My first day in Bermuda paid a dividend—in fact a double dividend: it broke the back of my cold and it added a jewel to my collection. As I entered the breakfast roomⒶtextual note the first object I saw in that spacious and far-reaching place was a little girl seated solitary at a table for two. I bent down over her and patted her cheek and said, affectionately and with compassion,

“Why you dear little rascal—doⒶtextual note you have to eat your breakfast all by yourself in this desolate way?”

She turned up her face with a sweet friendliness in it and said, not in a tone of censure, but of approval,

“Mamma is a little slow, but she came down here to get rested.”

“She has found the right place, dear. I don’t seem to remember your name; what is it?”

By the sparkle in her brown eyes, it amused her. She said,

“Why you’ve never known it, Mr. Clemens, because you’ve never seen me before.”

“Why that is true, now that I come to think; it certainly is true, and it must be one of the reasons why I have forgotten your name. But I remember it now perfectly—it’s Mary.”

She was amused again; amused beyond smiling; amused to a chuckle, a musical gurgle, and she said,

“Oh no it isn’t, it’s Margaret.”

I feigned to be ashamed of my mistake, and said,

[begin page 203] “Ah well, I couldn’t have made that mistake a few years ago, but I am old now, and one of age’s earliest infirmities is a damaged memory; but I am clearer now—clearer-headed—it all comes back to me; I remember your whole name now, just as if it were yesterday. It’s Margaret Holcomb.”

She was surprised into a laugh this time; the rippling laugh that a happy brook makes when it breaks out of the shade into the sunshine, and she said,

“Oh you are wrong again; you don’t get anything right. It isn’t Holcomb, it’s BlackmerⒺexplanatory note.”

I was ashamed again, and confessed it; then—

“How old are you, dear?”

“Twelve, New Year’s. Twelve and a month.”

“Ah, you’ve got it down fine, honey; it belongs to your blessed time of life; when we get to be seventy-two we don’t reckon by months any more.”

She said, with a fine complimentary surprise in her innocent eyes,

“Why you don’t look old, Mr. Clemens.”

I said I wasn’t, except by the almanacⒶtextual note—otherwise I was only fourteen. I patted her daintyⒶtextual note brown handⒶtextual note and added,

“Good-bye dear, I am going to my table now; but after breakfast— Where are you going to wait for me?”

“In the big general room.”

“I’ll be there.”

We were close comrades—inseparables in fact—for eight days. Every day we made pedestrian excursions—called them that anywayⒶtextual note, and honestly they were intended for that, and that is what they would have been but for the persistent intrusion of a gray and grave and rough-coated little donkey by the name of MaudeⒶtextual note. MaudeⒶtextual note was four feet long; she was mounted on four slender little stilts, and had ears that doubled her altitude when she stood them up straight. Which she seldom did. Her ears were a most interesting study. She was always expressing her private thoughts and opinions with them, and doing it with such nice shadings, and so intelligibly, that she had no need of speech whereby to reveal her mind. This was all new to me. The donkey had always been a sealed book to me before, but now I saw that I could read this one as easily as I could read coarse print. Sometimes she would throw those ears straight forward, like the prongs of a fork; under the impulse of a fresh emotion she would lower the starboard one to a level; next she would stretch it backward till it pointed nor’-nor’eastⒶtextual note; next she would retire it to due east, and presently clear down to southeast-by-southⒶtextual note—all these changes revealing her thoughts to me without her suspecting it. She always worked the port ear for a quite different set of emotions, and sometimes she would fetch both ears rearward till they were level and became a fork,Ⓐtextual note the one prongⒶtextual note pointing southeast the other southwest. She was a most interesting little creature, and always self-possessed, always dignified, always resisting authority; never in agreement with anybody, and if she ever smiled once during the eight days I did not catch her at it. Her tender was a little bit of a cart with seat room for two in it, and you could fall out of it without knowing it, it was so close to the ground. This battery was in command of a nice grave, dignified, gentle-faced little [begin page 204] black boy whose age was about twelve, and whose name, for some reason or other, was Reginald. Reginald and MaudeⒶtextual note—I shall not easily forget those gorgeousⒶtextual note names, nor the combination they stood for. Once I reproached Reginald. I said,

