Dorothy's Travels Part 4

Then he went hastily out, and Mrs. Hungerford said:

"Brother is wise. We certainly shan't find Dolly here, and we may at the 'Prince.' Have you all your parcels, both of you? Then come."

They followed her meekly enough but at the street entrance Miss Greatorex rebelled. Her anxiety gave a more than ordinary irritation to her temper and harshness to her voice, and her habitually ungracious manner became more repellent than ever as she announced:

"That's all very well, Mrs. Hungerford, and Molly. But I shan't go one step toward Nova Scotia till I've found my little girl. You three are all right, _you've got yourselves_ and of course other people don't matter. But Dorothy saved my life and I'll not desert her to n.o.body knows what dreadful fate! No, I will not, and you needn't say another single word!"

As n.o.body had interrupted her excited speech this last admonition seemed rather uncalled for, but Molly waxed indignant thereat, though her Aunt Lucretia merely smiled compa.s.sionately. Then as they still stood upon the sidewalk, hesitating to enter their carriage, Miss Isobel waved her umbrella wildly toward another hack, and when it had obeyed her summons sprang into it and was whirled away.

Where was Dorothy all this time? Little she knew of the commotion she had caused. Indeed, for a long time, her only thought was for herself and her unfortunate predicament. She had never been so frightened in her life. Nothing had ever looked so big, so dismal, and so altogether hopeless as this wretched side street where her fugitive had disappeared. There was not a policeman in sight. She didn't know which way to go, but promptly realized that she should not stay just there in that degraded neighborhood. Even the wider street from which she had diverged, with its endless lines of wagons and people, was better.

But--she must go somewhere!

She set out forward, resolutely, and as it proved eastward toward that famous Broadway which threads the city from its north to south, but that was yet many blocks removed. Indeed, it seemed an endless way that stretched beyond her; and it was not until she had run for some distance that her common sense awoke with the thought:

"Why, how silly I am! I must go back to the boat. That's where I'll be missed and looked for. Of course, Miss Greatorex wouldn't go on and leave me, and oh! dear! I reckon I've made her wait till she'll be angry. I'll ask the first nice looking gentleman I see, if no policeman comes, the way to the 'Mary Powell.' Here comes one now--"

A busy man came speeding toward her, whose coat skirt she tried to clutch; but he didn't even hear the question she put. He merely waved her aside, as he would any other street beggar with the pa.s.sing remark: "Nothing. Get away!"

The second person to whom she applied was German and shook his head with a forcible negative. So he, too, moved on and she stopped to think and recover some portion of that courage which had almost deserted her.

"Of course. I couldn't be really lost, not really truly so, right in the broad daylight and a city full of people. But I am ashamed to have stayed so long. Oh! good! There comes a man in uniform--a policeman, a policeman!"

Quite at rest now she darted forward and caught at the hand of the uniformed person who stared at her in surprise but not unkindly.

"Well, little maid, what's wanted?"

"O, sir! Are you a policeman? Will you take me to where I belong?"

"Sorry to say 'no' to both your questions, but I'm only a railway conductor, in a hurry to catch my outgoing train. Wait a minute, child, and a real police officer will come and will look out for you."

The blue-coated, much bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned man s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand from her clinging grasp and strode westward in desperate haste. He had calculated his time to the last second and even this trifling delay annoyed him.

But he had prophesied aright. A policeman was coming into view, leisurely sauntering over his beat, and on the lookout for anything amiss. Dorothy hurried forward, planted herself firmly in this man's path and demanded again:

"Are you a policeman?"

"Sure an' 'tis that same that I be! Thanks for all mercies! Me first day alone at the job, an' what can I do for ye, me pretty colleen?"

"Tell me, or take me, back to the 'Mary Powell,' please. I--I've lost my way."

"Arrah musha! An' if I was after doin' that same I'd be losin' mine! The 'Mary Powell' is it? Tell me where does she be livin' at. I'm not long in this counthry and but new app'inted to the foruss. Faith it's a biggish sort of town to be huntin' one lone woman in."

To anybody older or wiser than Dorothy Chester the very fact of his loquacity would have betrayed his newness to the "foruss." There wasn't a prouder nor happier man in the whole great city, that day, than Larry McCarthy, as he proceeded to explain:

"First cousin on me mother's side to Alderman Bryan McCarthy, as has helped me over from Connemara, this late whiles, and has made me a free-born Amerikin citizen, glory be."

"That must be very nice. I suppose an alderman is some sort of a very high-up man, isn't he? But--"

"High is it, says she. Higher 'an I was when I was carryin' me hod up wan thim 'sky-sc.r.a.pers' they do build in this forsaken--I mane blessed--counthry, says he. Sure it's a higher-up Bryan is, the foine lad."

"Please, please, will you take me to the 'Mary Powell'?"

"How can I since ye've not told me yet wherever she lives?"

"Why she isn't a--she! She's a boat!"

"Hear til the la.s.s! She isn't a she isn't she? Then she must be a he, and that'd beat a priest to explain;" and at his own joke the newly-fledged officer indulged in a most unofficial burst of laughter.

So long and so loud was this that Dorothy stamped her foot impatiently and another uniformed member of "the force," pa.s.sing by on the other side of the street, crossed over to investigate.

