The Story of Dago Part 4

The music-box droned out the last notes of "You'll Remember Me," gave a click, paused an instant as if to take breath, and then started mournfully on its last number, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." At the first sound of the familiar notes, Elsie laid her head down on her knees and began to weep dismally. "I wish I was back in my home, sweet home," she cried. "I'm _so_ tired and cold and hungry. I'm nearly starved. Oh, brother, I wisht I hadn't runned away!

I don't _like_ to be a beggar," she wailed.

Phil began patting her on the back. "Don't cry, sister," he begged.

"We'll go back to that bake-shop we pa.s.sed a little while ago, and get something to eat. Don't you remember how good it smelled? Come on!

You'll feel better when you've had a lunch. I'll spend every penny we've got, if you'll only stop crying. We can make some more this afternoon."

Elsie wiped her eyes on her shawl, let him help her to her feet, and obediently trotted after him as we went down the narrow back street, through which we had pa.s.sed a few moments before. It was not far to the bakery. The opening of the door made a bell ring somewhere in the rear of the shop, and a fat, motherly old German woman came waddling to the front. Phil bought a bag of buns and another of little cakes, and was turning to go out again when Elsie climbed up on a chair near the stove, refusing to move. A cold wind had begun to blow outdoors, and her hands and wrists showed red below her short sleeves.

"I'm tired," she said, with an appealing glance of her big blue eyes at the old woman. "Mayn't we stay here and rest while we eat the cakes?"

"Ach, yes, mein liebchen!" cried the motherly old soul, taking Elsie's cold little hands in hers. "Come back mit me, where is one leedle chair like yourself."

She led the way into a tiny sitting-room at the rear of the shop, where a canary in a cage and geraniums blooming in the window made it seem like summer. Hot, spicy smells of good things baking, floated in from ovens somewhere out of sight.

As Elsie sank down into the little chair, with a deep sigh, Phil trundled the wheelbarrow into the room, and for the first time the old woman caught sight of me and the music-box. You should have heard her exclamations and questions. She laughed at Phil's answers until her fat sides shook. Little by little she found out the whole truth about our running away, and seemed to think it very amusing. After we had rested awhile, Phil offered to give her a private performance. As he started to wind the music-box, she opened a door into a stairway and called, "Oh, Meena! Make haste, once already, and bring der baby!"

In answer to her call, a young woman came hurrying down the steps, carrying a big fat baby, who stared at us solemnly with its round blue eyes, and stuck its thumb in its mouth. But as the music started, and I began my dancing, he kicked and crowed with delight. The more he gurgled and cooed and waved his little fat hands, the broader the smiles spread on the women's faces. I mention this because the more he noticed us, the more his grandmother's heart seemed to warm toward us.

When the music stopped, she went out of the room and brought us each a gla.s.s of milk and a little mince pie, hot from the oven.

After we had eaten, Elsie got down on the rug and played with the baby, although Phil kept insisting that it was time to go. One thing after another delayed us until it was nearly the middle of the afternoon before we started out again on the streets. The old woman pinned Elsie's shawl around her more comfortably, kissed her on each cheek, and told Phil to hurry home with her, that it was getting too cold to be wandering around, standing on street corners.

She watched us out of sight. As soon as we had turned a corner, Phil looked ruefully into Elsie's empty cup. "If I had known she was going to give us the milk and pie, I wouldn't have bought the buns," he said. "We haven't made much headway, and it gets dark so soon, these days. I'm afraid the feather fooled us about the way to go."

We wandered on and on all the rest of that long afternoon, sometimes playing before every door, and sometimes walking blocks before stopping for a performance. Phil's new shoes tired his feet until he could scarcely drag them, and little Elsie's lips were blue with cold.

At last when the music-box struck up "Home, Sweet Home" for what seemed the ten hundreth time, her voice quavered through the first line and stopped short with a sob.

"Oh, Phil, I'm getting tireder and tireder! Can't you make that box skip that song?" she begged. "If I hear it another time I just can't stand it! I'll _have_ to turn around and go back home."

Phil glanced anxiously at the clouded sky. The sun was so low it was hidden by the tall buildings, and the darkness was coming on rapidly.

