week or more, and with the exception of the time when he first knew he had a son he did not remember of having experienced a moment of greater happiness than that in which he reached his home where dwelt his boy--his pride--his idol. Louis was not in the room, and on the mother's face there was an expression of sadness, which at once awakened the father's fears lest something had befallen his child.
"Where is Louis?" he asked. "Has anything happened to him that you look so pale?"
"Louis is well," answered Matty, and then, unable longer to control her feelings, she burst into tears, while the doctor looked on in amazement, wondering if all women were as nervous and foolish as the two it had been his fortune to marry.
"Oh, husband," she cried, feeling sure of his sympathy, and thinking it better to tell the truth at once; "has it never occurred to you that Louis was not like other children?"
"Of course it has," he answered quickly. "He is a thousand times brighter than any child I have ever known."
"'Tisn't that, 'tisn't that," said Matty. "He'll never walk--he's lame--deformed!"
"What do you mean?" thundered the doctor, reeling for an instant like a drunken man; then, recovering his composure, he listened while Matty told him what she meant.
At that moment Maude drew Louis into the room, and, taking the child in his arms, the doctor examined him for himself, wondering he had never observed before how small and seemingly destitute of life were his lower limbs. The bunch upon the back, though slight as yet, was really there, and Matty, when questioned, said it had been there for weeks, but she did not tell of it, for she hoped it would go away.
"It will stay until his dying day," he muttered, as he ordered Maude to take the child away. "Louis deformed! Louis a cripple! What have I done that I should be thus sorely punished?" he exclaimed, when he was alone with his wife; and then, as he dared not blame the Almighty, he charged it to her, until at last his thoughts took another channel. Maude had dropped him--he knew she had, and Matty was to blame for letting her handle him so much, when she knew 'twas a maxim of his that children should not take care of children.
He had forgotten the time when his worn-out wife had asked him to hire a nurse girl for Louis, and he had answered that "Maude was large enough for that." On some points his memory was treacherous, and for days he continued to repine at his hard fate, wishing once in Matty's presence that Louis had never been born.
"Oh, husband," she cried, "how can you say that! Do you hate our poor boy because he is a cripple?"
"A cripple!" roared the doctor. "Never use that word again in my presence. My son a cripple! I can't have it so! I won't have it so! for 'tis a max--"
Here he stopped, being for a second time in his life at a loss what to say.
"Sarve 'em right, sarve 'em right," muttered John, whose quick eye saw everything. "Ole Sam payin' him off good. He think he'll be in the seventh heaven when he got a boy, and he mighty nigh torment that little gal's life out with his mexens and things; but now he got a boy, he feel a heap like the bad place."
Still much as John rejoiced that his master was so punished, his heart went out in pity toward the helpless child whom he almost worshiped, carrying him often to the fields, where, seeking out the shadiest spot and the softest grass for a throne, he would place the child upon it, and then pay him obeisance by bobbing up and down his wooly head in a manner quite as satisfactory to Louis as if he indeed had been a king and John his loyal subject. Old Hannah, too, was greatly softened, and many a little cake and pie she baked in secret for the child, while even Nellie gave up to him her favorite playthings, and her blue eyes wore a pitying look whenever they rested on the poor unfortunate. All loved him seemingly the more--all, save the cruel father, who, as the months and years rolled on, seemed to acquire a positive dislike to the little boy, seldom noticing him in any way except to frown if he were brought into his sight. And Louis, with the quick instinct of childhood, learned to expect nothing from his father, whose attention he never tried to attract.
As if to make amends for his physical deformity, he possessed an uncommon mind, and when he was nearly six years of age accident revealed to him the reason of his father's continued coldness, and wrung from him the first tears he had ever shed for his misfortune.
