chhdr
Glory’s walk and heavy burden had exhausted her and, almost unconsciously, she let Bonny Angel slip from her arms to the door-step where she stood. There the child lay, flushed and motionless, in a sleep which nothing disturbed, though hitherto she had wakened at any call. Now, though in remorse at her own carelessness, Take-a-Stitch bent over the little one and begged her pardon most earnestly, the baby gave no sign of hearing and slumbered on with her face growing a deeper red and her breath beginning to come in a way that recalled the old captain’s snores.
“What shall I do now?” cried poor Glory, aloud, looking around over the wide country, so unlike the crowded Lane, and seeing no shelter anywhere at which she dared again apply. Some buildings there were, behind and removed from the cottage; but they were so like that inhospitable structure in color and design that she felt their indwellers would also be the same.
“Oh, I wish I hadn’t come all that way over the grass,” said poor Glory. “If we’d stayed by them car-rails, likely we’d have come somewhere that there was houses–different. And, Bonny Angel, sweetest, preciousest, darlingest one, do please, please, wake up and walk yourself just a little, teeny, tiny bit. Then, when I get rested a mite, I’ll carry you again, ’cause we’ve got to go, you see. That Timothy was mistook an’ his sister’s husband’s cousin won’t let us in.”
Yet even while her back was toward it, as she contemplated the landscape pondering which way lay her road, the door again suddenly opened and Mary Fogarty announced, shrilly, but not unkindly:
“There’s the wagon-house. You can rest there a spell, seein’ you was simple enough to lug that hefty young one clear across the meadder. It’s that third one, where the big door stands open an’ the stone-boat is.”
Glory faced about, her face at once radiant with gratitude, and its effect upon the cottage mistress was to further soften her asperity, so that though she again ejaculated that contemptuous “Huh!” it was in a milder tone; and, with something like interest she demanded, “How long ’s that baby been that feverish she is now? She looks ’s if she was comin’ down with somethin’ catchin’. Best get her home, soon ’s you can, sissy. She ain’t fit to be runnin’ round loose.”
Poor little Bonny Angel didn’t look much like “running loose” at present, and as for “home,” the word brought an intolerable feeling to Glory’s heart, making the sunny fields before her to seem like prison walls that yet had a curious sort of wobble to them, as if they were dancing up and down in a wild way. But that was because she regarded them now through a mist of tears she could not repress, while visions of a shadowy Lane, whose very gloom would have been precious to her on that hot day, obtruded themselves upon the scene.
With a desperate desire for guidance, Glory burst out her whole story and Mary Fogarty was forced to listen, whether or no. To that good woman’s credit it was that as she listened her really warm heart, upon which Timothy Dowd had counted, got the better of her impatience and, once more closing the door upon her peeping children, she said,
“Why, you poor, brave little creatur’! Come this way. I’ll show you where, though you must carry the baby yourself, if so be she won’t carry herself. I’ve got seven o’ my own an’ I wouldn’t have nothin’ catchin’ get amongst them, not for a fortune. I wouldn’t dare. I’ve had ’em down, four er five to a time, with whooping-cough an’ measles an’ scarletina an’ what not; an’ now sence the twinses come, I don’t want no more of it I can tell you. Don’t lag.”
Mary strode along, “like a horse,” as her husband frequently complimented her, walking as fast as she was talking and, with Bonny Angel in her arms, Goober Glory did her best to keep a similar pace. But this was impossible. Not only were her feet heavy beneath the burden she bore, but her heart ached with foreboding. With Bonny Angel ill, how was the search for grandpa to go on? How to look for the little one’s own people? Yet how terrible that they must be left in their grief while she could do nothing to comfort them.
“Oh, if they only knew! She’s so safe with me, I love her so. If I could only tell them! I wonder–I wonder who they are and where they are and shall I ever, ever find them!” she exclaimed in her anxiety as, coming to the wagon-house door, she found Mistress Fogarty awaiting her.
That lady answered with her own cheerful exclamation, “’Course you will. Everything comes right, everywhere, give it time enough. Now step right up into this loft. There’s a bed here that the extry man sleeps on when there is an extry. None now. Real gardenin’ comes to a standstill when Dennis has the chills. You can put the baby down there an’ let her sleep her sleep out. You might ’s well lie down yourself and take a snooze, bein’ you’re that petered out a luggin’.
