Part 7

Then another little child said: "My Mama has made me a beautiful pink dress, and I will wear that to your party."

Mama? My Mama?

Bessie Bell leaned against the little fluted post of the gallery to the cabin where she and Sister Helen Vincula lived, and thought a great deal about that.

And Bessie Bell wondered a great deal what that could mean: Mama? My Mama?

There were strange new things in this world.

Bessie Bell almost forgot to remember now, because every day was so full of such strange new things to know.

Mama? My Mama?

Bessie Bell did a great deal of thinking about that.

One day the little children were playing at building rock chimneys.

There was not much sand there for little children to play in, so that the children often built rock chimneys, and rock tables, and rock fences.

As they were playing one little girl suddenly left the playground and ran, calling: "Mama! Mama! Come here; come this way, and see the chimney we have built!"

Bessie Bell turned quickly from play and looked after the little girl who was running across the playground to where three ladies were standing.

The little girl caught the dress of one of the ladies, and came pulling at her dress and bringing her across the ground to see the stone chimney, and the little girl kept saying:

"Look, Mama! See, Mama! Isn't it a grand chimney? Won't it 'most hold smoke?"

Bessie Bell stood still with her little hands--they were beginning to be round pink little hands again, now--clasped in front of her and wondered.

"See, Mama! Look, Mama!" cried the little girl.

"Why does she say: Mama?" asked Bessie Bell, because she just wondered, and wondered--and she did not know.

"Because it is her Mama," said a child who had just brought two more rocks to put on the chimney.

"Oh," said Bessie Bell.

That lady who was the little girl's Mama looked much as all the ladies looked.

"Are all Ladies Mamas?" asked Bessie Bell.

She hoped the child who had brought the two rocks would not laugh, for Bessie Bell knew she would cry if she did.

The little girl did not laugh at all. She was trying so carefully to put the last rock on top of the stone chimney, she said: "No, Bessie Bell: some are Mamas, and some are only just Ladies."

There. There it was again: Only-Just-Ladies.

Bessie Bell wondered how to tell which were Mamas, and which were Ladies--just Ladies.

Very often after that day she watched those who passed the cabin where she and Sister Helen Vincula lived, and wondered which were Mamas--

And which were Ladies.

There was no rule of old or young by which Bessie Bell could tell.