In Wild Rose Time Part 25

"'Twas norful quair I sh'd meet you, wasn't it? An' we jes' won't let any one in de court know it, 'n' they can't blow on us. The ould woman's up on de Island, but her time'll soon be out. Dan, he's gone to some 'stution. We'll keep shet o' her. She's a peeler, she is! Most up to the boss in a shindy, now, wasn't she? But when dey begins to go to de Island, de way gits aisy fer 'em, an' dey keep de road hot trottin' over it."

Dil sighed, and shuddered too. We suppose the conscious tie of nature begets love, but it had not in Dil's case. And she had a curious feeling that she should drop dead if her mother should clutch her.

"I don't want to see her, Patsey, never agen. Poor Bess is gone-"

"Jes' don't you mind. My eyes is peeled fer de old woman! An' where I'm goin' to take you's so far off. But we'll jes' go an' hev some grub.

We'll take de car. I'm out 'n a lark, I am!"

Patsey laughed, a wholesome, inspiriting sound. Dil was very, very tired, and it was so good to sit down. She felt so grateful, so befriended, so at rest, as if her anxieties had suddenly ended.

It was indeed a long distance,-a part of the city Dil knew nothing about,-across town and down town, in the old part, given over to business and the commonest of living. A few blocks after they left the car they came to a restaurant, and Patsey ordered some clam-chowder. It tasted so good to the poor little girl, and was so warming, that her cheeks flushed a trifle.

Patsey amused her with their ups and downs, the sc.r.a.pes Owny had been in, and some of his virtues as well. Patsey might have adorned some other walk in life, from the possibilities of fairness and justice in his character.

Dil began to feel as if she belonged to the old life again. Her hospital experience, with the large, clean rooms, the neatness, the flowers, the visitors, and her kindly nurse, seemed something altogether outside of her own life.

They trudged along, and stopped at the end of a row of old-fashioned brick houses, two stories, with dormer windows. A wide alley-way went up by the last one. There was a building in the rear that had once been a shop, but now housed four families. Up-stairs lived some Polish tailors; at the lower end, a youngish married couple.

It was quite dusk now, but a lamp was lighted in the room. Two fellows were skylarking, but they stopped suddenly at the unusual sight of a "gal."

"Why it ain't never Dil!"

Owny was an immense exclamation point in supreme amazement.

"Didn't I tell yous! I was a-layin' fer her. An' she's jes' come out o'

the 'ospital."

"Dil, you look nawful white."

"We'll make her hev red cheeks in a little, jes' you wait. This feller's Tom Dillon."

Dilsey took a survey of her new home, and for the first moment her heart failed her. It looked so dreadfully dirty and untidy. The room was quite large, with an old lounge, a kitchen table, a trunk, and some chairs; a stove in the fireplace, and a cupboard with the door swinging open, but the dishes seemed to be mostly on the table.

"We sleep here," explained Patsey, ushering her into the adjoining apartment. There was an iron bedstead in the centre of the room, and four bunks in two stories ranged against the side. "Ye see, we ain't much at housekeepin', but youse c'n soon git things straight," and Patsey laughed to hide a certain shame and embarra.s.sment. "We'll clean house to-morrer, an' hev things shinin'. An' here's a place-"

It was a little corner taken off the other room, and partly shut in by the closet. "Th' ould woman used to sleep here-say, Dil, yous wouldn't be afraid-tell ye, a feller offered me a lot o' paper-wall paper, an'

we'll make it purty as a pink."

Dil had never seen "th' ould woman," and had no fear of her.

"It'll be nice when we get it fixed," she said cheerily.

Then Sandy Fossett came in, and was "introjuced." He, too, had heard the fame of the 'lickin' good stews,' but he was surprised to find such a very little body.

Dil lay on the lounge that night, but did not sleep much, it was all so strange. Any other body would have felt disheartened in the morning, but Patsey was "so good." He "hustled" the few things out of the little room, asked the woman in the other part about making paste, and ran off for his paper. Dil found a scrubbing-brush, and had the closet partly cleaned when he returned. Mrs. Brian came in and "gave them a hand." She was a short, stout, cheery body, with just enough Irish to take warmly to Dil.

If the poor child had small apt.i.tude for book-learning, she had the wonderful art of housekeeping at her very finger ends. In a week the boys hardly knew the place. Dil's little room was really pretty, with its paper of gra.s.ses and field flowers on the lightest gray ground. She scalded and scrubbed her cot, and drove out any ghost that might have lingered about; she made a new "bureau" out of grocery boxes, not that she had any clothes at present, but she might have. She was so thankful for a home that work was a pleasure to her, though she did get very, very tired, and a pain would settle in the place where the ribs were broken.

The living room took on a delightful aspect. The chairs were scrubbed and painted, the table was cleaned up and covered with enamelled cloth.

And such coffee as Dil made; such stews of meat and potatoes and onions, and a carrot or a bit of parsley; and oh, such soups and chowders! When she made griddlecakes the boys went out and stood on their heads-there was no other way to express their delight. Fin came back in a jiffy, and another lad, named Shorty by his peers. Indeed, there could have been ten if there had been room.

Owen was very much improved. He was shooting up into a tall boy, and had his mother's black eyes and fresh complexion. When the two boys talked about Bess, Dil could almost imagine her coming back. She sometimes tried to make believe that little Bess had gone to the hospital to get her poor hurted legs mended, and would surely return to them.

There was quite a pretty yard between the two houses. It really belonged to the "front" people. There was a gra.s.s-plot and some flowers, and an old honeysuckle climbing the porch. The air was much better than in Barker's Court, and altogether it was a more humanizing kind of living.

And though the people up-stairs ran a sewing-machine in the evening, there were no rows. Mr. Brian did some kind of work on the docks, and went away early, coming back at half-past six or so. He was a nice, steady sort of fellow; and though he had protested vigorously against a "raft of boys" keeping house, after Dil came he was very friendly.

Patsey also "laid out" for Mrs. Quinn. When she came down from the "Island," she heard that her furniture had been set in the street, and then taken in by some of the neighbors. Dan was in a Home, Owen had not been seen, neither had Dilsey. Then the woman drank again and raged round like a tiger, was arrested, but pleaded so hard, and promised amendment so earnestly, that sentence was suspended.

It was well that Owen and Dilsey kept out of her way, for if she had found either of them she would have wreaked a full measure of vengeance upon them. There had never been a great deal of tenderness in her nature, and her experiences of the last ten years had not only hardened but brutalized her. The habit of steady drinking had blunted her natural feelings more than occasional outbreaks with weeks of soberness. She had no belief in a future state and no regard for it. Still, she had not reached that last stage of demoralization-she was willing to work; and when she had money to spend, Mrs. MacBride made her welcome again.

After Dil had her house a little in order, and had made herself a new gingham gown, she took her way one lovely afternoon over to Madison Square. She had meant to tell Patsey about John Travis, but an inexplicable feeling held her back. How she was coming to reach after higher things, or that they were really higher, she did not understand.

Heaven was still a great mystery to her. With the boys Bess was simply dead, gone out of life, and sometime everybody seemed to go out of life.

Why they did was the inscrutable mystery?

It was curious, but now she had no desire to finish Christiana, although she devoted some time every day to reading. The old things that had been such a pleasure seemed sacred to Bess, laid away, awaiting a mysterious solution. For she _knew_ John Travis could tell her all about it.

Patsey had written her name and address on a slip of paper, several of them indeed, so as not to raise any suspicion. He laughed, and said she "was very toney, wantin' kerds." She saw the policeman, and was relieved that she had not missed Travis, yet strangely disappointed that he had not come.

The boys just adored her, and certainly they were a jolly lot. Sometimes they had streaks of luck, at others they were hard up. But every Sat.u.r.day night the rent money was counted out to make sure, and the agent was soon greatly interested in her. She was a wonderful little market woman, and she found so much entertainment going out to do errands. She used to linger about the flower stands, and thrill with emotions that seemed strange indeed to her. She took great pleasure in watching the little flower bed a thin, delicate looking woman used to tend, that belonged to the front house.

One day Patsey brought her home a rose.

"Oh," she cried, "if Bess was only here to see!" and tears overflowed her eyes. "O Patsey, do you mind them wild roses the lady gev you an'

you brought to us? They're always keepin' in my mind with Bess."

"I wisht I knew where they growed, I'd go fer some. But ain't this a stunner?"

"It's jes' splendid, an' you're so good, Patsey."

"I wisht yer cheeks cud be red as that," the boy said earnestly.

Mrs. Brian went out now and then to do a bit of washing, "unbeknownst to her man," who thought he earned enough for both of them. She came and sat on the little stoop with Dil occasionally, and had a "bit of a talk." Patsey had advised that she should let folks think both her parents were dead-he had said so in the first instance to make her coming with them seem reasonable.

But one day she told Mrs. Brian about little Bess, "who was hurted by a bad fall, and died last winter." Then she ventured on a wonder about heaven, hoping for some tangible explanation.

"I s'pose it's a good thing to go to heaven when you're sick, or old an'

all tired out, but I ain't in any hurry. I want a good bit o' fun an'

pleasure first. My man sez if you're honest an' do the fair thing, it's as good a religion as he wants, an' he'll trust it to take any one there. My 'pinion is that some of them that talks about it don't appear to know, when you pin 'em down to the pint. My man thinks most everybody who ain't awful bad'll go. There's some folks so dreadful you know, that the devil really ought to have 'em for firewood."

No one seemed in any hurry to go. It was a great mystery to Dil. And now Barker's Court seemed as if it must have been the City of Destruction.

If only her mother had been like Christiana! It was all such a puzzle.

She was so lonely, and longed for some satisfying comfort.

The weather was so lovely again. Ah! if Bess had not died, they would have started by themselves, she felt quite sure. And as the days pa.s.sed with no John Travis, Dil sometimes grew cold and sick at heart. In spite of the boys' merriment and kindliness, she could not get down to the real hold on life. It seemed to her as if she was wandering off in some strange land, when she used to sit alone and wonder; it could hardly be called thinking, it was so intangible.