“I must get back an’ start up dinner,” continued Mary. “It’s a big job, even with Dennis round to peel and watch the fryin’. Seven youngsters of my own, with him an’ me, and ten boarders—My, it takes a pile of bread to keep all them mouths full, let alone pies an’ fixin’s. It’s vegetable soup to-day, and as the gang’s working right nigh, they’ll all be in prompt. I won’t forget ye, an’ I’ll send something out to ye by somebody–but don’t you pay me back by giving one of my children anything catchin’!”
Before Glory could assure the anxious mother that she would do her utmost for their safety, Mary had run down the rude stairs, shaking the shed-like building as she ran, and was within the red cottage ere the visitor realized it.
Glory exclaimed, as she gazed about, “Here we are, at last, in a regular house! And my, isn’t it big? Why, ever an’ ever so much bigger than the ‘littlest house in Ne’ York!’ That bed’s wide enough for all Meg’s children to onct, and–my, how Bonny Angel does sleep. I’m sleepy, too, now I see such a prime place. The woman told me to sleep and I guess I’d better mind.”
So, presently, having removed Bonny’s draggled coat from the still drowsy child, Glory placed her charge at the extreme back of the bed and lay down herself.
“Wake up, sissy! Come down an’ get your basin of soup. Enough in it for the pair of ye, with strawberry shortcake to match!”
It was this summons which aroused Glory from a delightful slumber and she sprang to her feet, not comprehending, at first, what she heard or where she was. Then she returned, laughing as she spoke, “’Course I’ll come, you splendid Mary Fogarty! And I’m more obliged ’an I can say, but I’ll work it out, I truly will try to work it out, if you’ll hunt up your jobs. That dear Timothy said you needed mendin’, dreadful!”
But she was unaware that this same Timothy was also close at hand.
“Oh! he did, did he? Well, he said the true word for once, but bad manners in him all the same,” answered Mrs. Fogarty; and, as Glory joined them at the foot of the stairs, there were the two engaged in a sort of scuffle which had more mirth than malice in it.
When Take-a-Stitch appeared, they regarded her with a look of compassion which she did not understand; because at the dinner, now comfortably over, the child and her hopeless search had been discussed and the ten boarders, the seven children, with their parents, had all reached one and the same conclusion, namely, that the only safe place for such innocent and ignorant vagrants was in some “Asylum.” Who was to announce this decision and convey the little ones to their place of refuge had not, as yet, been settled. Nobody was inclined to take up that piece of work and the ten boarders sauntered back to their more congenial labor on the railroad, leaving the matter in Mary Fogarty’s hands.
However, it was a matter destined for nobody to settle, because when Glory had carefully conveyed the basin of soup, the pitcher of milk and the generous slices of shortcake back to the loft, she was frightened out of all hunger by the appearance of Bonny Angel. It was almost the first time in her life that the little “Queen of Elbow Lane” had had a dinner set before her of such proper quantity and quality, yet she was not to taste it.
Bonny was tossing to and fro, sometimes moaning with pain, sometimes shrieking in terror, but always in such a state as to banish every thought save of herself from Glory’s mind. And then began a week of the greatest anxiety and distress which even the little caretaker of Elbow Lane, with her self-imposed charge of its many children, had ever known.
“If she should die before I find her folks! If it’s ’cause I haven’t done the best I could for her—Oh, what shall I do!” wailed Take-a-Stitch, herself grown haggard with watching and grief, so that she looked like any other than the winsome child who had flashed upon Miss Bonnicastle’s vision at that memorable visit of hers to that crooked little alley where they had met.
And Timothy Dowd, the only one of the big household near, whom Mary Fogarty permitted to enter the wagon-house-hospital, sighed as he answered with an affected cheerfulness: “Sure, it’s nobody dies around these parts; not a body since I was put to work on this section the road. So, why more her nor another an’ she the youngest o’ the lot? Younger, betoken, nor the twinses theirselves.