“Reginald, what kind of morals do you sport? You contracted to be here with the battery yesterday afternoon—on the Sabbath Day, mind you—at two o’clock, to assist in the usual pedestrian excursion to Spanish Point and Paradise Vale, and you violated that contract. What is the explanation of this conduct—this conduct which in my opinion is criminal?”

He was not flurried, not affected in any way; not humiliated, not disturbed in his mind. He didn’t turn a feather, but justified his course as calmly and as comprehensively with his tranquil voiceⒶtextual note as MaudeⒶtextual note could have done it with her ears:

“Why,Ⓐtextual note I had to go to Sunday-school.”

I said with severity,

“So it is Bermudian morals, is it, to break contracts in order to keep the Sabbath? What do you think of yourself, Reginald?”

The rebuke was lost; it didn’t hit him anywhere. He said, easily and softly and contentedly,

“Why I couldn’t keep ’em both; I had to break one of ’em.”

I dropped the matter there. There’s no use in arguing against a settled conviction.

The excursioning party always consisted of the same persons: Miss W.Ⓔexplanatory note,* Mr. Ashcroft, Margaret, Reginald, MaudeⒶtextual note and me. The trip, out and return,Ⓐtextual note was five or six miles, and it generally took us three hours to make it. This was because MaudeⒶtextual note set the pace. Sometimes she kept up with her own shadow, but mostly she didn’t. She had the finest eye in the company for an ascending grade; she could detect an ascending grade where neither water nor a spirit-level could do it, and whenever she detected an ascending grade she respected it; she stopped and said with her ears,

“This is getting unsatisfactory. We will camp here.”

Then all the vassals would get behind the cart and shove it up the ascending grade, and shove MaudeⒶtextual note along with it. The whole idea of these excursions was that Margaret and I should employ them for the gathering of strength, by walking—yet we were oftener in the cart than out of it. She drove and I superintended. In the course of the first excursion I found a beautiful little shell on the beach at Spanish Point; its hinge was old and dry, and the two halves came apart in my hand. I gave one of them to Margaret and said,

“Now dear, some timeⒶtextual note or other in the future I shall run across you somewhere, and it may turn out that it is not you at all, butⒶtextual note some girl that only resembles you. I shall be saying to myself ‘I know that this is a Margaret, by the look of her, but I don’t know for sure whether itⒶtextual note is my Margaret or somebody else’s;’ but no matter, I can soon find out, for I shall take my half-shell out of my pocket and say ‘I think you are my Margaret,

---

*AⒶtextual note bright and charming lady with a touch of gray in her hair, head of a college in the University of Chicago, Margaret’s most devoted friend, if I except myself. [begin page 205] but I am not certain; if you are my Margaret you will be able toⒶtextual note produce the other half of this shell.’ ”

Next morning when I entered the breakfast roomⒶtextual note and saw the child sitting solitary at her two-seated breakfast tableⒶtextual note I approached and scanned her searchingly all over, then said sadly,

“No, I am mistaken; sheⒶtextual note looks like my Margaret, but sheⒶtextual note isn’t, and I am so sorry. I willⒶtextual note go away and cry, now.”

Her eyes danced triumphantly, and she cried out,

“No, you don’t have to. There!” and she fetched out the identifying shell.

I was beside myself with gratitude and joyful surprise, and revealed it from every pore. The child could not have enjoyed this thrilling little drama more if we had been playing it on the stage. Many times afterward she played the chief part herself, pretending to be in doubt as to my identity and challenging me to produce my half of the shell. She was always hoping to catch me without it, but I always defeated that game—whereforeⒶtextual note she came at last to recognize that I was not only old, but very smart.