The Princess and Joe Potter Part 6

"I should think you might know by this time! Can't you hear the princess?"

"I thought there'd be a row if she waked up," Master Plummer replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, and then he laid himself down again, evidently intending to continue the interrupted nap.

"See here, Plums, you can't do that!" Joe cried, sharply. "I mustn't be left alone with this poor little thing. It ain't certain but she'll die, she's so frightened."

"Don't fret yourself. She'll come out of it after a spell; all Mis'

Carter's kids used to."

"But she isn't like them, I tell you! They could stand 'most anything, an' she's been raised different."

"She cries jest the same's they did."

"Look here, George Plummer, get up on your feet an' help me! This thing is growin' dangerous!"

Plums had no fear the princess would injure herself by crying; but his friend spoke so sternly that he decided it was wisest to obey the command, and a very sleepy-looking boy he was, as he stood yawning and rubbing his eyes, with an expression of discontent amounting almost to peevishness upon his face.

"There ain't anything either you or I can do. Youngsters have to yell jest about so much,--it makes 'em healthy,--an' she'll quiet down after a spell. Why don't you give her somethin' to eat?"

"I tried that, but she wouldn't take a single crumb. The trouble is, we haven't got what she wants. Now, if there was some milk in the house--"

"But there ain't, so what's the use thinkin' of that?"

"It must be near mornin', an' if there is a bakeshop anywhere 'round, you could get some."

"Do you want a feller to turn out in the night an' travel 'round the streets lookin' for milk?" Plums asked, indignantly.

"It is better to do that than have a dear little baby like this die."

"But there's no danger anything of that kind will happen. I've seen lots of worse sc.r.a.pes than this, but they always ended up all right."

"Look here, Plums, will you go out an' get some milk?"

"What's the use--"

"_Will_ you go an' get the milk?"

Just for an instant Master Plummer stood irresolute, as if questioning the necessity for such severe exertion, and then a single glance at his friend's face decided the matter.

In silence, but with a decided show of temper, the fat boy picked up one of the tomato-cans, jammed his battered hat down over his head, and stalked out of the shanty.

During this brief conversation the princess's outcries had neither ceased nor diminished in volume, and when Plums had thus unwillingly departed, it was as if she redoubled her efforts.

Unfortunately, Joe had had no experience with "old Mis' Carter's kids,"

and when the child's face took on a purplish hue, he was thoroughly alarmed, believing her to be dying.

"Don't, baby dear, don't! You'll kill yourself if you act this way! I'm doin' the best I know how; but the trouble is, I can't tell what you want!"

Entreaties were as useless as any of his other efforts to soothe, yet he alternately begged her to be silent, and paced to and fro with her in his arms, until, when it seemed to him that at least one whole night must have pa.s.sed since she awakened, the princess tired of her exertions.

Then it was a tear-stained, grief-swollen face that he looked into, and the childish sobs which escaped her lips gave him deeper pain than had her most energetic outcries.

Believing her to be suffering severely, the big tears of sympathy rolled down Joe's face as he told her again and again of all he would do towards finding her mother when the day had come.

The princess was lying quietly in Joe's arms when Master Plummer finally returned, bringing the can of milk, and yawning as if he had been asleep during the entire journey and had but just awakened.

"Now you can see that it was jest as I said!" he exclaimed. "When youngsters start in yellin', they've got to do about so much of it, an'

there's no use tryin' to stop 'em. Here I've walked all over this city huntin' for milk when I might jest as well have been sleepin'."

"It won't do you any harm, Plums, an' I honestly think the princess is hungry."

"She can't be very bad off, with Bologna, an' cakes, an' peanuts 'round.

I'll bet she won't touch this."

Joe broke into the milk such fragments of cracker as remained in the cupboard-box, after which, and first wiping the spoon carefully on his coat sleeve, he began to feed the little maid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE BEGAN TO FEED THE LITTLE MAID."]

To Master Plummer's disappointment, she ate almost greedily, and Joe said, in a tone of triumph:

"You may know a good deal 'bout Mis' Carter's babies, but you're way off when it comes to one of this kind."

"I don't know whether I am or not," and Plums laid himself down once more, falling asleep, or pretending to, almost immediately thereafter.

Having eaten with evident relish the food which had cost Plums so much labour, the princess's ill-temper vanished entirely, and she twittered and chirped to Joe until he forgot his former fears and anxieties in the love which sprang up in his heart for the tiny maid who was dependent upon him for a shelter.

The day was close at hand when the amateur nurse and his charge journeyed into dreamland for the second time, and although Joe had gained but little rest during the night, his slumbers were not so profound but that a hum of shrill voices near the building awakened him very shortly afterward.

The one fear in his mind was that the princess would be disturbed, and he stepped quickly outside the shanty to learn the cause of the noise.

"Here he is! Here he is now! We was in big luck to come 'round this way!" one of a party of boys said, excitedly, and Joe recognised in these early visitors three friends and business acquaintances, all of whom were looking very serious, and evidently labouring under great excitement.

"What's brought you fellers up to this part of the town so early?" Joe asked, in surprise, and Dan Fernald, who had under his arm a bundle of morning papers, said, in a mournful tone:

"We've come after you."

"What for? I'm goin' to hang 'round here a spell till I can get enough money ahead to go into business ag'in. Did you fellers think I'd be so mean as to sell papers 'round City Hall after I'd sold out to Dan?"

"It ain't anything like that, Joe Potter," Master Fernald replied, so gravely that the princess's guardian could not fail of being alarmed.

"What's floatin' over you fellers?" he asked, sharply. "Ain't been gettin' into trouble, have you?"

"We're all right; but there's somethin' mighty wrong 'bout you, Joe.

Say, did you do anything crooked when you sold that stand to Sim Jepson?"

"Crooked? Why, how could I? He'd been workin' for me at a dollar a week, an' when I hadn't any more money, he took the stand for what I owed him.

If you call it crooked to sell out a business for a dollar an' twenty cents, when it cost pretty nigh eight times as much, you're off your base."

"Then what _have_ you been doin'?" Tim Morgan asked.