“An’ it’s naught but that crotchetty woman, yon,” continued Tim, “that’s cousin to me own sister’s husband, ’d have took such fool notions into her head. Forbiddin’ me, even me, her own relation by marriage, to set foot inside her door till she says the word, an’ somebody tellin’ her we should be smoked out with sulphur an’ brimstone, like rats in a hole, ere ever we can mix with decent folks again. An’ some of the boys, even, takin’ that nonsense from herself, an’ not likin’ to dig in the same ditch along with the contagious Tim. Sure, it’s contagious an’ cantankerous and all them other big things we’ll be, when we get out o’ this an’ find the old captain, your grandpa, an’ the biggest kind of a celebration ’twill be, or never saw I the blue skies of old Ireland! Bless the sod!”
But in his heart, faithful Timothy did not look for Bonny Angel’s recovery. Nobody knew what ailed her, since physician had not been called. Against such professional advice, Mary Fogarty had set her big foot with an unmovable firmness. Doctors had never interfered in her household save once, when Dennis, misguided man, had consulted one. And witness, everybody, hadn’t he been sick and useless ever since?
So, from a safe distance, she assumed charge of the case; sending Glory a pair of shears with which to shave Bonny’s sunny head, directing that all windows should be closed, lest the little patient “take cold,” and preparing food suitable for the hardest working “boarder,” rather than the delicate stomach of a sick child.
However, had they known it, there was nothing whatever infectious about little Bonny’s illness, which was simply the result of unaccustomed exposure and unwholesome food; nor did good Mary’s unwise directions cause any great harm, because, though a delicate child, the baby was a healthy one. She had no desire for the coarse food that was offered her but drank frequently of the milk that accompanied it; and as for the matter of fresh air, although Glory had to keep the windows closed, there was plenty of ventilation from the wide apertures under the eaves of the shed.
At the end of the week, the devoted young nurse had the delight of hearing her “Angel” laugh outright, for the first time in so many days, and to feel her darling’s arms about her own neck while the pale little lips cried out once more the familiar, “Bonny come! Bonny come!”
To catch her tiny “Guardian” up and run with her to the cottage-door took but a minute, but there Glory’s enthusiasm was promptly dashed by Mary’s appearance. Shaking her arms vigorously, she “shooed” the pair away, as she “shooed” everything objectionable out of her path.
“Stand back! Stand back, the two of ye! Don’t dast to come anigh, sence the time of gettin’ over things is the very worst time to give ’em. Hurry back to the wagon-house, quick, quick! And once you’re safe inside, I’ll fetch you some other clothes that you must both put on. Every stitch you’ve wore, ary one, and the bedclothes, has got to be burnt. Tim’s to burn ’em this noonin’. I’ve got no girl your size, but that don’t matter. I’ve cut off an old skirt o’ my own, for your outside, an’ little Joe’s your very pattern for shape, so his shirt an’ blouse ’ll do amazin’ well. As for the baby, she can put on a suit of the twinses’ till so be we can do better. Now hurry up!”
Glory could not help lingering for a moment to ask, “Must it be burned? Do you really, truly, mean to burn Bonny Angel’s lovely white silk coat, an’ her pretty dress all lace an’ trimmin’? An’ my blue frock–why, I haven’t wore it but two years, that an’ the other one to home. It’s as good as good, only lettin’ out tucks now and then an’—”
“Huh! S’pose you, a little girl, know more about what’s right than I do, a big growed up woman? I’ve took you in an’ done for ye all this time an’ the least you can do is to do as you’re told,” replied Mrs. Fogarty, in her sharpest manner.
Thus reprimanded, Glory retreated to the wagon-house, whence, after a time, she reappeared so altered by her new attire that she scarcely knew herself. Much less, did she think, that any old friend of Elbow Lane would recognize her. She was next directed to carry all the discarded clothing and bedding to a certain spot in the barnyard, where Timothy would make a bonfire of it as soon as he appeared; and her heart ached to part with the silken coat which had enwrapped her precious “Guardian,” even though it were now soiled and most disreputable.
However, these were minor troubles. The joyful fact remained that Bonny Angel had not died but was already recovered and seemed more like her own gay little self with every passing moment. Clothes didn’t matter, even if they were those of a boy. They needed considerable hitching up and pinning, for they were as minus of buttons as all the garments seemed to be which had to pass through Mary Fogarty’s hands and washtub; but a few strings would help and maybe Timothy Dowd could supply those; and if once Take-a-Stitch could get her fingers upon a needle and thread–my, how she would alter everything!