At whose arrival officer Larry straightened himself like a ramrod, squared his shoulders, and affected to be intensely angry with the small person who had delayed him upon his beat. But he could not deceive the keen eyes of the more experienced policeman and his superior in rank.

With a swift recognition of the newcomer's greater intelligence, Dorothy put her inquiry to him, breathlessly stating her whole case, including the loss of her purse and her regret over it.

"'Cause now, you see, sir, I haven't any money to pay for being taken back. Else I would have called a carriage, like people do sometimes, and got the carriage man to take me. That is, _if_ there was any carriage, and any man, and I--I had any money. Oh! dear! That isn't what I wanted to say, but I'm so tired running and--and--it's dreadful to be lost in a New York city!"

Her explanation ended in a miserable breakdown of sobs and tears. Now that help had come--she was sure of it after one glance into this second officer's honest face--her courage collapsed entirely. The sergeant allowed her a moment to compose herself and then said, as he took out a notebook and prepared to write in it:

"Now, once more. Tell me exactly, or listen if I have the facts right.

You are a pupil at the Rhinelander Academy in Newburgh. You are starting upon a trip for your summer vacation. You are under the care of Miss Greatorex, a teacher. You ran away from the steamer 'Mary Powell' in pursuit of a man whom you think carried off your own and a friend's purse. Very well. I will send you to the boat and if your story is true you will be restored to your friends and nothing more will come of it.

If it isn't true, you will be sent to a station-house to await developments. McCarthy, proceed upon your beat."

Larry shrugged his shoulders more snugly into his new uniform, a.s.sumed the bearing of a drum major and duly proceeded. The superior officer put a whistle to his lips, and like the genii in Arabian Nights, his servant instantly appeared.

"Call a cab. Take this young person to the 'Mary Powell,' foot of Desbrosses street. If her guardian is not there, drive to the other landing at Twenty-third street and inquire if the girl has been sought for there. If this is a false story, report to me at the station and, of course, bring the girl with you."

The words "station house" sounded ominous in Dorothy's ears. During her Baltimore life she had learned all that was necessary about such places to infect her with fear, having with other children sometimes watched the "police patrol wagons" make their dreary rounds. She had peered at the unhappy prisoners sitting within the van and had pitied them unspeakably, despite the fact that they must have been wicked. A picture of herself thus seated and despairing flashed before her mind, but she put it resolutely aside and with great humility stepped into the cab which her new protector had summoned.

This was one of those then new electric cabs and instantly riveted her attention. To move through the streets so swiftly without visible means of locomotion was as delightful as novel; and the skill with which the driver perched up behind twisted around corners and among crowding vehicles seemed fairly wonderful.

It was a most charming ride, despite the fact that she was a lost person seeking her friends, and it came all too soon to an end at the dock she had named. She recognized the place at once and was out of the cab, hurrying along the wharf, calling back to her guide:

"Here she is! This is the 'Mary Powell!' See?"

He was promptly at her side again, his duty being not to lose sight of her until that "report" had been duly made when and where ordered. Also, the recognition of her by "f.a.n.n.y" and the other boat hands proved that thus much of her tale was true. She had come down the river on that steamer's last trip and people had been back upon it, frantically seeking news of her.

"You oughtn't to have run away like that, little girl, and scare them people into forty fits. That nice Judge--somebody, he said his name was--he hired no end of people to go searching for you and now you've come and he hasn't. Like enough they've gone to the other landing, up-town, to seek you. Better drive there, policeman, and see."

"All right. But, stewardess, if anybody comes again to inquire, say that she'll be taken to the 'Prince' steamship, East river, and be held there till the boat sails. Afterward at station number --."

There is no need to follow all of Dorothy's seeking of her friends.

Already, as has been told, they had made a fruitless search for her; and when at length fully convinced that she was telling a "straight case"

the official who had her in charge, failing to find Miss Greatorex at that "up-town landing"--though a dock-hand said that she had been there and again hurried away "as if she was a crazy piece"--the cab was turned toward that east-side dock whence the voyage to Nova Scotia was to be made.

Here everything was verified. Dorothy's luggage marked with her name was in the baggage-room, having been sent down the day before in order to prevent mischance. With it was the luggage of Molly Breckenridge and Miss Greatorex. Also upon the steamer's sailing list was her name and the stateroom to which she had been a.s.signed. To this point then must all the rest of the party come if they were to sail by that vessel.

Obviously, it was the safest place for her to await her friends, and she was promptly permitted to go aboard and watch for them.

She had expected to see a much larger craft than the "Prince." Why, it wasn't half as large, it seemed to her, as some of the boats which pa.s.sed up and down the Hudson. It had but one deck, high up, so that to reach it she had to climb a ladder, or gang-plank almost as steep as a roof. But she climbed it with a feeling of infinite relief and security.

Sitting close to the rail upon one of the many steamer chairs she found there, herself almost the only pa.s.senger who had yet come aboard, she leaned her weary head against the rail, and, despite the hunger which tormented her, fell fast asleep. She knew nothing more; heard none of the busy sounds of loading the luggage, now constantly arriving, and was peacefully dreaming, when a girlish voice from the dock pierced through the babel and the dream: