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“Why, what is the matter? Why did she run away?” asked the astonished stranger.
Billy giggled and punched Nick who was now apportioning the peanuts among the children he had whistled to his side, but neither lad replied.
This vexed Miss Bonnicastle who had come to the Lane in small hope of influencing the old captain to do as her brother had wished him to do and to remove, at once, to the comfortable “Harbor” across the bay. She had undertaken the task at her brother’s request; and also at his desire, had driven thither in the carriage, in order to carry the blind man away with her, without the difficulty of getting him in and out of street cars and ferry boat. It would greatly simplify matters if he would just step into the vehicle at his own humble door and step out of it again at the entrance to his new home.
But the Lane had proved even narrower and dirtier than she had expected. She was afraid that having once driven into it the coachman would not be able to drive out again, and the odors of river and market, which the blind seaman found so delightful, made her ill. She had deprived herself of her accustomed afternoon nap; she had sprained her ankle in falling; her footman had been gone much longer than she expected, searching for the captain’s house; and though she had been amused by the little scene among the alley children which had been abruptly ended by Glory’s flight, she was now extremely anxious to finish her errand and be gone.
In order to rest her aching ankle, she stepped back into the carriage and from thence called to Billy, at the same time holding up to view a quarter dollar.
Master Buttons did not hesitate. He was glad that Nick happened to be looking another way and did not see the shining coin which he meant to have for himself, if he could get it without disloyalty to Glory. Hurrying forward, he pulled off his ragged cap and inquired, “Did you want me, ma’am?”
“Yes, little boy. What is your name?”
“Billy.”
“What else? Your surname?” continued the questioner.
“Eh? What? Oh–I guess ‘Buttons,’ ’cause onct I was a messenger boy. That’s what gimme these clo’es, but I quit.”
He began to fear there was no money in this job, after all, for the hand which had displayed the silver piece now rested in the lady’s lap; and, watching the peanut feasters, he felt himself defrauded of his own rightful share. He stood first upon one bare foot then upon the other, and, with affectation of great haste, pulled a damaged little watch from his blouse and examined it critically. The watch had been found in a refuse heap, and even in its best days had been incapable of keeping time, yet its possession by Billy Buttons made him the envy of his mates.
He did not see the amused smile with which the lady regarded him, and though disappointed by her next question it was, after all, the very one he had anticipated.
“Billy Buttons, will you earn a quarter by showing me the way to where Captain Beck lives? that is, if you know it.”
“Oh, I knows it all right, but I can’t show it.”
“Can’t? Why not? Is it too far?”
Billy thought he had never heard anybody ask so many questions in so short a time and was on the point of saying so, impertinently, yet found it not worth while. Instead, he remarked, “I ain’t sayin’ if it’s fur er near, but I guess I better be goin’ down to th’ office now an’ see if they’s a extry out. Might be a fire, er murder, er somethin’ doin’.”
With that courtesy which even the gamins of the streets unconsciously acquire from their betters, Billy pulled off his cap again and moved away. But he was not to escape so easily. Miss Laura’s hand clasped his soiled sleeve and forth came another question, “Billy, is that little girl your sister?”
“Hey? No such luck fer Buttons. She ain’t nobody’s sister, she ain’t. She just belongs to the hull Lane, Glory does. Huh! Take-a-Stitch my sister? Wished she was. She’s only cap’n— Shucks!” Having so nearly betrayed himself, Billy broke from the restraining hand and disappeared.
Miss Bonnicastle sighed and leaned back upon her cushions, feeling that something evil must have befallen her faithful footman to keep him so long away, and almost deciding to give up this apparently hopeless quest. Then she discovered that Nick had drawn near. Possibly, he would act as her guide, even if his mate had refused. She again held up the quarter and beckoned the lad.
He responded promptly, his eyes glittering with greed as they fixed upon the coin–not to be removed from it till it was in his own possession, no matter how many questions were asked. These began at once, in a crisp, imperative tone.
“Little boy, tell me your name.”
“Nick, the parson.”
“Indeed? Nick Parsons, I suppose. Is it?”
“No’m. I’m Nicky Dodd. I got a father. He’s Dodd. So be I, ’course. But the fellers stuck it onto me ’cause–’cause onct I went to a Sunday-school.”
“Don’t you go now, Nick Dodd?”
“No, indeedy! Ketch me!” laughed the boy, watching the gleam of the money his questioner held so lightly between her gloved fingers. What if she should drop it! If some other child should see it fall and seize it before he could! “Was–was you a-wantin’ somethin’ of me, lady?”
“Yes, I was. Will you show me the way to Captain Beck’s house?”
Now Nick loved Glory as well as Billy did and he had as fully understood from her warning gesture that he was to give this stranger no information concerning her or her grandfather, but, alas! he also loved money, and he so rarely had it. Just then, too, the “Biggest Show On Earth” was up at Madison Square Garden and, if Nick had not remembered that enticing circus, he might not have betrayed his friend. Yet those wonderful trained animals—Ah!
“Fer that quarter? Ye-es, ma’am, I–I–will,” stammered the lad.