Summoned back to the cottage, after she had fulfilled her hostess’s last demand, Glory’s spirits rose to the highest. It was the first time she had entered the ranks of the seven other children which filled it to overflowing, and who were “shooed” into or out of it, according to their mother’s whim.
It happened to be out, just then, and with the throng Glory, fast holding Bonny in her arms, chanced to pass close beside the shivering Dennis in his seat by the stove. He looked at her curiously but kindly, and his gaze moved from her now happy face to that of the child in her clasp, where it rested with such a fixed yet startled expression that Glory exclaimed, “Oh, sir, what is it? Do you see anything wrong with my precious?”
Now it was the fact that Dennis Fogarty spoke as seldom as his wife did often; and that when he was most profoundly moved he spoke not at all. So then, though his eyes kept their astonished, perplexed expression, his lips closed firmly and to Glory’s anxious inquiry, he made no reply.
Therefore, waiting but a moment longer, she hurried after the other children and in five minutes was leading them at their games just as she had always led the Elbow children in theirs. But Bonny was still too weak and too small to keep up very long with the boisterous play of these new mates, and seeing this, Take-a-Stitch presently made the seven group themselves around her on the grass while she told them tales.
Glory thought of all the fairy stories with which the old blind captain had beguiled their darkened evenings in that “littlest house” where gas or lamplight could not be afforded; then she went on to real stories of the Elbow children themselves; of Meg-Laundress and Posy Jane; and most of all of Nick and Billy, her chosen comrades and almost brothers. One and all the young Fogartys listened open-mouthed and delighted; but, when pressed to talk more about that “grandpa you’re lookin’ for,” poor Glory grew silent.
It was one of the loveliest spots in the world where Glory sat that morning, with its view of field and mountain and the wonderful river winding placidly between; but the outcast child would have exchanged it all for just one glimpse of a squalid alley, and a tiny familiar doorway, wherein an old seaman should be sitting carving a bit of wood.
Thinking of him, though not talking, she became less interesting company to the Fogartys, who withdrew one by one, attracted by the odor of dinner preparing, and hungry for the scraps which would be tossed among them by their indulgent mother.
Bonny Angel went to sleep; and, holding her snugly, Glory herself leaned back against the tree trunk where she was sitting and closed her own eyes. She did this the better to mature her plans for the search she meant to resume that very day, if possible, and certainly by the morrow at the latest. Now that Bonny was so nearly well, she must go on; and as her head whirled with the thoughts which swarmed it, it seemed to her that she had “grown as old as old since grandpa went away.”
Glory at last decided that she had best stop thinking and planning altogether, just for a moment, and go to sleep as Bonny Angel had done. She remembered that grandpa had often said that a nap of “forty winks” would clear his own head and set him up lively for the rest of the day. Whatever Captain Simon Beck, in his great wisdom said was right, must be so; and though it seemed very lazy for a big girl such as she to take “forty winks” on her own account and in the daytime, she did take them and with so many repetitions of the “forty” that the boarders had all come home across the fields before she roused again to know what was going on about her.
There was a hum of voices on the other side of the tree; and though they were low, as if not intended for her ear, they were also very earnest and in evident dispute over some subject which she gradually learned was none other than herself.
She had been going to call out to them, cheerily, but what she heard made her sit up and listen closely. Not very honorable, it may be, yet wholly natural, since Mistress Mary was insisting:
“There’s no use talkin’, Timothy Dowd, them two must pack to the first ‘Asylum’ will take ’em in. The sooner the better and this very day the best of all. ’Twas yourself brought ’em or sent ’em, and ’tis yourself must do the job. You can knock off work this half-day and get it settled.”
“Oh, but Mary, me cousin, by marriage that is. I hate it. I hate it worse nor ever was. Sure, it was bad enough touchin’ a match to them neat little clothes o’ theirs but forcin’ themselves away—Ah! Mary, mother o’ seven, think! What if ’twas one o’ your own, now?” wheedled Tim.
But Mary was not to be moved. Indeed, she dared not be. As Glory had already learned, Dennis Fogarty was the now useless gardener of the rich family which lived in the great house on the hill beyond, and to whom the abused Queen Anne cottage and all the other red outbuildings visible belonged.
The rich people were very particular to have all things on their estate kept in perfect order; and though they had no fault to find with Dennis himself, whenever he was well enough to work, they did find much fault with his shiftless or careless wife, while the brood of noisy children was a constant annoyance to them, whenever they occupied Broadacres.
