Chapter III: Playing “injuns.”

“Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I
shall be whiter than snow.”

“We’re playing Injuns; that’s what ’tis,” said Tod, as his mother opened the shed door and stepped back, exclaiming, “Well, what now?”

Jackson, the gardener, had been painting brick-work, trellises, vases, etc., and put away his materials, red, white, and green paint, with the brushes, on the lower shelf of the tool-room, opening out of the shed. Tod and Maybee had discovered the treasures, and with the help of an old feather duster had transformed themselves into quite respectable savages.

“It’ll come off easy,” said Tod, pulling out the feathers and rubbing his hand over both cheeks, blending the different colors into one neutral tint, around which his yellow hair stood out like an aureola.

“Was there ever such children!” sighed Mamma Smith despairingly. “There’s no washing it off. Do come here, Dolly, and see what _can_ be done.”

“Oh laws! jest let me have some sperits of turpentine,” said faithful Dolly, who had reigned in the Smith kitchen years before Tod was born. “I’ll go get some of Jackson, and do you childern jest run round to the kitchen. We’ll hev it fixed in no time.”

“I sha’n’t have any spurtuntine on my face,” said Maybee decidedly, as Dolly disappeared in search of Jackson. “What’s water for, I’d like to know, if ’tisn’t to wash in,—soap an’ water, that’s what my mamma uses. I don’t think Dolly knows.”

“My guesses her does,” returned Tod, looking ruefully at each little red and green finger, “but—it’s being scwubbed; my’d rather scwub his own self.”

“She won’t spurtuntine me,” repeated Maybee, slowly following Tod, who, to his honor be it told, never thought of going anywhere but straight to the kitchen. “What makes you let her?”

“’Cause my mamma say her must, an’ my doesn’t want to be a forever ’n ’never Injun, does my?”

“I’d just lieves,” rejoined Maybee sullenly. “We hadn’t played scalp ’em, nor had a pow-wow, nor nothing. It’s real mean they found us so quick.”

“Only—p’raps ’twould a dried on,” said Tod, looking doubtfully at Maybee’s tattooed cheeks and feeling of his own.

“Hurry along!” called Dolly, from the back door. “I can’t fool round all the morning; and besides, I was jest going to fry some crullers, an’ you know what kind of boys ’tis gets hot crullers to eat; ’tain’t red and black ones now.”

That helped Tod wonderfully. He marched in like a Trojan, and manfully stood all the rubbing and rinsing, with only a faint little squeal whenever nose or ears threatened to come quite off. Maybee curled up in a chair, her black eyes shining defiantly from out the red and green rings.

“’Twasn’t so very bad, was it, Bub?” said Dolly, with a final sweep of her softest towel, “and you’re as sweet and clean as a posy, letting alone the turpentine smell. Now, lemme give my crullers a stir, an’ we’ll look after you, Miss Maybee.”

“Guess I can look after my own self,” muttered Maybee, slipping over to the sink in Dolly’s absence, and seizing a cake of yellow soap. Two or three whisks of the soapy hands over her face, and the black eyes shone out from the mottled ground-work like stars in a cloudy sky.

“Oh, my gracious!” said Dolly, reappearing. “Now you’ve been and done it! Didn’t you know ev’ry such thing only makes it wuss an’ wuss? You couldn’t never git it off, yourself, try as long as you live. Come, I sha’n’t hurt skersely any.”

“Feels good now,” said Tod encouragingly.

“’Tain’t more’n half off, much,” rejoined Maybee, who, like all uncomfortable people wanted to make somebody else uncomfortable.

“Yes, ’tis,” affirmed Tod, feeling his face over.

“You don’t know; you haven’t looked in the glass,” pouted Maybee.

“Yes, my does, ’cause her said her’d get it off, an’ her never tells lies,” answered Tod triumphantly.

“To be sure,” said Dolly, giving Tod a hug. “Come, now, it’s just as easy.”

“I sha’n’t!” persisted Maybee, backing into the farthest corner. “I won’t be washed, so there!”

“Oh well, jest as you please,” said Dolly, gathering up her towels. “If you’d rather look like a wild Injun, I don’t know as anybody cares. Remember, it’s your own fault, that’s all.”

Now Dolly had forgotten and the children knew nothing about Tryphosa Harte, sitting just inside the dining-room door. Tryphosa had come for the clothes; her mother did Mrs. Smith’s washing, and she was waiting for the bundle to be made ready. She had never come for the clothes till since she began to go to Sabbath School. She liked, now, to meet the girls of her class on the street, to get a pleasant “Good morning” from Miss Cox or Miss Marvin, as she passed, and above all to have Say Ellis run out, as she was sure to do, and walk a little ways down the lane with her. By working extra at noon she could get the half hour for her errand, and it was a great help to her mother. Tryphosa never used to think of that, but she thought of a great many new things now-a-days. Yesterday Miss Marvin heard the Sabbath School class, and in her plain, simple way had told them how sin blackened and stained the heart, and how only the blood of Jesus could make it clean again; that nothing they could do for themselves would whiten it the least bit: they were simply to ask God, and he would make it “white as snow.” But people didn’t want to be clean, she said, or else they wanted to be cleansed their own way, although God’s way was so simple. It was so very strange everybody didn’t want God for their friend and heaven for their home.

Hearing or caring about God or heaven was all new to Phosy, but she thought she could love Miss Marvin’s God; she didn’t feel afraid, as she did when Miss Cox talked about him. She would like such a friend; she would much rather have her heart sweet and clean, like the clover-fields, than like the filthy, dirty streets down by the mills; but she couldn’t understand the “_how_”—the three steps Miss Marvin called it,—wanting, asking, believing. Listening to the talk out in the kitchen that morning, somehow it grew wonderfully plain. Wasn’t it something like? Maybee didn’t want to be clean, or rather she wanted to be washed her own way; and how foolish she was! Tod had trusted himself to Dolly, and his round rosy, happy face told he had not been deceived.

Up in the little attic chamber of the old house, in the few minutes saved from her scanty nooning, Phosy kneeled down, and with a whole heartful of longing, said, “Dear Father in heaven, wash me, for I want to be clean, an’ nobody else can make me.” Then she went away to the noisy factory, happier than she ever remembered of being before.

“What’s come over Phosy Harte?” said one and another of the girls as the days went by. “She don’t swear more’n half as much, and she goes purring round, spry and happy as a kitten.”

They didn’t know, they wouldn’t have understood if they had, the “new life” that had come to Phosy. They could only see what it was doing for hand and eye and tongue. She might not always be as happy. There were all those dreadful habits to be fought with and conquered; but a great God had promised to help her,—one whose word never fails, and who had laid up for her “white robes” and a “crown,”—for all those, indeed, who are “washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb,” not for sin-blackened souls who refuse to be made clean.