Cheery and the Chum/Chapter 1
_drop_initial_letter_C.png)
HEERY came out upon the veranda and stood looking about her. There are a great many things to see on a small girl's first day in the country; that is, the first day since last summer, which was a very long time ago.
There were two big locust-trees in full blossom, just across the gravel path, and stretched between them was a gay red-and-white-striped hammock. The hammock wasn't there last year, and Cheery wondered whether it had grown out of the trees during the winter, and also, whether it was that, or the white blossoms, or Mamma's handkerchief that smelled so sweet. She pulled the handkerchief out of her guimpe and sniffed at it very hard, but the odor was not so sweet as what seemed to come from the direction of the locust-trees, so she walked to the head of the steps and looked down them. Somehow they did not look nearly so long, nor so steep, as they had last year, but last year she was only four years old, and this year she was five, and Uncle Rob had promised her that if she would not cry more than once a week, all summer, he would let her be six next year. And now she hadn't cried a single time for two whole weeks, and if she kept on that way, perhaps—only perhaps, for he hadn't said so, he would let her be seven next year instead of six—or, if she didn't cry any at all—Cheery's eyes grew big—perhaps next year she would be a beautiful young lady, with a long, fluffy, pink dress, and her hair done up high with a lovely comb. She gathered the curls into her hand, and just then a robin in one of the locust-trees called: "Cheery, Cheery, Cheery!" and she forgot all about the pink dress and the lovely comb, and started down the steps. Half-way down she stopped suddenly.
"I 'most forgot!" she exclaimed, sitting down on the step and gazing longingly at the striped hammock that hung so temptingly low only across the gravel path. "I just know I could climb into it all by myself," she said, "and this step is so hard to sit on."
Aunt Beth peeped out of the front door. "Why don't you go and try the hammock, dearie?" she called.
"I can't," said Cheery.
"Why not?" asked Aunt Beth, coming out onto the veranda in her pretty blue kimono, with the big morning-glories straggling all over it. "I had it swung low on purpose so that you could reach it."
Cheery shook her head soberly. "No," she said, "I promised The Chum I wouldn't step off the veranda until he came."
"But he won't be here for two hours!" exclaimed Aunt Beth.
"I know it," said Cheery, bravely, "but he was at my house last week, and when he found I'd get here first and see everything before he did, he felt so sorry, that I promised I wouldn't step one foot off the veranda until he came, so we could go with each other."
Aunt Beth came half-way down the steps and sat down beside the little girl. "Why did you promise him that?" she asked, taking Cheery's little pink fingers and pinching them gently, one at a time. "Didn't you know that it would be hard?"
Cheery nodded her head. "Yes," she said, "but it is just hard on the outside, you know."
"On the outside? What do you mean?" asked Aunt Beth.
"Why, you see—" Cheery couldn't find quite the right words, "—you see—when I look at the hammock over there, I want to go and climb right into it, but that's just on the outside—and then, when I think of The Chum, and of how glad he'll be that I waited, and what fun it will be to go with each other, that's inside, and it's lots bigger, 'cause it's the thought love made—and so I'm going to wait."
Aunt Beth drew the little girl into her arms. "You believe the thoughts love makes are the best ones?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," said Cheery, earnestly, "Mamma always has me ask myself if love made me think things, and if love didn't, then she has me unthink them."
"Unthink them? How in the world do you do that?" asked Aunt Beth.
"Why," said Cheery, "when you think a thing, that's thinking it, isn't it?"
"Yes," admitted Aunt Beth, "I guess it is."
"Well, then, if you—if you—" Cheery stopped. It seemed very hard to make Aunt Beth understand; "why, if you turn it—back side forward that's unthinking it, isn't it?"
Aunt Beth laughed. "I suppose it is," she said.
"Of course it is," said Cheery, positively; "so when I thought I wanted to do what I promised I wouldn't, that was thinking it; and then when I knew that love didn't make me think it, and knew that I'd really rather wait for The Chum, that was unthinking it, wasn't it?"
Aunt Beth hugged her. "It certainly was, dearie," she said, "and now I'll show you something, while we wait for The Chum. It's white and it's pink and it's alive, and it's for you two."