It was for this reason that during the family’s stay at the great house, Mary so seldom allowed her children out of the house; nor had Dennis ever permitted her to visit the place in person when there was any chance of her being seen by his employers. He felt that he held his own position merely by their generosity; nor did he approve of her boarding the workmen of the near-by railway. Still, he knew that his children must be fed, and, without the money she earned, how could they be?
Mary’s argument, then, against taking into her home two more children, to make bad matters worse, was a good one, and Timothy could find no real word to say against it. Yet he was all in sympathy with Glory’s search for the missing seaman, and how could he be the instrument of shutting her up in any institution, no matter how good, where she could not continue that search?
Having heard thus much, and recalling even then Posy Jane’s saying about “listeners hearin’ no good o’ theirselves,” Take-a-Stitch quietly rose and went around the tree till she stood before her troubled friends.
“Why, I thought you was asleep!” cried poor Timothy, rather awkwardly and very red in the face.
“So I was, part of the time. Part I wasn’t and I listened. I shouldn’t ought, I know, an’ grandpa would say so, but I’m glad I did, ’cause you needn’t worry no more ’bout Bonny Angel an’ me. I will start right off. I was going to, to-morrow, anyway, if she didn’t get sick again; an’ Mis’ Fogarty will have to leave us these clothes till–till–I can some time–some day–maybe earn some for myself. Then I’ll get ’em sent back, somehow, an’—”
By this time, Mary was also upon her feet, tearful and compassionate and fain to turn her eyes away from the sad, brave little face that confronted her. Yet not even her pity could fathom the longing of this vagrant “Queen” for her dirty Lane and her loyal subjects; nor how she shrank in terror from the lonely search she knew she must yet continue, thinking, “’Cause grandpa would never have give me up if I was lost and I never will him, never, never, never! But if only Billy, er Nick, er—”
Mrs. Fogarty interrupted the little girl’s thoughts with the remark, “Now them ‘Asylums’ is just beautiful, honey darlin’–an’ you’ll be as happy as the day is long. You’ll—”
It was Glory’s turn to interrupt the cooing voice, which, indeed, she had scarcely heard, because of another sound which had come to her ear; and it was now a countenance glorified in truth by unlooked-for happiness that they saw, as with uplifted hand and parted lips, she strove to catch the distant strains of music which seemed sent to check her grief.
“Hark! Hark! Listen! Sh-h-h!” cried the girl.
“Bless us, colleen! Have ye lost your seventy senses, laughin’ an’ cryin’ to onct, like a daft creatur’?” demanded Timothy, amazed.
She did not stop to answer him but gently placing Bonny Angel in his arms, sped away down the road, crying ecstatically, “Luigi! Luigi!”
chhdr
“Hmm, hmm, indeed! An’ what is ‘Loo-ee-gy’ anyhow? An’ what is the noise I hear save one them wore-out hurdy-gurdies, that do be roamin’ the country over, soon’s ever the town gets too hot to hold ’em? Wouldn’t ’pear that a nice spoken little girl as yon would be takin’ up with no Eyetalian organ-grinder,” grumbled Timothy, a trifle jealously. Already he felt a sort of proprietorship in Glory and the “Angel” and had revolved in his mind for several nights–that is when he could keep awake–what he could do to help her. He was as reluctant to place her in any institution against her will as she was to have him, but he had not known what else to propose to Mary’s common sense suggestion.
Both Timothy and Mrs. Fogarty watched the open gateway, through which Take-a-Stitch had vanished, for her to reappear, since the brick wall at the foot of the slope fully hid the road beyond.
The music had soon ceased, but not until all the seven had swarmed out of the house, excited over even so trifling a “show” to break the monotony of their lives. All seven now began to exercise themselves in the wildest antics, leaping over one another’s shoulders, turning somersaults, each fisticuffing his neighbor, and finally emitting a series of deafening whoops as Glory actually turned back into the grounds, her hands clinging to the arm of a swarthy little man, who carried a hand-organ on his back and a monkey on his shoulder. The hand-organ was of the poorest type and the monkey looked as though he had been “upon the road” for many, many years–so ancient and wrinkled was his visage. His jaunty red coat had faded from its original tint to a dirty brown; and the funny little cap which he pulled from his head was full of holes, so that it was a wonder he did not lose from it the few cents he was able to collect in it for his master.
