The Rosie World Part 20

"They do not."

Rosie regarded the old man thoughtfully. One could see the very processes of a new idea slowly working in her mind. Danny watched her curiously. At length he asked: "Well, Rosie, what is it?"

Rosie paused impressively before answering: "I was just thinking, Danny Agin, that you're right about yourself, but you're making a great mistake about my father." Rosie nodded significantly. "He's not as quiet as you think he is, in spite of his quiet ways. Sometimes he's just awful."

For a moment Danny was taken in. "Why, Rosie, aren't you just afther tellin' me about the scar that wasn't there?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry now I told you." There was a gleam in Rosie's eye which declared very emphatically that the sequel to that story would never again be related. "Listen here, Danny Agin! Now I understand--if my mother made up something about that scar, it was just to hide something else that was worse!"

"Why, Rosie! Ye don't say so!" For a moment Danny looked at her in astonishment. Then he lay back with a wheezy guffaw. "Rosie, ye'll be the death o' me yet! I suppose if the truth was known, Jamie beats yir ma every night of her life to a black-and-blue jelly! Don't he now?"

Rosie covered herself with an air of distant reserve. "I'm not going to tell you what he does. That's a family matter. But I will say one thing: You think Terry's awful nice, don't you? Everybody does. But do you know what he'd do to me if I was to lose one of his paper customers? He'd just beat the puddin' out o' me--yes, he would!"

"Why, Rosie!" Danny looked shocked. "What's this ye're sayin'? I thought you and Terry were great friends."

"Great friends? Oh, yes, we're great friends all right. You can always be great friends with a fellow like Terry as long as you run your legs off for him. But just let something happen, and then----"

Rosie ended with a "Huh!" and shook her head gloomily.

Danny gasped. "You don't say so, Rosie!"

There was the sound of an opening screen, and Danny, knowing that his wife must be coming, with a wheezy chuckle called out:

"Mary, Mary, do ye know who's here? It's Rosie O'Brien, and she's one of ye! She's fallen into line!"

Mrs. Agin came out on the porch, and stood for a moment looking from Danny to Rosie. She was a tall, gaunt old woman with thick white hair and thick eyebrows, which were still dark. She gave one the impression of great tidiness and cleanliness, together with the possibility of that caustic speech which so often characterizes the good housekeeper.

Rosie appealed to her eagerly: "Mis' Agin, I think Danny's just awful!"

Mrs. Agin glanced sharply at Danny, and then, with a seemingly clairvoyant understanding that the subject under discussion related somehow to the eternal war of the s.e.xes, she went over to Rosie's side at once.

"What's he been sayin' to you, dear?"

"He's making fun of me because I told him if I was to lose one of my paper customers, Terry would beat me. And he would, too!"

Mrs. Agin turned on Danny severely. "Take shame to yourself, Dan Agin, to be teasin' Rosie O'Brien!"

"And listen here, Mis' Agin," Rosie continued. "He's been sayin' just awful things about us!"

"About us, Rosie? Do you mean about both of us?"

"About all of us, Mis' Agin--us ladies."

Rosie sat up very straight and severe.

Danny seemed to think the situation amusing, but he was the only one who did. Mrs. Agin glared at him darkly.

"Dan Agin, what's this ye've been sayin' to Rosie?"

Danny continued to shake with silent mirth, so Rosie answered for him:

"He says what all of us ladies wants is this: We want to be beat, and we don't want to be beat. Now, isn't that the silliest thing you ever heard, Mis' Agin? And he says when we marry a brute of a man, we pretend that he's kind and nice, and when we marry a nice, kind man, we let on he's a brute."

"Dan Agin, what do ye mean, puttin' such nonsense into Rosie's head?

Answer me that now!"

"And listen, Mis' Agin," Rosie went on. "Just because he's that kind of a man himself, he thinks everybody else is. And they're not! Every one thinks my father's so quiet and nice, but I guess I know him! Sometimes he's just awful! And Terry, too! But Danny here, he thinks they're every one of them just as harmless as he is. I guess he's so scared himself that that's the reason he tries to make out that other men are, too!"

Mrs. Agin glared at Danny a moment in silence. Then she spoke:

"Dan Agin, how dare ye go blastin' the reputation of decent men! There are others like ye, do ye say? There are not! There's not another woman in Ameriky that's stood what I've stood for forty years! Ah, many's the time it was just one black murtherin' look I was cravin' from ye to bear out me story that I had married a man, instead of a joke! And did ever I get it from ye, Dan Agin! I did not--bad cess to ye for a soft-hearted, good-for-nuthin' of a man that'd let a woman thrample ye in the dust if she wanted to! 'Twas yir luck that ye little deserved to marry a decent, quiet woman like meself!"

"Ye're right, Mary!" Danny murmured meekly. "Ye're a fine woman!"

"Hold yir tongue, Dan Agin, or, cripple that ye are, I'll be givin' you the lickin' that I've wanted to give you these forty years every time ye've let me have me own way when I oughtn't have had it!"

Rosie stood up to go. "I have one more paper to deliver, Mis' Agin, so I'll have to say good-bye. If Terry was to know that I stopped to talk before I had delivered all my papers, he'd beat me half to death."

Mrs. Agin smiled on her affectionately. "Good-bye, Rosie dear. And mind, now, if ever again Danny goes talkin' such nonsense, ye're to call me, and I'll soon settle him. Now run along, or that brute of a Terry'll be after you."

"Good-bye, Rosie," Danny called out, in a tone of hypocritical meekness that made Rosie's blood boil anew.

Rosie stopped and turned about to give him the look of scorn that he deserved.

"Danny Agin, you just ought to be ashamed o' yourself the way you treat poor Mis' Agin!"

"I am, Rosie," Danny gasped in a voice of mock tears exasperating beyond words.

CHAPTER XVII

ROSIE PROMISES TO BE GOOD

Rosie hurried away, furious at Danny, and furious also at her own father. Any man who puts his womenfolk to such shame ought to be choked!

In spite of certain drawbacks, Janet McFadden's lot was happier than Mrs. Agin's, or than Rosie's own. At least no one ever called into question Dave McFadden's ability to govern his own household. This was so patent to the world at large that Janet could actually go about pretending that her father was a sentimental weakling. Happy, happy Janet!

It made Rosie shudder in self-disgust to think of the many d.a.m.ning admissions that she had made Janet. Well, at any rate, she would never again be caught. She had learned a thing or two since yesterday.

Moreover, she would lose no time in setting Janet right. She would stop to see Janet now on her way home. That scar story would make Janet open her eyes! And Rosie would not foolishly situate it on a spot as easy of detection as her mother's right shoulder. Nev-er!

A woman who was sweeping the steps in front of the tenement where the McFaddens lived, made the friendly inquiry: "Lookin' for Janet?"

Rosie nodded.

"Better not go up," the woman advised. "Dave McFadden's just come in soused again."

Rosie paused.