Little-Girl-Afraid-of-a-Dog

by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Little-Girl-Afraid-of-a-Dog first appeared in Harper's Monthly Magazine, December, 1906, and is featured in our collections, Dog Stories and Children's Stories.

“The chickens are beginning to lay again,” said Emmeline's aunt Martha, “and Emmeline can begin carrying eggs over to the poor Ticknors tomorrow.” Martha, who was quite young and pretty, cast a glance of congratulation at Emmeline, as if she were proposing a great pleasure.

Emmeline's mother echoed her sister. “Yes, that is so,” said she. “Sydney” (Sydney was the man) “said yesterday that the chickens were laying very well. Tomorrow Emmeline shall begin.”

“Only think how nice it is going to be for those poor Ticknors, with all those children, to have half a dozen new-laid eggs every day,” said Martha, again with that congratulatory glance at her little niece, who sat beside the window, holding her best doll.

“We shall be able to send more than that some days, I dare say,” said Emmeline's mother. “Maybe, when I go to the store, I will buy a pretty new basket for you to carry the eggs in, dear.”

“Yes'm,” said Emmeline, in a low voice. She sat full in the glow of the setting wintry sun, and her whole little blond head and delicate face were gilded by it. It was impossible for her mother and her aunt to see that she had turned very pale. She kept her face turned toward the window, too, and when she said “Yes'm” infused a hypocritical tone of joy into the word, although she was a most honest and conscientious little girl. In fact, the joy was assumed because of a Jesuit-like issue of conscience in her inner dealings with herself.

 

The Ticknors, the poor Ticknors, with the large brood of children, lived about half a mile down the road, and Emmeline's mother and aunt esteemed it a great delight for her to carry eggs to them when eggs were plentiful. Emmeline herself never denied the delight, but God alone knew how glad she was, how wickedly (she told herself that it was wickedly) glad she was, when about Thanksgiving time, when people naturally wished to use more eggs, the chickens, after the perverse nature of their race, laid fewer eggs, and there were only enough for the family. Then Emmeline had a respite. She grew plumper, and there was more color on her little, soft, curving cheeks. “Emmeline always seems so much better this time of the year,” her mother often said; and she never dreamed why it was, although Emmeline could have told her, had it not been for her conscience, which pricked her on in spite of her pains.

The Ticknors had a dog — a very small dog, it is true, but with voice enough for a whole pack — and Emmeline was in mortal terror of him. He always barked at her when she went to carry the eggs, and he always sniffed ominously around her ankles. Sometimes he made bounds of vicious yelping joy at her, almost reaching her face, although he was a little dog. Emmeline was a little girl, small for her age, which was barely ten. She was very much under the dominion, the very loving dominion, of her mother and aunt. Her father was dead. The Ameses — Emmeline's last name was Ames — lived on a small farm, and Sydney managed it. They were regarded as quite rich people in the little village where they lived, and they looked at themselves in that light. Therefore they realized a sense of duty, of pleasurable duty, toward the less fortunate people around them. At that very moment both Aunt Martha and Mrs. Ames were sewing upon garments for poor people — some strong and durable flannelette petticoats of soft pink and blue. Sometimes Emmeline herself was asked to sew a seam on these soft garments, and she always obeyed with the utmost docility, although she did not like to sew very well. She was a sober, reflective little girl, not exactly indolent, but inclined to sit quite still, while her young mind indulged in pryings into the future and conceptions of life and her own little niche in the universal scheme of things, which would have quite astounded her mother and her aunt Martha had they known of it. They saw in Emmeline only a darling, obedient, sweet little girl holding her doll baby; not as she really was — lit into flame by her own imaginings and the sun. Neither dreamed that, as she sat there and said “Yes'm” so prettily, she was shuddering in her very soul from a most exaggerated fear, stimulated by an imagination entirely beyond theirs, of the Ticknors' little dog.

 

Soon the copper-gilt glow faded from Emmeline's head and face, and she sat, a pale little shadow in the dusk, until her mother lighted the lamp, and Annie, the maid, came in to announce supper. Emmeline had not much appetite that night, although there were her favorite fried oysters and waffles. It seemed as if the subject of the eggs and the Ticknors, which caused her to project more plainly her vision of fear concerning the little dog, could not be let alone. They had hardly seated themselves at the table before Annie spoke of the large number of eggs which had been brought in that day. Annie had been with the Ameses a long time, and was considered quite a member of the family. “I think you can carry a dozen eggs tomorrow morning, dear,” Emmeline's mother said, happily.

“Yes'm,” replied Emmeline.

“Only think what it will mean to those poor Ticknors,” said Aunt Martha.

“Yes'm,” said Emmeline.

Then Emmeline's mother noticed that the child was not eating as usual. “Why, Emmeline,” she said, “you have not half finished your oysters!”

Emmeline looked helplessly at her plate, and said that she was not very hungry. She felt that she was wicked because she was not hungry, since she was so afraid of the Ticknors' little dog that she did not want to carry the eggs to them the next morning, when they were so poor and needed the eggs so much.

“If you don't eat your oysters, you must swallow two raw eggs,” said Emmeline's mother, suddenly. “Annie, beat up two eggs with a little sugar and nutmeg and a little milk.”

Emmeline felt just then more than a physical loathing: she felt a moral loathing for anything in the shape of an egg; but she swallowed the mixture, which Annie presently brought to her, with her usual docility.