"Well, come along!" he said, impatiently. "I s'pose I'll have to take you home, cry-baby, but I'm not going in myself. We haven't any money at all, hardly; not enough to take me even a tweety, weenty part of the way to that place I'm going to, let alone enough to buy you that doll. But that's the way with girls. They always spoil everything."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ALL WENT WELL UNTIL WE REACHED AN ALLEY CROSSING."]

Little Elsie rubbed her sleeve across her eyes and swallowed hard. "I wouldn't ask to go back, brother, really and truly I wouldn't, but I'm so cold and mizzible I feel most like I'm going to be sick."

Phil looked at her little bare red hands and tear-stained face, and said, gruffly, "Well, then, get on the wheelbarrow. You can sit on the music-box and hold Dago in your lap, and I'll wheel you a piece until you get rested."

Elsie very willingly climbed up and took me in her lap. It was hard work for Phil. He grew red in the face, and his arms ached, but he kept bravely on, although he was out of breath from the hard pushing.

All went well until we reached an alley crossing. Phil, whose attention was all on the wheel of his barrow, which he was trying to steer safely between the cobblestones, did not see a long string of geese waddling down the alley on their way home from the commons, where they had been feeding all day. They came silently along in an awkward, wavering line, as quietly as a procession of web-footed ghosts, until they were almost upon us. Then the leader shot out his wings with a hoa.r.s.e cry, every goose in the procession followed his example, and with a rush they flapped past us, half running, half flying. It was done with such startling suddenness that it caused a general upsetting of our party. Phil veered to one side, and over we went in a heap, music-box, Elsie, barrow, and all, with myself on top.

There was a frightened scream from Elsie, followed by a steady downpour of tears as Phil picked her up. She had struck her forehead on a cobblestone, and a big blue b.u.mp was rapidly swelling above one eye. Her nose was bleeding a little, too. Phil was so occupied in trying to comfort her, and in wiping away the blood, that it was several minutes before he thought of the music-box. When he picked it up he found it was so badly broken that it would no longer play.

"Oh, what will papa say!" cried Elsie. The little fellow made no answer, but could scarcely keep from crying himself, as he lifted it on the barrow, to start back home.

"When will we be there, brother?" asked Elsie, when they had trudged along for some time. She was holding on to the tail of his jacket, sniffling dismally. Phil stopped, for they had reached a street corner, and looked around. It was growing dusk. Then he turned to her with a dazed, scared fate.

"Oh, Sis," he cried, "I don't know what to do. This isn't the street that I thought it was. I'm afraid we're lost!"

They had reached the edge of the town by this time. Only one more block of pretty suburban homes stood between them and the outskirting fields.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Phil, after a moment's pause, bravely choking back his own fears at sight of his little sister's frightened face. "See that house over there with the firelight shining through the windows, so bright and warm? It looks as if kind people lived there. We'll go and ask them to show us the way home."

"I wish I was home now," mourned Elsie. "I wish I was all clean and warm, sitting at the supper-table with my good clothes on, beside my papa. Maybe we'll never find our way back, any more! Maybe he'll never kiss me and say, 'Papa's dear little daughter,' again! He'll think I'm dead. Maybe we'll have to go and live with beggars, and be somebody's poor children all our life to punish us for running away; and, oh, maybe we'll never have any 'home, sweet home' any more!"

At the picture she made for herself, of the cheerful room with the dear home faces gathered around the table, which she might never see again, she began to sob wildly. The tears were falling so fast now that she could hardly see, but stumbled blindly along, stumping her tired toes at every step, and clinging fast to Phil's old jacket.

They had almost reached the house with the friendly windows, when a great iron gate just ahead of them swung open, and an elegantly dressed old lady walked out to step into a carriage, drawn up at the curbstone. Behind her came another old lady, tall and stately, and with something so familiar in appearance that both the children stood still in astonishment. She was looking about her with sharp, eagle-like eyes. Her skirts swished softly as she walked, and the little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face bobbed gently under her imposing black bonnet.

"Aunt Patricia!" screamed little Elsie, darting forward and clasping her arms around the astonished old lady's knees. "Oh, Aunt Patricia!

We're lost! _Please_ take us home!"

