But there were days when
the sight of a woman's face would have been a glimpse of paradise
to her, days when she almost wildly regretted her boy had not been
a girl--just a little sweet-voiced girl, a thing of her own sex and
kind. But it always seemed at these moments that Grahamie would
providentially rush in to her with some glad story of sport or
adventure, and she would snatch him tightly in her arms and say,
"No, no, boy of mine, I don't want even a girlie, if I may only
keep you." And once when her thoughts had been more than usually
traitorous in wishing he had been a girl, the child seemed to
divine some idea of her struggle; for a moment his firm little
fingers caught her hand encouragingly, and he said in a whisper,
"Are you fighting it out alone, mother--just single-handed?"
"Just single-handed, dearest," she replied.
Then he scampered away, but paused to call back gravely, "Remember
Sergeant Black, mother."
"Yes, Grahamie, I'll try to," she replied brightly. At that moment
he was the lesser child of the two.
And so the winter crept slowly on, and the brief, brilliant summer
flitted in, then out, like a golden dream. The second snows were
upon the little fort, the second Christmas, the second long, long
weeks and months of the new year.
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