The Copy-Cat [39]
too." "Little Lucy," he said, and lowered his voice, "you must promise me never, as long as you live, to tell what I am going to tell you." Little Lucy looked frightened. "Promise!" insisted Jim. "I promise," said little Lucy, in a weak voice. "Never, as long as you live, to tell anybody. Promise!" "I promise." "Now, you know if you break your promise and tell, you will be guilty of a dreadful lie and be very wicked." Little Lucy shivered. "I never will." "Well, my new cousin Content Adams -- tells lies." Little Lucy gasped. "Yes, she does. She says she has a big sister Solly, and she hasn't got any big sister Solly. She never did have, and she never will have. She makes believe." "Makes believe?" said little Lucy, in a hopeful voice. "Making believe is just a real mean way of lying. Now I made Content promise last night never to say one word in school about her big sister Solly, and I am going to tell you this, so you can tell Lily and the others and not lie. Of course, I don't want to lie myself, because my father is rector, and, besides, mother doesn't approve of it; but if anybody is going to lie, I am the one. Now, you mind, little Lucy. Content's big sister Solly has gone away, and she is never coming back. If you tell Lily and the others I said so, I can't see how you will be lying." Little Lucy gazed at the boy. She looked like truth incarnate. "But," said she, in her adorable stupidity of innocence, "I don't see how she could go away if she was never here, Jim." "Oh, of course she couldn't. But all you have to do is to say that you heard me say she had gone. Don't you understand?" "I don't understand how Content's big sister Solly could possibly go away if she was never here." "Little Lucy, I wouldn't ask you to tell a lie for the world, but if you were just to say that you heard me say --" "I think it would be a lie," said little Lucy, "be- cause how can I help knowing if she was never here she couldn't --" "Oh, well, little Lucy," cried Jim, in despair, still with tenderness -- how could he be anything but tender with little Lucy? -- "all I ask is never to say anything about it." "If they ask me?" "Anyway, you can hold your tongue. You know it isn't wicked to hold your tongue." Little Lucy absurdly stuck out the pointed tip of her little red tongue. Then she shook her head slowly. "Well," she said, "I will hold my tongue." This encounter with innocence and logic had left him worsted. Jim could see no way out of the fact that his father, the rector, his mother, the rector's wife, and he, the rector's son, were disgraced by their relationship to such an unsanctified little soul as this queer Content Adams. And yet he looked at the poor lonely little girl, who was trying very hard to learn her lessons, who sug- gested in her very pose and movement a little, scared rabbit ready to leap the road for some bush of hiding, and while he was angry with her he pitied her. He had no doubts concerning Content's keeping her promise. He was quite sure that he would now say nothing whatever about that big sister Solly to the others, but he was not prepared for what happened that very afternoon. When he went home from school his heart stood still to see Miss Martha Rose, and Arnold Carruth's aunt Flora, and his aunt who was not his aunt, Miss Dorothy Vernon, who was visiting her, all walking along in state with their lace-trimmed parasols, their white gloves, and their nice card-cases. Jim jumped a fence and raced across lots home, and gained on them. He burst in on his mother, sitting on the porch, which was inclosed by wire netting overgrown with a budding vine. It was the first warm day of the season. "Mother," cried Jim Patterson -- "mother, they are coming!" "Who, for goodness' sake, Jim?" "Why, Arnold's aunt Flora and his aunt Dorothy and little Lucy's aunt Martha. They are coming to call." Involuntarily Sally's hand went up to smooth her pretty hair. "Well, what of it, Jim?" said she. "Mother, they will ask for -- big sister Solly!" Sally Patterson turned pale. "How do you know?" "Mother, Content has been talking at school.