If a dirty little grizzly bear had suddenly sprung up in the path and begun hugging her, Miss Patricia could not have been more amazed than she was at the sight of the ragged child who clung to her. She pushed back the old silk m.u.f.fler from the tousled curls, and looked wonderingly on the child's blood-stained face with the blue b.u.mp still swelling on the forehead.

"Caroline Driggs," she called to the lady who stood waiting for her at the carriage door, "am I dreaming? I never saw my nephew's children in such a plight before. I can scarcely believe they are his."

"Oh, we are! We are!" screamed little Elsie. "I'll just _die_ if you say we are not!"

Phil stood by, too shamefaced to plead for himself, yet fearful that she might take Elsie and leave him to his fate, because he had refused to apologise for his rude speech.

Miss Patricia had been spending the day with Mrs. Driggs, who was an old friend of hers, and who was now about to take her home in her carriage. Mrs. Driggs seemed to understand the situation at a glance.

"Come on," she said. "We'll put the children in here with us; the monkey and the rest of the gypsy outfit can go up with the coachman.

Here, Sam, take this little beast on the seat with you, and lift up the barrow, too."

If those children were half as glad to sink down on the comfortable cushions as I was to snuggle under the coachman's warm lap-robe, then I am sure that Mrs. Driggs's elegant carriage never held three more grateful hearts. As we climbed to our places I heard Mrs. Driggs say, kindly: "So the little ones were masquerading, were they? It is a cold day for such sport."

Miss Patricia answered, in a voice that trembled with displeasure: "Really, Caroline, I am more deeply mortified than I can say, to think that any one bearing my name--the proud, unsullied name of Tremont--could go parading the streets, in the garb of a beggar, asking for alms. I cannot trust myself to speak of it calmly."

All the way home I felt sorry for Phil. I didn't envy him having to sit there, facing Miss Patricia, with his conscience hurting him as it must have done. That is the advantage of being a monkey. We have no consciences to trouble us. I didn't envy his home-coming, either, although I knew he would be glad enough to creep into his warm, soft bed. His feet were badly blistered from his long tramp in his new shoes.

Stuart looked after my comfort, and I was soon curled up snugly on a cushion before the fire. Phil and Elsie had a hot bath, and hot bread and milk, and were put to bed at once. Elsie was coughing at nearly every breath, and the doctor seemed troubled when he came up to rub some soothing lotion on the poor little swelled forehead. He brought something for Phil's blistered feet, too, but he never spoke a word all the time he was putting it on.

After it was done he stood looking at him very gravely. Then he said: "Your little sister tells me that you took her out to dance and sing in the streets to-day to earn money, in order that you may run away from home. Is that so?"

"Yes, sir," answered Phil, in a very faint voice.

"So you are tired of your home," continued the doctor, "and think you could find kinder treatment among strangers who care nothing for you.

I am sorry that my little son has come to such a conclusion. But if you are determined to leave us, there is no necessity for you to slip off like a thief in the night. Winter is coming on, and you will need all your warm clothes. Better take time to pack them properly, and collect whatever of your belongings you want to keep. I am very much afraid that this day's work is going to make your little sister ill.

No doubt you will feel worse for it yourself, and will need a good rest before starting out. Maybe you'd better wait until Monday, before you turn your back for ever on your home and family."

The doctor waited a moment, but Phil made no answer. After waiting another moment, still without a word from Phil, the doctor said, "Good night, my son," and walked down-stairs into the library.

Now, I know well enough that, when we started out in the morning, Phil was fully determined to run away from home, as soon as he could earn enough money to take him. I couldn't understand what had changed his mind so completely. You can imagine my surprise when he began to sob, "Oh, papa! papa! You didn't kiss me good night and you don't care a bit if I run away! Oh, I don't want to go now! I don't _want_ to!"

It sounded so pitiful that I got up off my cushion and walked over to the bed. All that I could do was to take his head in my arms and rub it and pat it and rub it again. I think it comforted him a little, although he sobbed out at first: "Oh, Dago, you're the only friend I've got! It's awful when a little boy's mother is dead, and there isn't anybody in the whole world to love him but a monkey!"

The door was open into Elsie's room. She heard what he said, and in a minute, she came pattering across the carpet in her little bare feet and climbed up on the bed beside me.

"Don't say that, brother," she begged, leaning over and kissing him.