So Miss Laura again left her carriage and walked the narrow, dirty length of the Lane, past the sharp bend which gave it its name of “Elbow,” far down among the warehouses and wharves crowding the approach to the bridge. As she walked, she still asked questions and found that all the dwellers in the Lane were better known by their employments than their real names, how that Glory’s deftness with a needle had made her “Take-a-Stitch,” and anybody might guess why Jane was called “Posy” or Captain Beck had become the “Singer.” Besides, she discovered that this ragged newsboy was as fond and proud of his “Lane” as she was of her avenue, and that if she had any pity to bestow, she needn’t waste it on him or his mates and that—
“There ’tis! The littlest house in Ne’ York,” concluded Nick, proudly pointing forward, seizing the coin she held so carelessly, and vanishing.
“Well! have I become a scarecrow that all these children desert me so suddenly!” exclaimed Miss Laura, looking helplessly about and lifting her skirts the higher to avoid the dirty suds which somebody was emptying into the gutter.
“Ma’am?” asked the woman with the tub, dropping it and with arms akimbo staring amazedly at the stranger. How had such a fine madam come there? “Was you a-lookin’ for somebody, ma’am?”
Miss Laura turned her sweet old face toward the other, Meg-Laundress, and answered, “Yes, for one, Captain Simon Beck. A boy told me this tiny place was where he lives–though it doesn’t seem possible any one could really live in so small a room–and it’s empty now, anyway. Do you know where he is?”
“Off a-singin’ likely. He mostly is, this time o’ day.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I have come—” Miss Bonnicastle checked herself, unwilling to disclose to this rough stranger affairs in which she had no concern. “I was told he had a grandchild living with him. Is she anywhere about?”
“Glory? She’s off peddlin’ her goobers, I s’pose. I can give ’em any word that’s left,” said Meg, with friendly interest.
“Glory? Is her name Glory? Is it she I saw with a basket of peanuts, a yellow haired, bright-faced little girl, in a blue frock?” cried the lady, eagerly, and recalling the child’s inquiry about “Snug Harbor” felt that she should have guessed as much even then.
“Sure. The purtiest little creatur’ goin’; or, if not so purty, so good-natured an’ lovin’. Why, she’s all the sunlight we gets in the Lane, Glory is, an’, havin’ her, some on us don’t ’pear to need no more. Makes all on us do her say-so but always fer our own betterment. In an’ out, up an’ down, lendin’ a hand or settin’ a stitch or tendin’ a baby, all in the day’s work, an’ queenin’ it over the hull lot, that’s our ‘Goober Glory,’ bless her! And evil to anybody would harm the child, say I! Though who’d do ill to her? Is’t a bit of word you’d be after leavin’, ma’am?” said Meg, with both kindness and curiosity.
“Thank you. If you see either of them, will you say that Miss Bonnicastle, Colonel Bonnicastle’s sister, will be here again in the morning, unless it storms, upon important business? Ask them to wait here for me, please. I should not like to make a second useless trip. Good-afternoon.”
As the gentlewoman turned and made her way back along the alley toward her distant carriage, which could come no nearer to her because the Lane was so narrow, Meg watched and admired her, reflecting with some pride:
“She’s the real stuff, that old lady is. Treated me polite ’s if I was the same sort she is. I wonder what’s doin’ ’twixt her an’ the Becks? Well, I’ll find out afore I sleep, or my name ain’t Meg-Laundress, an’ I say it. Guess Jane’ll open her eyes when I up an’ tells her how one them grand folks she sees crossin’ the bridge so constant has got astray in the Lane an’ come a visitin’, actilly a visitin’, one our own folks. But then, I always knowed, we Elbowers was a touch above some, an’ now she’ll know it, too.
“I do wish the cap’n would come in,” continued Meg. “But ’twill be a long spell yet afore he does. An’, my land! I must sure remind him to put on his other shirt in the mornin’. He don’t never get no sile on him, the cap’n don’t, yet when grand carriage folks comes a callin’, it’s a time for the best or nothin’.”
By a roundabout way, Glory had hurried, breathlessly, to her tiny home, fearing that by some mischance grandpa might have returned to it, and that this fresh advocate of the “Harbor” would find him there. She was such a pretty old lady, she had such a different manner from that of the Lane women, she might persuade the gallant old captain to accompany her to the asylum, whether or no. If he were at home, Glory meant to coax him elsewhere; or, if he would not go, then she would remain and use her own influence against that of this dangerous stranger.
One glance showed her that all was yet safe. The tiny room was empty and neither “Grandpa!” nor “Bo’sn!” answered to her call.
“I hain’t got no goobers to sell now an’ them boys won’t show her a step of the way an’ she couldn’t get here so quick all herself without bein’ showed so I may as well rest a minute,” said Glory to herself, and sat down on the narrow threshold to get cool and to decide upon what she should do.
But she could not sit still. A terrible feeling that these strangers were determined to separate her from her grandfather made her too restless. It was natural, she thought, that they should wish to do him a kindness, such as providing him with a fine home for life. He was a grown-up man and a very clever one, while she was only a little girl, of no account whatever. They didn’t care about her, ’course, but him—
“I must go find him! I must keep him away, clear, clear away from the Lane till it gets as dark as dark. Then we can come home an’ sleep. Such as them don’t come here o’ nights,” cried Glory, springing up. “An’ I’m glad grandpa is blind. If he went right close by them two he couldn’t see ’em, an’ she, she, anyway, don’t know him. I wonder where best to look first. I s’pose Broadway, ’cause that’s where he gets the most money. They’s such a heap of folks on that wide street an’ it’s so nice to look at.”
