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Updated: June 8, 2025
It was all most entrancing, the gilded wagons, the restless beasts behind their bars, the spotted ponies, the swaying elephants, the bands playing, the crowds streaming . Teddy held tight to Jean's hand. Margaret-Mary was carried high on Derry's shoulder. All of her curls were bobbing, and her eyes were shining. Now and then she dropped a light kiss on the silver blond hair of her cavalier.
"Anything the matter?" "Father isn't well. Dr. McKenzie has taken the case. Richards has gone to the front. Bronson will call me if there are any unfavorable developments." Margaret-Mary, curled up like a kitten in the curve of Cousin Derry's arm, was exploring his vest pocket. She found two very small squares of Washington taffy wrapped in wax paper, one for herself and one for Teddy.
Margaret-Mary was too young to understand she was easily comforted. Derry sang a little song and her eyes drooped. But downstairs the little son who was brave like his father, sat on the edge of the bed, and held his mother's hand. "He's in Paradise with the purple camels, Mother, and he's a shining soul ." It was a week before Jean went with Derry to see Margaret.
And at last the Tin Soldier cried out, 'I can't stand it. I want to go to the wars I want to go to the wars! But nobody listened or cared." "Poor 'itte sing," Margaret-Mary crooned. "If I had been there," Teddy proclaimed, "I'd have put him on the floor and told him to run and run and run!"
They sat down after that; and Jean listened frozenly while Margaret and Derry talked. The children in front of the fire were looking at the pictures in a book which Derry had brought. Teddy, stretched at length on the rug in his favorite attitude, was reading to Margaret-Mary. His mop of bright hair, his flushed cheeks, his active gestures spoke of life quick in his young body .
Margaret-Mary having gazed her fill, slept comfortably in Jean's arms. "Let me hold her," Derry said. Jean shook her head. "I love to have her here." She had taken off her hat, and as she bent above the child her hair made a halo of gold. In the midst of all the tawdriness she was a still and sacred figure a Madonna with a child. Teddy, when he reached home, told the General all about it.
"But Emily is the only happy one, except the children, and I sometimes think that even they have the shadow on them of the dreadful things that are happening. Margaret-Mary tries to knit, and tires her stubby little fingers with the big needles, and Teddy, poor chap, seems to feel that he must be the man of the family and take his father's place, and he is pathetically careful of his mother.
Margaret-Mary in a diminutive blue dressing gown and infinitesimal slippers, with her curls brushed tidily up from the back of her neck and skewered with a hairpin, came over and laid her hand on his knee. "Dus a 'itte 'tory?" she asked ingratiatingly. She adored stories. He picked her up, and she curled herself into the corner of his arm. Her mother found her there.
"We used to see them in the country on the path in front of the house, and the light from the west made their ears look like tiny electric bulbs." Margaret-Mary entranced by one small bunny with a splash of white for a cotton tail, sang, "Pitty sing, pitty sing." "They don't weally lay eggs, do they?" Teddy ventured. "I wouldn't ask such questions if I were you, Teddy." "Why not?"
They rode in the General's limousine to where the big tent with all its flags flying covered a vast space. "Cousin Derry, Mother said I might have some peanuts." "All right, old man." "And Margaret-Mary mustn't. But there are some crackers in a bag."
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