Not a word had been heard
concerning her, and her story was gradually being forgotten by the
people of Shannondale. Her grave, however, was tolerably well kept, and
every Saturday afternoon, in summer time, a few flowers were put upon it
by Harold. Not so much for the sake of the dead as for the beautiful
child who always accompanied him, laughing, and frolicking, and
sometimes dancing around the grave where he told her her mother was
buried.
As there had been no date on which to fix Jerry's birth, they had called
the first day of March her birthday, so that when more than two years
later we introduce her to our readers on a hot July morning, she was
said to be six years and four months old. In some respects, however, she
seemed much older, for there was about her a precocity only found in
children who have always associated with people much older than
themselves, or into whose lives strange experiences have come. In
stature she was very short, though round and plump as a partridge.
'Dutchy,' Mr. Tracy called her, for Mrs. Tracy did not like her, and
took no pains to conceal her dislike, though it was based upon nothing
except the money which she knew was paid regularly to Mrs. Crawford for
the child's maintenance.
There could be no reason, she said to her husband, why he should support
the child of a tramp, and the woman had been little better, judging from
appearances, unless, indeed--and then she told what old Peterkin had
said more than once, to the effect that Jerry Crawford, as she was
called, was growing to be the image of the Tracys, especially Arthur.
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