Having decided her route, Glory was off and away. She dared not think about Toni Salvatore and his anger. She did not see how she would ever be able to repay him for his loss and she could remember nothing at all about the money Miss Bonnicastle had offered her. If Billy or Nick had taken it, they would give it to her, of course; but if not–well, that was a small matter compared to the spiriting away of her grandfather and she must find him and hold him fast.
“Grandpa don’t go above the City Hall, ’cause Bo’sn don’t know the way so well. Up fur’s there an’ down to Trinity; that’s the ‘tack he sails’ an’ there I’ll seek him. I wish one them boys was here to help me look, though if he was a-singin’ I shouldn’t need nobody.”
So thinking and peering anxiously into the midst of every crowd and listening with keen intentness, the little girl threaded her way to the northern limit of the captain’s accustomed “beat.” But there was no sign nor sound of him upon the eastern side of the thoroughfare, and, crossing to the more crowded western side, she crept southward, step by step, scanning every face she passed and looking into every doorway, for in such places the blind singer sometimes took his station, to avoid the jostling of the passers-by.
“Maybe I’ll have to go ’way down to the Battery, ’cause he does, often. Though ’seems he couldn’t hardly got there yet.”
Now Glory was but a little girl, and, in watching the shifting scenes of the busy street, she soon forgot her first anxiety and became absorbed in what was around her. And when she had walked as far southward as old Trinity, there were the lovely chimes ringing and, as always, a mighty crowd had paused to listen to them. Glory loved the chimes, and so did grandpa; and it was their habit on every festival when they were to be rung to come and hear them. Always the child was so moved by these exquisite peals that when they ceased she felt as if she had been in another world, and it was so now. To hear every tone better, she had clasped her hands and closed her eyes and uplifted her rapt face; and so standing upon the very curb, she was rudely roused by a commotion in the crowd about her.
There was the tramping of horses’ feet, the shouts of the police, the “Ahs!” and “Ohs!” of pity which betokened some accident.
“Out the way, child! You’ll be crushed in this jam! Keep back there, people! Keep back!”
Glory made herself as small as she could and shrank aside. Then curiosity sent her forward again to see and listen.
“An old man!”
“Looks as if he were blind!”
“Back those horses! Make way–the ambulance–make way!”
“All over with that poor fellow! A pity, a pity!”
These exclamations of the onlookers and the orders of the policemen mingled in one harsh clamor, yet leaving distinct upon Glory’s hearing the words, “An old blind man.”
“Oh, how sorry grandpa will be to know that!” thought the child, and, with eagerness to learn every detail of the sad affair, stooped and wormed her way beneath elbows and between legs till she had come to the very roadbed down which an ambulance was dashing at highest speed, its clanging bell warning everything from its path. Right before the curb where she stood it paused, uniformed men sprang to the pavement and, with haste that was still reverent and tender, laid the injured man upon the stretcher; then off and away again, and the little girl had caught but the faintest glimpse of a gray head and faded blue garments, yet thought:
“Might be another old captain, it might. Won’t grandpa be sorry–if I tell him. Maybe I shan’t, though I must hurry up an’ find him, ’cause seein’ that makes me feel dreadful lonesome, ’seems if. Oh! I do wish nobody ever need get hurted or terrible poor, or anything not nice! And–oh, oh, there’s that very lady I run away from, what come to the Lane! Drivin’ down in her very carriage and if—She mustn’t see me! She must not–’less she’s got him in there with her a’ready! What if!”
Miss Bonnicastle’s laudau was, indeed, being carefully driven through the jam of wagons which had stopped to give the ambulance room and she was anxiously watching the inch-by-inch progress of her own conveyance. Yet with an expression of far keener anxiety, Goober Glory recklessly darted into the very tangle of wheels and animals, crying aloud:
“She’s goin’ straight down toward that ‘Harbor’ ferry! Like’s not she’s heard him singin’ somewhere an’ coaxed him to get in there with her. He might be th’ other side–where I can’t see–an’ I must find out–I must! For—What if!”
She reached the carriage steps, sprang upon them, by one glance satisfying herself that the lady was alone, turned to retreat, but felt herself falling.
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“You little dunce! Don’t you know better than do that?”
An indignant shake accompanied these words, with which the big policeman set Glory down upon the sidewalk after having rescued her from imminent death.
In the instant of her slipping from the carriage step, the child had realized her own peril and would most certainly have been trampled under the crowding, iron-shod hoofs, had not the officer been on the very spot, trying to prevent accidents, and to keep clear from each other the two lines of vehicles, one moving north, the other south.
Glory was so rejoiced to find herself free and unhurt that she minded neither the shaking nor the term “dunce,” but instantly caught the rescuer’s hand and kissed it rapturously, crying, “Oh, thank you, thank you! Grandpa would have felt so bad if I’d been hurt like that poor blind man. Oh, I wish I could do somethin’ for you, you dear, splendid p’liceman!”
“Well, you can. You can remember that a young one’s place is at home, not in the middle of the street. There, that will do. Be off with you and never cut up such a caper again, long’s you live. It would have been ‘all day’ with you, if I hadn’t been just where I was, and two accidents within five minutes is more’n I bargain for. Be off!”
Releasing his hand, he returned to his task among the wagons but carried with him a pleasant memory of a smile that was so grateful and so gay; while Glory, subdued by what she had gone through, slowly resumed her search for her missing grandfather. Away down to the South ferry she paced, looking and listening everywhere. Then back again on the other side of the long street till she had reached the point nearest to Elbow Lane and still no sign of a blue-coated old man or a little dog with a stub of a tail and but one good ear.
“Well, it’s nigh night now, an’ he’ll be comin’ home. Most the folks what gives him pennies or buys his frames has left Broadway so I might as well go myself. Come to think, I guess I better not tell grandpa ’bout that poor hurted man. Might make him ’fraid to go round himself with nobody ’cept Bo’sn to take care of him an’ him a dog. An’ oh, dear! Whatever shall I do for sewin’ things, now I didn’t get no goober money? Well, anyway, there’s that nickel o’ Jane’s will buy a chop for his supper an’ I best hurry get it ready. He’s always so terrible hungry when he comes off his ‘beat.’ An’ me–why, I b’lieve I hain’t eat a thing to-day, save my breakfast porridge an’ Jane’s banana, an’ two er three goobers. Never mind, likely grandpa’ll bring in somethin’ an’ I can eat to-morrow.”
Back to the littlest house she ran, singing to forget her appetite, and whisked out the key of the tiny door from its hiding-place beneath the worn threshold, yet wondering a little that grandpa should not already have arrived.
“Never mind, I’ll have everything done ’fore. Then when he does get here all he’ll have to do’ll be to eat an’ go to bed,” she said to herself. Glory was such a little chatterbox that when she had no other listener she made one of herself.
The corner-grocer was just taking his own supper of bread and herrings on the rear end of his small counter when she entered, demanding, “The very best an’ biggest chop you’ve got for a nickel, Mister Grocer; or if you could make it a four-center an’ leave me a cent’s worth o’ bread to go along it, ’t would be tastier for grandpa.”
“Sure enough, queeny, sure enough. ’Pears like I brought myself fortune when I give you that pint o’ milk. I’ve had a reg’lar string o’ customers sence, I have. An’ here, what you lookin’ so sharp at that one chop for? Didn’t you know I was goin’ to make it two, an’ loaf accordin’?”
Glory swallowed fast. This was almost too tempting for resistance, but she had been trained to a horror of debt and had resolved upon that slight one, earlier in the day, only because she could not see her grandfather distressed. Her own distress—Huh! That was an indifferent matter.
The corner groceries of the poor are also their meat markets, bakeries, and dairies, and there was so much in the crowded little shop that was alluring that the child forced herself to look diligently out of the door into the alley lest she should be untrue to her training. In a brief time the shopman called, “All ready, Take-a-Stitch! Here’s your parcel.”
Glory faced about and gasped. That was such a very big parcel toward which he pointed that she felt he had made a mistake and so reminded him, “Guess that ain’t mine, that ain’t. One chop an’ a small roll ’twas. That must be Mis’ Dodd’s, ’cause she’s got nine mouths to feed, savin’ Nick’s ’at he feeds himself.”
“Not so, neighbor. It’s yourn. The hull o’ it. They’s only a loaf, a trifle stale–one them three-centers, kind of mouldy on the corners where’t can be cut off–an’ two the finest chops you ever set your little white teeth into. They’re all yourn.”
The grocer enjoyed doing this kindness as heartily as she enjoyed receiving it, although he was so thrifty that he made his own meal from equally stale bread and some unsalable dried fish. But, after a momentary rapture at the prospect of such delicious food, Glory’s too active conscience interfered, making her say, with a regret almost beyond expression, “I mustn’t, I mustn’t. Grandpa wouldn’t like it, ’cause he says ‘always pay’s you go or else don’t go,’ an’ that nickel’s all I’ve got.”
“No, ’tisn’t. Not by a reckonin’. You’ve got the nimblest pair o’ hands I know an’ I’ve got the shabbiest coat. I’m fair ashamed to wear it to market, yet I ain’t a man ’shamed of trifles. If you’ll put them hands of yourn and that coat o’ mine together, I’d be like to credit you a quarter, an’ you find the patches.”
“A quarter! A hull, endurin’ quarter of a dollar! You darlin’ old grocer-man. ’Course I will, only I–I’m nigh out o’ thread, but I’ve got a power o’ patches. I’ve picked ’em out the ash-boxes an’ washed ’em beautiful. An’ they’re hung right on our own ceiling in the cutest little bundle ever was–an’–I love you, I love you; Give me the coat, quick, right now, so’s I can run an’ patch it, an’ you see if I don’t do the best job ever!”
“Out of thread, be you? Well, here, take this fine spool o’ black linen an’ a needle to fit. A workman has to have his tools, don’t he? I couldn’t keep store if I didn’t have things to sell, could I? Now, be off with you, an’ my good word to the cap’n.”
There wasn’t a happier child in all the great city than little Take-a-Stitch as she fairly flew homeward to prepare the most delicious supper there had been in the littlest house for many a day. Down came the tiny gas stove from its shelf, out popped a small frying pan from some hidden cubby and into it went a dash of salt and the two big chops. Oh, how delightful was their odor, and how Glory’s mouth did water at thought of tasting! But that was not to be till grandpa came. She hoped that would be at once, before they cooled; for the burning of gas, their only fuel, was managed with strictest economy. It would seem a wasteful sin to light the stove again to reheat the chops, as she would have to do if the captain was not on hand soon.
