Money Magic Part 24

Bertha had a dim perception that this eagerness to meet her was curiosity, but her loyalty to her teacher and the charm of her visitor kept her from openly rebelling.

The Captain was not so easily persuaded. "'Tis poor business for me," he said. "Time was when I went to bed like a wolf--when the time served; but now I'm as regular to me couch as a one-legged duck. However, to keep me wife in tune, I'll go or come, as the case may be."

Mrs. Brent did not attempt to be funny with this wounded bear, and they parted very good friends.

As her visitor was going, Bertha suddenly said, "Wait a minute," and, going to her hand-bag, brought out an envelope addressed in Congdon's big scrawling hand. "Do you know these people?"

Mrs. Brent glanced at it. "Why, yes, Joe Moss is an artist. He's well-known here, and you'll like him. His wife is a very talented woman, and will be of great advantage to you. They know all the 'artistic gang,' as they call themselves, and they live a delightfully Bohemian life. They're right near here, and if I were you I'd go in to see them.

I'd thought of having the Mosses to-morrow night, and this settles it.

They must come. Good-bye till to-morrow at 7 P.M." And she went out, leaving the girl in a glow of increasing good-will.

Haney was looking over a list of names and addresses which Lucius had brought to him, and as Bertha returned he put his finger on one, and said: "I believe, on me soul, that this Patrick McArdle is me second sister's husband. 'Patrick McArdle, pattern-maker.' Sure, Charles said he was in a stove foundry. 'Tis over on the West Side, Lucius says. How would it do to slide over and see?"

"I'm agreeable," she carelessly answered, her mind full of Mrs. Brent and the dinner.

Lucius interposed a word. "It's a very poor neighborhood, Captain. We can hardly get to it with a machine."

"Well, then we'll drive. I want to make a stab at finding my sister anyhow."

Lucius submitted, but plainly disapproved of the whole connection. On the way Haney talked of his sister f.a.n.n.y. "She was a bouncing, jolly-tempered girl, always down at the heels, but good to me. She was two years older, and was mother's main guy, as the sailors say. She was fairly industrious, though none of us ever worked just for the fun of it. Fan married all the other girls off to saloon-keepers or aldermen, which is all the same in pay, and then ended up by takin' a man far older than herself, who was not very strong and not very smart. He makes patterns in sand for the leaves and acorns you see on stove doors. For all we know, he may have made them that's on your new range at home."

The mention of that range brought to Bertha's mind a picture of her lovely kitchen, so light and bright and shining, and another spasm of homesickness and doubt seized her. "Mart, we had no business to come away and leave that house and all our nice things in it."

"Miss Franklin will see after it."

"But how can she? She's gone nearly all day. And, besides, she's not up to housekeeping--it ain't her line. I feel like going right back this minute!"

This feeling of dismay was increased by the glimpses of the grimy West Side, into which they were plunging every moment deeper. After leaving the asphalt pavement the noise increased till they were unable to make each other hear without shouting, and so they sat in silence while the driver turned corners and dodged carts and cars till at last he turned abruptly into a side-street, and, driving slowly along over a rotting block pavement, drew up before a small, two-story frame house--a relic of the old-time city.

The yards were full of children, who all stopped their play to stare at this carriage, especially impressed by Lucius, who sat very erect on the seat beside the driver, resolutely doing a very disagreeable duty. At the door he got down and said: "Now, Captain, you give me a pointer or two, and I'll find out whether this is your McArdle or not."

"Just ask if Mrs. McArdle was Fan Haney, of Troy. That'll cover the specification," he answered.

By this time a large, fair-haired, slovenly woman had opened the door, and, with truculent voice, called out: "Who do you want to find?"

"Fan Haney, of Troy," answered the Captain.

"That's me," the woman retorted.

"Ye are so! Very well, thin, consider yourself under arrest this minute," said Haney, beginning to clamber out of the carriage.

The woman stared a moment; then a slow grin developed on her face so like to Haney's own that Bertha laughed. The lost sister was found.

As Haney neared her, he called out: "Well, Fan, ye're the same old sloven ye were when I used to kick your shins in Troy for soapin' me mouth."