“That will be just as nourishing as the oysters,” said Aunt Martha. Aunt Martha had on her pretty blue gown. She was expecting Mr. John Adams that evening. It was Wednesday, and Mr. John always came on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Emmeline knew why. She knew with a shy and secret admiration, and a forecast of Wednesday and Sunday evenings yet to be when some young man should come to see her. She made up her mind that she would wear red on those interesting occasions, which filled her, young as she was, with a sweet sense of mystery and prescience. She gazed at pretty Aunt Martha, in her gown of soft blue, cut out in a tiny square at the neck, revealing her long white throat. She forgot for a second the Ticknors and the Ticknor dog, which represented the genuine bugbear of her childhood. Then the old fear overcame her again. Her mother regarded her, and Aunt Martha regarded her; then the two women exchanged glances. After supper, when they were all on their way back to the sitting room, Emmeline's mother whispered anxiously in Martha's ear, “She doesn't look well.”

Martha nodded assent. “I don't think she has had enough fresh air lately,” she said, in a low voice. “It will do her good to take that morning run to the Ticknors'.”

 

“That is so,” assented Emmeline's mother. “I'll have her go to bed early tonight; then right after breakfast tomorrow morning, when the air is fresh, she can take the eggs to the Ticknors.”

Emmeline went to bed before Mr. John Adams arrived. Her mother tucked her in and kissed her, then blew out the lamp and went downstairs. Emmeline had said her prayers, introducing, mentally, a little clause with regard to the Ticknor dog. It was a piteous little child codicil to the Lord's Prayer and “Now I lay me,” which she always said.

After her mother had gone downstairs Emmeline lay awake staring at the darkness. The darkness very soon seemed to flicker with wildfire; grotesque faces grinned at her from the midst of this fire, which was and was not. A terrible horror, of which the little bugbear dog was the keystone, was over her. She wanted so to call her mother, to get up and run downstairs into the lamp-lit sitting room; but she lay still, stiff and rigid. She had too much self-control for her own good, young as she was. Presently she heard the distant tinkle of the front-door bell, and heard Aunt Martha open the door and greet Mr. John Adams. Again, for a second, her own spirit of joyous prophecy was over her; but after Mr. John Adams and Aunt Martha had gone into the parlor, and she could only hear the faint hum of their voices, she returned to her former state. However, it was not very long before her attention was again diverted. Mr. John Adams had a very deep bass voice. All of a sudden this great bass was raised. Emmeline could not distinguish one word, but it sounded like a roar to her. Then, also, she heard her Aunt Martha's sweet, shrill voice, almost loud enough for the words to be audible. Then she heard doors opening, and shutting with almost a slam; then she was certain she heard a sob from the front entry. Then she heard the sitting-room door opened with a fling, then a continuous agitated hum of conversation between her mother and aunt. Emmeline wondered why Mr. John Adams had gone so soon, and why he had almost slammed the door, and what her aunt and mother were talking about so excitedly. Then, as she had not much curiosity, her mind reverted to her own affairs, and again the wildfire of the darkness flickered and the grotesque faces grinned at her, and all her pleasant gates of sleep and dreams were guarded against her by the Ticknors' little dog.

Emmeline slept very little that night. When she did sleep, she had horrible dreams. Once she woke crying out, and her mother was standing over her with a lighted lamp. “What is the matter? Are you ill?” asked her mother. Her mother was much older than Aunt Martha, but she looked very pretty in her long, trailing white robe, with the lamp-light shining upon her loving, anxious face.

“I had a dream,” said Emmeline, faintly.

“I guess you were lying on your back,” said her mother. “Turn over on your side, darling, and try to go to sleep again. Don't think about the dream. Remember how you are going to carry eggs to those poor Ticknor children tomorrow morning. Then, I know, you will go to sleep.”

“Yes'm,” said Emmeline; and she turned obediently on her side, and her mother went out.

 

Emmeline slept no more that night. It was about four o'clock in the morning. The Ameses had quite an early breakfast, at seven o'clock. Emmeline reflected that in three hours she should be up and dressed and at the breakfast table; that breakfast would take about half an hour; that in about three hours and a half she would be on her way to the Ticknors'. She felt almost as a condemned criminal might have felt on the morning of his execution.

When she went laggingly downstairs, as Annie played a discordant chime on the string of Japanese bells, she felt weak and was very pale. Her mother and Martha, who herself looked wretched, as if she had been weeping all night, glanced at her, then again at each other. “It will do her good to get out in the fresh air,” said Martha, stifling a heavy sigh.

Emmeline's mother looked commiseratingly at her sister. “Why don't you slip on your brown gown and go with her, dear?” she said. “You look as if the air would do you good, too.”

Annie, coming in with the eggs, cast a sharp glance of mingled indignation and sympathy at Miss Martha. She knew perfectly well what the matter was. She had abnormally good ears, and had been in the dining room, the evening before, when Mr. John Adams was in the parlor with Miss Martha, and there was a door between, a badly hung door, with cracks in it, and she had heard. She had not meant to listen, although she felt that all the affairs of the Ames family were her own, and she had a perfect right to know about them. She knew that Mr. John Adams had been talking about where he and Miss Martha should live after they were married, and had insisted upon her going to live in the old Adams homestead with his mother and elder brother and two sisters, instead of living right along with Emmeline and her mother and herself (Annie). She considered that Miss Martha had done exactly right to stand out as she had done. Everybody knew what old Mrs. Ad