Alas! they were cooked to the utmost limit of that brown crispness which the seaman liked, and poor Glory had turned faint at the delayed enjoyment of her own supper, when she felt she must turn out the blaze or ruin all. Covering the pan to keep its contents hot as long as might be, she sat down on the threshold to wait; and, presently, was asleep.
It had grown quite dark before the touch of a cold wet nose upon the palm of her hand aroused her, and there was Bo’sn, rubbing his side against her knee and uttering a dismal sort of sound that was neither bark nor howl, but a cross between both and full of painful meaning.
“Bo’sn! You? Then grandpa–oh, grandpa, darlin’, darlin’, why didn’t you wake me? I’ve got the nicest supper—Smell?”
With that she sprang up and darted within, over the few feet of space there was, but nobody was in sight; then out again, to call the captain from some spot where he had doubtless paused to exchange a bit of neighborly gossip. To him the night was the same as the day, the child remembered, and though it wasn’t often he overstayed his regular hour, or forgot his meal-time, he might have done so now. Oh, yes, he might easily have done so, she assured herself. But why should Bo’sn forsake his master and come home alone? He had never done that before, never. And why, oh, why, did he make that strange wailing noise? He frightened her and must stop it.
“Quiet, boy, quiet!” she ordered, clasping the animal’s head so that he was forced to look up into her face. “Quiet, and tell me–where is grandpa? Where did you leave grandpa?”
Of course, he could not answer, save by ceasing to whine and by gazing at her with his loving brown eyes as if they must tell for him that which he had seen.
Then, seized by an overwhelming anxiety, which she would not permit herself to put into a definite fear, she shook the dog impatiently and started down the Lane. It was full of shadows now, which the one gas street lamp deepened rather than dispersed, and she did not see a woman approaching until she had run against her. Then she looked up and exclaimed, “Oh, Posy Jane! You just gettin’ home? Have you seen my grandpa?”
“The cap’n? Bless you, child, how should I, seein’ he don’t sing on the bridge. Ain’t he come in yet?”
“No, and oh, Jane, dear Jane, I’m afraid somethin’ ’s happened to him. He never, never stayed away so late before an’ Bo’sn came alone. What s’pose?”
The flower-seller had slipped an arm about the child’s shoulders and felt them trembling, and though an instant alarm had filled her own heart, she made light of the matter to give her favorite comfort.
“What do I s’pose? Well, then, I s’pose he’s stayin’ away lest them rich folks what runs the ‘Harbor’ comes again an’ catches him unbeknownst. Don’t you go fret, honey. Had your supper?”
“No, Jane, an’ it’s such a splendid one. That lovely grocer man—”
“Ugh!” interrupted the woman, with a derisive shrug of her shoulders. “You’re the beatin’est child for seein’ handsomeness where ’tain’t.”
“Oh, I ’member you don’t like him much, ’cause onct he give short measure o’ flour, or somethin’, but he is good an’ I didn’t mean purty, an’ just listen!”
Jane did listen intently to the story of the grocer’s unusual generosity, and she hearkened, also, for the sound of a familiar, hesitating footstep and the thump of a heavy cane, such as would reveal the captain’s approach long before he might be seen, but the Lane was very silent. It was later than Glory suspected and almost all the toilers were in their beds. It was late, even for the flower-seller, who had been up-town to visit an ailing friend and had tarried there for supper.
Jane had always felt it dangerous for a blind man, like the old seaman, to go about the city, attended only by a dog, but she knew, too, that necessity has no choice. The Becks must live and only by their united industry had they been able to keep even their tiny roof over their heads thus far. If harm had come to him–what would become of Glory? Well, time enough to think of that when the harm had really happened. The present fact was that the little girl was famishing with hunger yet had a fine supper awaiting her. She must be made to eat it without further delay.
“Come, deary, we’ll step along an’ you eat your own chop, savin’ hisn till he sees fit to come get it. A man ’at has sailed the ocean hitherty-yender, like Cap’n Simon Beck has, ain’t likely to get lost in the town where he was born an’ raised. Reckon some them other old crony cap’ns o’ hisn has met an’ invited him to eat along o’ them. That Cap’n Gray, maybe, or somebody. First you know, we’ll hear him stumpin’ down the Lane, singin’ ‘A life on the ocean wa-a-ave,’ fit to rouse the entire neighborhood. You eat your supper an’ go to bed, where children ought to be long ’fore this time.”
Posy Jane’s tone was so confident and cheerful that Glory forgot her anxiety and remembered only that chop which was awaiting her. The pair hurried back to the littlest house which the flower-seller seemed entirely to fill with her big person, but she managed to get about sufficiently to relight the little stove, place Glory in her own farthest corner, and afterward watch the child enjoy her greatly needed food.
When Glory had finished, she grew still more happy, for physical comfort was added to that of her friend’s words; nor did Jane’s kindness stop there. She herself carefully covered the pan with the captain’s portion in it, and bade Glory undress and climb into her little hammock that swung from the side of the room opposite the seaman’s. This she also let down and put into it the pillow and blanket.