But the vagrant pair might have been some wonderful grandees, so proudly did Goober Glory convey them up the slope to the very tree where Mary and her brood awaited them, crying joyfully:
“’Tis Luigi! Luigi Salvatore, Antonio’s brother! He knows me, he knows us all and he’s come straight from Elbow Lane. I mean, quite straight, ’cause he was there after I was. Wasn’t you, Luigi?”
Luigi stood bareheaded now, resting his organ-pole upon the ground and glancing from Glory’s eager face to the curious faces of these others. He understood but little of “United States language,” having come to that country but a short time before, and having hitherto relied upon his brother Toni to interpret for him when necessary. He was waiting permission to grind out his next tune, and not as surprised as Timothy was that the little girl should have recognized his organ from a multitude of others, which to the railroader sounded exactly the same.
Take-a-Stitch nodded her head, also freshly cropped like Bonny’s, and he began. For a time all went well. The seven young Fogartys were in ecstasies, and even their elders beamed with delight, forgetting that the one would be “docked” for his wasted time and the other that the cat and her kittens were at that moment helping to “clear the table” she had left standing. Even Bonny Angel gravely nodded approval from her perch in Timothy’s arms, save when the too solicitous monkey held his cap to her. Then she frowned and buried her pretty face on Timothy’s shoulder and raised it only when Jocko had hopped another way.
But suddenly out of his selections, Luigi began that ancient tune, “A Life on the Ocean Wave, A Home on the Rolling Deep”–and then disaster!
Almost as distinctly as if he stood there before her in the flesh, forsaken Glory saw her grandfather’s beloved form; clad in his well-kept old uniform, buttons shining, head thrown back, gilt-trimmed cap held easily in his wrinkled hand, with Bos’n sitting gravely upright beside him. There he stood, in her fancy; and the vision well-nigh broke her heart. Then down upon the grass she flung herself and all her brave self-repression gave way before the flood of homesick longing which besieged her.
Nobody quite understood what ailed her, though from having heard the captain sing that melody he had just ground out, Luigi dimly guessed. But the effect upon all was that there had been quite music enough for the time being, and Mary showed her wisdom by drawing the company away, counseling:
“Let her have her cry out. She’s kep’ in brave an’ ’twill do her good. More good’n a lickin’!” she finished, with a lunge at her eldest son, who was fast changing his playful cuffs of a twin into blows which were not playful; and all because between Jocko and that twin was already developing considerable interest, which the bigger boy wished to fix upon himself.
“Well now, ma! What for? ’Tain’t every day a monkey comes a visitin’ here an’ he’s had him long enough. My turn next, an’ that’s fair,” protested Dennis, junior, namesake of the gardener.
“No more it isn’t, an’ me forgettin’ my manners after the fine music he’s give us. Look up, Glory, an’ ask the gentleman, Looeegy yon, would he like a bite to eat.”
The girl raised her face, already ashamed of crying before other people, and instantly eager to do something for this visitor from “home”; and when she had repeated Mary’s invitation to Luigi the smiles came back to her own face at the smiles which lightened his.
Alas! It wasn’t very much of the good dinner was left, after the cat and her kittens had done with it, but such as remained was most welcome to the poor Italian. Accustomed to a dry loaf of bread washed down with water from the roadside, even the remnants of Mary Fogarty’s food seemed a feast to him; and he enjoyed it upon the door-step with Glory at his feet and Jocko coming in for whatever portion his master thought best to spare.
Afterward, comforted and rested, he would have repaid his hostess by another round of his melodies; but this, much to the disgust of seven small lads, Take-a-Stitch prevented.
Leading the organ-grinder from the threshold of the cottage to the tree beyond it, Glory made Luigi sit down again and answer every question she put to him; and though he did not always comprehend her words, he did her gestures, so that, soon, she had learned all he knew of the Lane since she had left it until the previous day when he had done so.
