The Queen's Twin and Other Stories Part 5

"There 'll be plinty work to do. I always thought at home, when I heard the folks tarking, that I 'd get work on the railway when I 'd come to Ameriky. Yis, indeed, sir!" continued Nora earnestly. "I was looking at the mills just now, and I heard the great n'ise from them.

I 'd never be afther shutting meself up in anny mill out of the good air. I 've no call to go to jail yet in thim mill walls. Perhaps there 'd be somebody working next me that I 'd never get to like, sir."

There was something so convinced and decided about these arguments that Uncle Patsy, usually the calm autocrat of his young relatives, had nothing whatever to say. Nora was gently keeping step with his slow gait. She had won his heart once for all when she called him by the old boyish name her mother used forty years before, when they played together by the Wishing Brook.

"I wonder do you know a b'y named Johnny O'Callahan?" inquired Nora presently, in a somewhat confidential tone; "a pritty b'y that's working on the railway; I seen him last night and I coming here; he ain't a guard at all, but a young fellow that minds the brakes. We stopped a long while out there; somethin' got off the rails, and he adwised wit' me, seeing I was a stranger. He said he knew you, sir."

"Oh, yes, Johnny O'Callahan. I know him well; he 's a nice b'y, too,"

answered Patrick Quin approvingly.

"Yis, sir, a pritty b'y," said Nora, and her color brightened for an instant, but she said no more.

II.

Mike Duffy and his wife came into the Quins' kitchen one week-day night, dressed in their Sunday clothes; they had been making a visit to their well-married daughter in Lawrence. Patrick Quin's chair was comfortably tipped back against the wall, and Bridget, who looked somewhat gloomy, was putting away the white supper-dishes.

"Where 's Nora?" demanded Mike Duffy, after the first salutations.

"You may well say it; I 'm afther missing her every hour in the day,"

lamented Bridget Quin.

"Nora's gone into business on the Road then, so she has," said Patrick, with an air of fond pride. He was smoking, and in his shirt-sleeves; his coat lay on the wooden settee at the other side of the room.

"Hand me me old coat there before you sit down; I want me pocket," he commanded, and Mike obeyed. Mary Ann, fresh from her journey, began at once to give a spirited account of her daughter's best room and general equipment for housekeeping, but she suddenly became aware that the tale was of secondary interest. When the narrator stopped for breath there was a polite murmur of admiration, but her husband boldly repeated his question. "Where's Nora?" he insisted, and the Quins looked at each other and laughed.

"Ourselves is old hins that's hatched ducks," confessed Patrick.

"Ain't I afther telling you she's gone into trade on the Road?" and he took his pipe from his mouth,--that after-supper pipe which neither prosperity nor adversity was apt to interrupt. "She 's set up for herself over-right the long switch, down there at Birch Plains. Nora 'll soon be rich, the cr'atur'; her mind was on it from the first start; 't was from one o' them O'Callahan b'ys she got the notion, the night she come here first a greenhorn."

"Well, well, she's lost no time; ain't she got the invintion!" chuckled Mr. Michael Duffy, who delighted in the activity of others. "What excuse had she for Birch Plains? There's no town to it."

"'T was a chance on the Road she mint to have from the first,"

explained the proud uncle, forgetting his pipe altogether; "'twas that she told me the first day she came out, an' she walking along going home wit' me to her dinner; 't was the first speech I had wit' Nora.

''T is the mills you mane?' says I. 'No, no, Uncle Patsy!' says she, 'it ain't the mills at all, at all; 't is on the Road I 'm going.' I t'ought she 'd some wild notion she 'd soon be laughing at, but she settled down very quiet-like with Aunty Biddy here, knowing yourselves to be going to Lawrence, and I told her stay as long as she had a mind.

Wisha, she 'd an old ap.r.o.n on her in five minutes' time, an' took hold wit' the wash, and wint singing like a blackbird out in the yard at the line. 'Sit down, Aunty!' says she; 'you 're not so light-stepping as me, an' I 'll tell you all the news from home; an' I 'll get the dinner, too, when I 've done this,' says she. Wisha, but she's the good cook for such a young thing; 't is Bridget says it as well as meself. She made a stew that day; 't was like the ones her mother made Sundays, she said, if they 'd be lucky in getting a piece of meat; 't was a fine-tasting stew, too; she thinks we 're all rich over here.