“So he can go right straight to sleep himself without botherin’ you, honey. Come, Bo’sn, you’ve polished that bone till it shines an’ you quit. Lie right down on the door-sill, doggie, an’ watch ’at nobody takes a thing out the place, though I don’t know who would, that belongs to the Lane, sure enough. But a stranger might happen by an’ see somethin’ temptin’ ’mongst the cap’n’s belongings. An’ so good-night to you, little Take-a-Stitch, an’ pleasant dreams.”
Then Posy Jane, having done all she could for the child she loved betook herself to her room in Meg-Laundress’s small tenement, though she would gladly have watched in the littlest house for the return of its master, a return which she continually felt was more and more doubtful. And Glory slept peacefully the whole night through. Nor did Bo’sn’s own uneasy slumbers disturb her once. Not till it was broad daylight and much later than her accustomed hour for waking, did she open her eyes and glance across to that other hammock where should have rested a dear gray head.
It was still empty, and the fact banished all her drowsiness. With a bound she was on her feet and at the door, looking out, all up and down the Lane. Alas! He was nowhere in sight and, turning back into the tiny room, she saw his supper still untasted in the pan where Jane had left it. Then with a terrible conviction, which turned her faint, she dropped down on the floor beside Bo’sn, who was dolefully whining again, and hugged him to her breast, crying bitterly, “They have got him! They have got him! He’ll never come again!”
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“O Bo’sn, Bo’sn! Where did you leave him? You never left him before–never, not once! Oh, if you could only talk!” cried poor Glory, at last lifting her head and releasing the dog whom she had hugged till he choked.
His brown eyes looked back into her own pleading ones as if he, too, longed for the gift of speech and he licked her cheek as if he would comfort her. Then he threw back his own head, howled dismally, and dejectedly curled himself down beneath the captain’s hammock.
Little Take-a-Stitch pondered a moment what she had best do in order to find her grandfather and, having decided, made haste to dress. The cold water from the spigot in the corner refreshed her and seemed to clear her thoughts, but she did not stop to eat anything, though she offered a crust of the dry loaf to the dog. He, also, refused the food and the little girl understood why. Patting him on the head she exclaimed:
“We both of us can’t eat till he comes, can we, Bo’sn dear? Well, smart doggie, put on your sharpest smeller an’ help to track him whichever way he went. You smell an’ I’ll look, an’ ’twixt us we’ll hunt him quick’s-a-wink. Goin’ to find grandpa, Bo’sn Beck! Come along an’ find grandpa!”
Up sprang the terrier, all his dejection gone, and leaped and barked as joyfully as if he fully understood what she had said. Then, waiting just long enough to lock the tiny door and hide the key in its accustomed place, so that if the captain came home before she did he could let himself in, she started down the Lane, running at highest speed with Bo’sn keeping pace. So running, she passed the basement window where Meg-Laundress was rubbing away at her tub full of clothes and tossed that good woman a merry kiss.
“Guess the old cap’n’s back, ’less Glory never ’d look that gay,” thought Meg, and promptly reported her thought to Posy Jane who was just setting out for her day’s business. She was already over-late and was glad to accept Meg’s statement as fact and thus save the time it would have taken to visit the littlest house and learn there how matters really stood. It thus happened that neither of Glory’s best friends knew the truth of the case nor that the child had set off on a hopeless quest, without food or money or anything save her own strong love and will to help her.
“But we’re goin’ to find grandpa, Bo’sn, an’ we don’t mind a thing else. Don’t take so very long to get to that old ‘Harbor,’ an’ maybe he might have a bite o’ somethin’ saved up ’at he could give us, though we don’t neither of us want to eat ’fore we get him back, do we, doggie?” cried the child as they sped along and trying not to notice that empty feeling in her stomach.
But they had gone no further than the end of the Lane before they collided with Nick, the parson, just entering it. He had finished his morning’s sale of papers and was feeling hungry for his own breakfast and, as Take-a-Stitch ran against him, demanded rather angrily, “What you mean, Goober Glory, knockin’ a feller down that way?”
“O Nick! Have you seen grandpa?”
“Seen the cap’n? How should I? Ain’t this his time o’ workin’ on his frames?”
Glory swiftly told her trouble and Nick’s face clouded in sympathy. Finally he suggested, “They was a old blind feller got run over on Broadway yest’day. Likely ’twas him an’ that’s why. ’Twas in the paper all right, ’cause I heard a man say how’t somethin’ must be done to stop such accidentses. Didn’t hear no name but, ’course, ’twas the cap’n. Posy Jane always thought he’d get killed, runnin’ round loose, like he did, without nobody but a dog takin’ care.”
Glory had clutched Nick’s shoulder and was now shaking him with what little strength seemed left to her after hearing his dreadful words. As soon as she could recover from that queer feeling in her throat, and was able to speak, she indignantly denied the possibility of this terrible thing being true.
“’Tis no such thing, Nick Dodd, an’ you know it! Wasn’t I there, right alongside, when’t happened? Wasn’t I a-listenin’ to them very chimes a-ringin’ what he listens to every time he gets a chanst? Don’t you s’pose I’d know my own grandpa when I saw him? Huh!”
“Did–you see him, Glory Beck? How’d come them amberlance fellers let a kid like you get nigh enough to see a thing? Hey?”
