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Updated: May 27, 2025
In the cool of the evening she trudged along the canal bank with Farr and the play-mamma until eyes grew heavy and little feet stumbled with weariness and it was time for bed. Rainy evenings they studied the alphabet or he read to her from picture-books in blazing colors, and after a time she remembered all the stories and made believe read them to him.
There was only the one carriage it was sufficient to carry the friends of little Rosemarie: one Walker Farr and old Etienne and play-mamma Zelie Dionne. The rack-tender sat opposite Farr and nursed a bundle on his knees. He had wrapped it surreptitiously. The two men sent Zelie Dionne back to the city in the carriage.
The old man grinned and started away. "We're going out where the birds will sing good night to you," Farr told the child and lifted her off his knees. But at the door she stopped and turned to Zelie Dionne, who had not risen. "Come, play-mamma!" "I will wait here till you come back, Rosemarie." But the child was coaxingly insistent, holding out her hand.
"I think it is because she has been so lonely all her life," suggested Farr. "Now that she has found friends she wants them to be with her in her little pleasures. May I presume enough to add my invitation to hers?" She came and the child walked between them, holding their hands. "One papa and my play-mamma!" she said, looking up at them in turn.
In her prostration of mental energies and of hope she confessed to herself that she had loved him. But now between his face and hers, as she shut her eyes and reproduced his features, limned in her memory, those fiery words danced there was a "play-mamma" who with him had loved the little girl named Rosemarie. Checking her sobs, she sighed, and her heart surrendered him.
"I have been talking to our little Rosemarie and she will not cry any more for her good mamma who has gone up to the green hills because she is sick and must rest. So Rosemarie will be patient and live here and I will be play-mamma." "Yes, play-mamma," agreed the child. "Good play-mamma! Two mammas! But only one papa!"
His grasp grew tense. "See how I am trying to be calm? I will not loose my grip on myself. Our doom was written for us by other hands, dear heart. When it was summer I walked here with Rosemarie and play-mamma. Now it is autumn and " "Play-mamma!" she gasped.
The old man's mouth trembled; he was frightened. "What you hear?" he faltered. "Only good things. That she was very tender and went with you to the grave." "Oui," admitted Etienne, visibly relieved and grasping at this opportunity. "She's sweet and good. She's play-mamma." "And her name is Zelie Dionne?" she asked, her face growing white in the dusk.
If one had questioned him he could have told weeks ahead just what his plans of purchases were, for he canvassed all the possibilities with the play-mamma who knew so well how to get value for a dollar who knew the places to buy and whose needle helped to much. It was a wicked summer for those who were doomed to the mills and the tenement-houses.
"You shall talk with her soon p'raps. I will tell her so that she will not be afraid. Yes, you shall hear the play-mamma say good things of poor Rosemarie." She bowed and hurried away. And before her tear-wet eyes the words "play-mamma" danced in letters of fire. It seemed to be only another sordid story.
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