'So we are, me dear!' says I, 'but every one don't have the sinse to believe it.'"

"Spake for yourselves!" exclaimed one of the listeners. "You do be like Father Ross, always pr'achin' that we 'd best want less than want more. He takes honest folks for fools, poor man," said Mary Ann Duffy, who had no patience at any time with new ideas.

"An' so she wint on the next two or free days," said Patrick approvingly, without noticing the interruption, "being as quiet as you 'd ask, and being said by her aunt in everything; and she would n't let on she was homesick, but she 'd no tark of anything but the folks at Dunkinny. When there 'd be nothing to do for an hour she 'd slip out and be gone wit' herself for a little while, and be very still comin'

in. Last Thursday, after supper, she ran out; but by the time I 'd done me pipe, back she came flying in at the door.

"'I 'm going off to a place called Birch Plains to-morrow morning, on the nine, Uncle Patsy,' says she; 'do you know where it is?' says she.

'I do,' says I; ''t was not far from it I broke me leg wit' the dam'

derrick. 'T was to Jerry Ryan's house they took me first. There's no town there at all; 't is the only house in it; Ryan 's the switchman.'

"'Would they take me to lodge for a while, I d' know?' says she, havin'

great business. 'What 'd ye be afther in a place like that?' says I.

'Ryan 's got girls himself, an' they 're all here in the mills, goin'

home Sat.u.r.day nights, 'less there's some show or some dance. There's no money out there.' She laughed then an' wint back to the door, and in come Mickey Dunn from McLoughlin's store, lugging the size of himself of bundles. 'What's all this?' says I; ''t ain't here they belong; I bought nothing to-day.' 'Don't be scolding!' says she, and Mickey got out of it laughing. 'I 'm going to be cooking for meself in the morning!' says she, with her head on one side, like a c.o.c.k-sparrow.

'You lind me the price o' the fire and I'll pay you in cakes,' says she, and off she wint then to bed. 'T was before day I heard her at the stove, and I smelt a baking that made me want to go find it, and when I come out in the kitchen she 'd the table covered with her cakeens, large and small. 'What's all this whillalu, me topknot-hin?'

says I. 'Ate that,' says she, and hopped back to the oven-door. Her aunt come out then, scolding fine, and whin she saw the great baking she dropped down in a chair like she'd faint and her breath all gone.

'We 'ont ate them in ten days,' says she; 'no, not till the blue mould has struck them all, G.o.d help us!' says she. 'Don't bother me,' says Nora; 'I 'm goin' off with them all on the nine. Uncle Patsy 'll help me wit' me basket.'

"'Uncle Patsy 'ont now,' says Bridget. Faix, I thought she was up with one o' them t'ree days' scolds she 'd have when she was young and the childre' all the one size. You could hear the bawls of her a mile away.

"'Whishper, dear,' says Nora; 'I don't want to be livin' on anny of me folks, and Johnny O'Callahan said all the b'ys was wishing there was somebody would kape a clane little place out there at Birch Plains,--with something to ate and the like of a cup of tay. He says 'tis a good little chance; them big trains does all be waiting there tin minutes and fifteen minutes at a time, and everybody's hungry. "I 'll thry me luck for a couple o' days," says I; "'tis no harm, an' I've tin shillings o' me own that Father Daley gave me wit' a grand blessing and I l'aving home behind me."'"

"'What tark you have of Johnny O'Callahan,' says I.

"Look at this now!" continued the proud uncle, while Aunt Biddy sat triumphantly watching the astonished audience; "'t is a letter I got from the shild last Friday night," and he brought up a small piece of paper from his coat-pocket. "She writes a good hand, too. 'Dear Uncle Patsy,' says she, 'this leaves me well, thanks be to G.o.d. I 'm doing the roaring trade with me cakes; all Ryan's little boys is selling on the trains. I took one pound three the first day: 't was a great excursion train got stuck fast and they 'd a hot box on a wheel keeping them an hour and two more trains stopping for them; 't would be a very pleasant day in the old country that anybody 'd take a pound and three shillings. Dear Uncle Patsy, I want a whole half-barrel of that same flour and ten pounds of sugar, and I 'll pay it back on Sunday. I sind respects and duty to Aunty Bridget and all friends; this l'aves me in great haste. I wrote me dear mother last night and sint her me first pound, G.o.d bless her.'"