Glory gasped as the remembrance came that she had not really seen the injured man but that the slight glimpse of his clothing and his white hair had been, indeed, very like her grandfather’s. Still, this awful thing could not, should not be true! Better far that dreaded place, Snug Harbor, where, at least, he would be alive and well cared for.
“Oh, I got nigh. I got nigh enough to get knocked down my own self, an’ be picked up by one them ‘finest’ p’licemens, what marches on Broadway. He shook me fit to beat an’ set me on the sidewalk an’ scolded me hard, but I didn’t care, ’cause I was so glad to keep alive an’ not be tooken off to a hospital, like that old man was. Huh! You needn’t go thinkin’ nor sayin’ that was Grandpa Simon Beck, ’cause I know better. I shan’t have it that ’twas, so there.”
Glory’s argument but half-convinced herself and only strengthened Nick’s opinion. However, his own mind was troubled. He felt very guilty for having guided Miss Bonnicastle to the littlest house, and the quarter-dollar earned by that treacherous deed seemed to burn through his pocket into his very flesh. Besides that coin, he had others in store, having had a successful morning, and the feeling of his affluence added to another feeling slowly awakening within him. This struggling emotion may have been generosity and it may have been remorse. Whatever it was, it prompted him to say, “Look-a-here, Glory, I’ll help ye. I’ve got to go get somethin’ t’eat, first off. Then, listen, you hain’t got no money, have ye?”
“What o’ that? I’ve got eyes, an’ I’ve got Bo’sn. I’m goin’ to the ferry an’ I’m goin’ tell the ferry man just how ’tis. That I must–I must be let go over to that Staten Island on that boat, whether or no. Me an’ a dog won’t take up much room, an’, if he won’t let me, I’ll wait round till I get some sort o’ job an’ earn the money to pay. You needn’t think, Nick Parson, that a teeny thing like a few centses will keep me from grandpa. I’d go to Toni an’ ask him only–only–I don’t know a thing what come o’ that fifty-five cents the lady paid for the goobers, an’ so I s’pose he’d be mad an’ wouldn’t trust me. Besides, grandpa always said to ‘Pay as you go,’ an’ now I seem–I seem–to want to do what he told more’n ever. O Nick Dodd! What if–what if–he shouldn’t never–never come–no–more!”
Poor Glory’s courage gave way at last and, without ado, she flung herself upon Nick as she had done upon Bo’sn and clung to him as chokingly.
“Now, this is a purty fix, now ain’t it?” thought the victim of her embrace, casting a wary eye up and down the Lane, lest any mate should see and gibe at him, and call him a “softy.” Besides, for Glory to become sentimental–if this was sentiment–was as novel as for him to be generous. So, to relieve the situation, the newsboy put these two new things together and wrenched himself free, saying, “Quit it, Glory Beck! I got to breathe same’s another, ain’t I? You look a-here. See that cash? Well, I’ll tell ye, I’ll go fetch my grub—Had any yerself, Glory Beck?”
The question was spoken like an accusation and Glory resented it, answering quickly, “I don’t know as that’s anythin’ to you, Nick Parson!”
“’Course. But I’ll fetch enough fer two an’ I’ll tell ye, I’ll go to that ‘Snug Harbor’ my own self, a payin’ my own way, I will. I can afford it an’ you can’t. If so be the cap’n ’s there, I’ll fetch him out lickety-cut. If he ain’t, why then, ’twas him was killed. See?”
“No, I don’t see. Maybe they wouldn’t let a boy in, anyhow.”
“Pooh! They’re sure to. Ain’t I on the papers? Don’t newsboys go anywhere they want, same’s other press folks? Hey?”
Glory admitted that they did. She had often seen them jumping on and off of street cars at the risk of their lives and without hindrance from the officials. Also, the lad’s offer to share his breakfast with her was too tempting to be declined. As he hurried away toward his poor home, she sat down on the threshold of the warehouse before which they had talked to wait, calling after him, “Don’t forget a bite for Bo’sn, Nick!”
“All right!” he returned, and disappeared within his own cellar doorway.
Already Glory’s heart was happier. She would not allow herself to think it possible that her grandfather was hurt, and Nick’s willingness to help was a comfort. Maybe he would even take her with him, though she doubted it. However, she put the question to him as he reappeared with some old scraps in a torn newspaper, but while they were enjoying these as best they could and sharing the food with Bo’sn, Nick unfolded a better plan.
“Ye see, Take-a-Stitch, it’s this way–no use wastin’ eight cents on a old ferry when four’ll do. You look all over Broadway again. Then, if he ain’t anywheres ’round there, go straight to them other crony captains o’ hisn an’ see. Bein’s he can’t tell difference ’twixt night an’ day, how’d he know when to come back to the Lane, anyway?”
“He always come ’fore,” answered Glory, sorrowfully.
It was a new thing for Nick to take the lead in anything which concerned the little girl, who was the recognized leader of all the Lane children, and it made him both proud and more generous. Yielding to a wild impulse that now seized him, with a gesture of patronage, he drew from his pocket Miss Bonnicastle’s quarter and dropped it in Glory’s lap.
She stared at it, then almost gasped the question, “What–what’s it for, Nick Dodd?”