"Mart Haney, by the piper!" she exclaimed, wiping her lips and hands in antic.i.p.ation of a caress. "Where did ye borry the funeral wagon?"

He shook her hand--the kiss was out of his inclination--and responded in the same vein of mockery: "A friend of mine died the day, and I broke out of the procession to pay a call. Divil a bit the dead man cares."

"Who's with you in the carriage?"

"Mrs. Haney, bedad."

"Naw, it is not!"

"Sure thing!"

"She's too young and pretty--and Mart, ye're lame! And, howly saints, man, ye look old! I wouldn't have known ye but fer the mouth and the eyes of ye. Ye have the same old grin."

"The same to you."

"I get little chance to practise it these days."

"'Tis the same here."

"But how came ye hurt?"

"A felly with a grievance poured a load of buckshot into me side, and one of them lodged in me spine, so they say."

She clicked her tongue in ready sympathy. "Dear, dear! But come in and sit ye down. Ask yer girl to come in--I'm not perticular."

"She's me lawful wife," he said, and his tone changed her manner into something like sweetness and dignity.

"Go ye in, Mart. I'll fetch her."

As the young wife sat in her carriage before this wretched little home and watched that slatternly sister of her husband approach, she rose on a wave of self-appreciation. Haney lost in dignity and power by this a.s.sociation. For the first time in her life the girl acknowledged a fixed difference between her blood and that of Mart Haney. She was disgusted and ashamed as Mrs. McArdle, coming to the carriage side, said bluffly: "'Tis a poor parlor I have, Mrs. Haney, but if ye'll light out and come in I'll send for Pat. He'll be wantin' to see ye both."

Bertha would have given a good deal to avoid this visit, but seeing no way to escape she stepped from the carriage under the keen scrutiny of her hostess and walked up the rickety steps with something of the same squeamish care she would have shown on entering a cow-barn.

"Here, Benny!" called Mrs. McArdle. "Run you to Dad and tell him me brother Mart has come, and to hurry home. Off wid ye now!"

The poverty of this city working-man's home was plain to see. It struck in upon Bertha with the greater power by reason of her six months of luxury. It was not a dirty home, but it was cluttered and hap-hazard.

The old wooden chairs were worn with scouring, but littered with children's rags of clothing. The smell of boiling cabbage was in the air, for dinner-time was nigh. There were three rooms on the ground-floor and one of these was living-room and dining-room, the other the kitchen, and a small bedroom showed through an open door. For all its disorder it gave out a familiar odor of homeliness which profoundly moved Haney.

"Ye've grown like the mother, Fan. And I do believe some of these chairs are her's."

"They are. When Dad broke up the house and went to live with Kate I put in a bid for the stuff and I brought some of it out here with me."

"I'm glad ye did. That old rocker now--sure it's the very one we used to fight for. I'll give ye twenty-five dollars for it, Fan."

"Ye can have it for the askin', Mart," she generously replied--tears of pleasure in her eyes. "Sure, after all the tales I heard of ye--it's to see you takin' fine to the mother's chair. She was a good mother to us, Mart."

"She was!" he answered.

"And if the old Dad had been as much of a man as she was, we'd all stand in better light to-day I'm thinkin'--though the father did the best he knew."

"The worst he did was to let us all run wild. A club about our shoulders now and then would have kept our tempers sweeter."

Bertha, in rich new garments, seemed as alien to the scene as any fine lady visiting among the slums. She was struggling, too, between disgust of her sister-in-law's slovenly house and untidy dress, and the good humor, tender sentiment and innate motherliness of her nature. There was charm in her voice and in her big gray eyes. Irish to the core, she could storm at one child and coo with another an instant later. She was like Mart, or rather Mart became every moment more of her kind and less of the bold and remorseless desperado he had once seemed to be. The deeper they dug into the past the more of his essential kinship to this woman he discovered. He greeted her children with kindly interest, leaving a dollar in each chubby, dirty fist, and when McArdle came into the room Fan had quite conquered her awe of Bertha's finery.