"Look at that for you now!" exclaimed Mike Duffy. "Did n't I tell every one here she was fine an' smart?"

"She 'll be soon Prisident of the Road," announced Aunt Mary Ann, who, having been energetic herself, was pleased to recognize the same quality in others.

"She don't be so afraid of the worruk as the worruk's afraid of her,"

said Aunt Bridget admiringly. "She 'll have her fling for a while and be glad to go in and get a good chance in the mill, and be kaping her plants in the weave-room windows this winter with the rest of the girls. Come, tell us all about Elleneen and the baby. I ain't heard a word about Lawrence yet," she added politely.

"Ellen's doing fine, an' it's a pritty baby. She's got a good husband, too, that l'aves her her own way and the keep of his money every Sat.u.r.day night," said Mary Ann; and the little company proceeded to the discussion of a new and hardly less interesting subject. But before they parted, they spoke again of Nora.

"She's a fine, crabbed little gerrl, that little Nora," said Mr.

Michael Duffy.

"Thank G.o.d, none o' me childre' is red-headed on me; they're no more to be let an' held than a flick o' fire," said Aunt Mary Ann. "Who 'd ever take the notion to be setting up business out there on the Birchy Plains?"

"Ryan's folks 'll look after her, sure, the same as ourselves,"

insisted Uncle Patsy hopefully, as he lighted his pipe again. It was like a summer night; the kitchen windows were all open, the month of May was nearly at an end, and there was a sober croaking of frogs in the low fields that lay beyond the village.

III.

"Where's Nora?" Young Johnny O'Callahan was asking the question; the express had stopped for water, and he seemed to be the only pa.s.senger; this was his day off.

Mrs. Ryan was sitting on her doorstep to rest in the early evening; her husband had been promoted from switch-tender to boss of the great water-tank which was just beginning to be used, and there was talk of further improvements and promotions at Birch Plains; but the good-natured wife sensibly declared that the better off a woman was, the harder she always had to work.

She took a long look at Johnny, who was dressed even more carefully than if it were a pleasant Sunday.

"This don't be your train, annyway," she answered, in a meditative tone. "How come you here now all so fine, I 'd like to know, riding in the cars like a lord; ain't you brakeman yet on old twinty-four?"

"'Deed I am, Mrs. Ryan; you would n't be afther grudging a boy his day off? Where's Nora?"

"She's gone up the road a bitteen," said Mrs. Ryan, as if she suddenly turned to practical affairs. "She 's worked hard the day, poor shild!

and she took the cool of the evening, and the last bun she had left, and wint away with herself. I kep' the taypot on the stove for her, but she 'd have none at all, at all!"

The young man turned away, and Mrs. Ryan looked after him with an indulgent smile. "He's a pritty b'y," she said. "I 'd like well if he 'd give a look at one o' me own gerrls; Julia, now, would look well walking with him, she 's so dark. He's got money saved. I saw the first day he come after the cakeens 't was the one that baked them was in his mind. She's lucky, is Nora; well, I'm glad of it."

It was fast growing dark, and Johnny's eyes were still dazzled by the bright lights of the train as he stepped briskly along the narrow country road. The more he had seen Nora and the better he liked her, the less she would have to say to him, and tonight he meant to find her and have a talk. He had only succeeded in getting half a dozen words at a time since the night of their first meeting on the slow train, when she had gladly recognized the peculiar brogue of her own country-side, as Johnny called the names of the stations, and Johnny's quick eyes had seen the tired-looking, uncertain, yet cheerful little greenhorn in the corner of the car, and asked if she were not the niece that was coming out to Mrs. Duffy. He had watched the growth of her business with delight, and heard praises of the cakes and buns with willing ears; was it not his own suggestion that had laid the foundation of Nora's prosperity? Since their first meeting they had always greeted each other like old friends, but Nora grew more and more willing to talk with any of her breathless customers who hurried up the steep bank from the trains than with him. She would never take any pay for her wares from him, and for a week he had stopped coming himself and sent by a friend his money for the cakes; but one day poor Johnny's heart could not resist the temptation of going with the rest, and Nora had given him a happy look, straightforward and significant. There was no time for a word, but she picked out a crusty bun, and he took it and ran back without offering to pay. It was the best bun that a man ever ate. Nora was two months out now, and he had never walked with her an evening yet.