“Fer–you!” cried the boy. He might have added that it was “conscience money,” and that the unpleasant burning in his pocket had entirely ceased the instant he had rid himself of the ill-gotten coin, because at the time he had guided Miss Laura to the littlest house he had not tarried to learn how fruitless her visit was; else he might have felt less like a traitor. As it was, he tossed his head and answered loftily, “Don’t do fer girls to go trav’lin’ round ’ithout cash. You ain’t workin’ to-day an’–an’ ye may need it. Newspaper men–well, we can scrape along ’most anyhow. Hello, here’s Buttons!”
A cheery whistle announced the arrival of the third member of this intimate trio, and presently Billy came in sight around the Elbow, his freckled face as gay as the morning despite the facts that he still carried some unsold papers under his arm and that he had just emerged from a street fight, rather the worse for that event.
Glory’s fastidiousness was shocked, and, forgetting her own trouble in disgust at his carelessness, she exclaimed, “You bad Billy Buttons! There you’ve gone lost two more your buttons what I sewed with my strongest thread this very last day ever was! An’ your jacket—What you been doin’ with yourself, Billy Buttons?”
The newcomer seated himself between his friends, though in so doing he crowded Nick from the door-sill to the sidewalk, and composedly helped himself to what was left of their scanty breakfast. Better than nothing he found it and answered, as he ate, Glory’s repeated inquiry, “What doin’? Why, scrappin’, ’course. Say, parson, you hear me? They’s a new feller come on our beat an’ you chuck him, soon’s ye see him. I jest punched him to beat, but owe him ’nother, ’long o’ this tear. Sew it, Take-a-Stitch?”
“Can’t, Billy. I’ve got to hunt grandpa. Oh, Billy, Billy, he hain’t never come home!”
The newsboy paused in the munching of a crust and whistled, but this time in dismay rather than good cheer. Then he demanded, “What ye givin’ us?”
The others explained, both talking at once, though Master Buttons soon silenced his partner in trade that he might better hear the girl’s own story. When she had finished, and now with a fresh burst of tears, he whistled again; then ordered:
“Quit snivelin’, Glory Beck! A man ain’t dead till he dies, is he? More’n likely ’twas the old cap’n got hurt but that ain’t nothin’. Why, them hospitals is all chuck full o’ smash-up folks, an’ it’s jest meat fer them doctor-fellers to mend ’em again. He ain’t dead, an’ don’t you believe it; but dead or alive we’ll find him ’fore dark.
“Fer onct,” continued Billy, “the parson’s showed some sense. He might’s well do the ‘Harbor,’ ’cause that’s only one place an’ he can’t blunder much–seems if. You take the streets, same’s he said; and I–if you’ll put a needle an’ thread through me, bime-by, after he’s found, I’ll go find him an’ call it square. I’ll begin to the lowest down end the city hospitals they is an’ I’ll interview ’em, one by one, clean up to the Bronx. If Cap’n Beck is in any one, I’ll fetch him out, judge, an’ don’t you forget it.”
This division of the search pleased Glory and, springing up, the trio separated at once, nor did they meet again till nightfall. Alas! when reassembled then in the littlest house none had good news to tell.
“They ain’t been no new old cap’ns tooken in to that ‘Harbor’ this hull week. Th’ sailor what keeps the gate said so an’ was real decent. Said he’d heard o’ Cap’n Beck, he had, an’ if he’d a-come he’d a-knowed. Told me better call ag’in, might get there yet, an’ I’ll go,” reported Nick, putting a cheerful tone into his words for pity of Glory’s downcast face.
“Didn’t do a quarter th’ hospitals they is, but he ain’t in none them I have,” said Billy. “But I’ll tell ye. They’s a man on our force reports all the accidentses an’ I’ll see him to-night, when I go for my papers, an’ get him to hunt, too. He’s worth while an’ me an’ him’s sort o’ pardners. I give him p’ints an’ he ’lows I’ll be a reporter myself, when I’m bigger. An’ say, I sold a pape’ to a man couldn’t stop fer change an’ I’ve got three cream-puffs in this bag. That’s fer our suppers, an’ me an’ Nick’s goin’ to stay right here all night an’ take care of ye, Take-a-Stitch, an’ leave the door open, so cap’n can come straight in if he happens ’long ’fore mornin’.”
“An’ I’ve been to every single place he ever sung at, every single. An’ to all the captains, an’–an’–every, everywhere! An’ he ain’t! But I will find him. Iwill!”cried Glory, resolutely. “An’ you’re dear, dear darlin’ boys to help me so, an’ I love you, I love you!”
“All right, but needn’t bother to hug me!” protested Buttons.
“Ner me!” cried Nick, retreating as far from the grateful child as the limited space would permit. “An’ now choose corners. This is mine.”
Down he dropped in the inner point of the triangular floor and almost before his head had made itself a pillow of his arm he was sound asleep. Billy flung himself beside his mate and, also, slept; and though Glory intended to keep her eyes wide open “till grandpa comes,” she placed herself near them and rested her own tired head on Billy’s shoulder, and, presently, followed their example.
Half an hour later, the Lane policeman sauntered by, glanced into the dim interior, and saw the group of indistinct forms huddled together in dreamless slumber on their bed of bare boards. Then he softly closed the door upon them, murmuring in pity, “Poor little chummies! Life’s goin’ to be as hard for ’em as the floor they lie on. But the Lane’d seem darker ’n ’tis if they wasn’t in it.”