First, because to him it seemed of the greater importance, Luigi dwelt upon Toni’s disappointment, and divulged the great “secret” which had matured in the peanut-merchant’s brain, and was to have been made known to Goober Glory, had she not “runned the way.” The secret was a scheme for the betterment of everybody concerned and of Antonio Salvatore in especial; and to the effect that the blind captain and Goober Glory should form a partnership. She was to be given charge of Antonio’s own big stand; while comfortable upon a high stool, beside it, the captain was to sit and sing. This would have attracted many customers, Toni thought, by its novelty; and, incidentally, the seaman might sell some of his own frames. As for the proprietor himself, he was to have taken and greatly enlarged the “outside business”; Luigi assisting him whenever the organ failed to pay.
“Money, little one! Oh, mucha money for all! But you stole the baby and runned away,” ended this part of the stroller’s tale, as she interpreted it.
“I never! Never, never, never! She was sent! She belongs. Hear me!” cried Glory, indignantly, and forthwith poured into Luigi’s puzzled ear all her own story. Then she demanded that he should answer over again her first question when she had met him; hoping a different reply.
“Has my grandpa come back?”
But Luigi only shook his head. Even through his dim understanding, there had filtered the knowledge that the fine old captain never would so come. He had been killed, crushed, put out of this sunny world by a cruel accident. So Antonio had told him; but so, in pity, for her he would not repeat. Rather he would make light of the matter, and did so, shrugging his shoulders in his foreign fashion and elevating his eyebrows indifferently; then conveyed to her in his broken English that the seaman must have “moved,” because the landlord had come and sent all the furnishings of the “littlest house” to the grocer’s for safe keeping; and there she would find them when she wished.
As for Billy Buttons and Nick, his chum, they were as bad as ever; and Posy Jane had never a penny for his music, never; though Meg-Laundress would sometimes toss him one if he would play for a long, long time and so keep her children amused and out of mischief. She, too, had even gone so far as to bid him look out all along the road he should travel for Goober Glory herself; and if he found her and brought her back, why she would make him a fine present. Goober Glory had been the most inexpensive and faithful of nurses to Meg’s children and she could afford to do the handsome thing by any one who would restore her services.
“And here I find you, already,” said Luigi, accepting the wonderful fact as if it were the simplest thing in the world, whereas, out of the many roads by which he might have journeyed from the city, this was the one least likely to attract his wandering footsteps. And this strange thing was, afterward, to confirm good Meg-Laundress in her faith in “Guardian Angels.”
But when he proposed that they return at once to the Lane lest Meg’s promise should be forgotten and he defrauded of his present, Glory firmly objected:
“No, no, Luigi. I must find grandpa. I must find this baby’s folks. Then we will go back, you and me and all of us but her; ’cause then I’ll have to give her up, I reckon–the darlin’, preciousest thing!”
Luigi glanced at the sun, at the landscape, at the group of watchful Fogartys, and reflected that there was no money to be made there. The hand-organ belonged to Tonio, his brother, and the monkey likewise. Tonio loved money better than anything; and Luigi, the organ, and the monkey had been sent forth to collect it, not to loiter by the way; and if he was not to return at once and secure Meg’s present, that would have been appropriated by Antonio, as a matter of course, he must be about his business. When he had slowly arrived at this decision, he rose, shouldered the hurdy-gurdy, signaled Jocko to his wrist, pulled his cap in respect to his hostess, and set off.
“Wait, wait, Luigi! just one little minute! I must bid them good-bye, ’cause they’ve been so good to me, and I’m going with you! Just one little bit or minute!” cried Glory, clasping his arm, imploringly.
The organ-grinder would be glad of her company, of any company, in fact; so he waited unquestioningly, while Glory explained, insisted, and finally overcame the expostulations of Timothy and Mary.
“Yes, she must go. Not until she had looked forever and ever could she be shut up in a ‘’sylum’ where she could look no further. When she found him, they would come back, he and she, and show them how right she was to keep on and how splendid he was. She thanked them–my, how she did thank them for their kindness, and, besides, there was Bonny Angel. If she’d dared to give up lookin’ for grandpa, as he wouldn’t have give up lookin’ for her, she must, she must, find the Angel’s folks. She couldn’t rest–nohow, never. Think o’ all them broken hearts, who’d lost such a beau-tiful darlin’ as her!”
Then she added, with many a loving look over the whole group, “But I mustn’t keep poor Luigi. He belongs to Toni, seems if, an’ Toni Salvatore can make it lively for them ’at don’t please him. So, good-bye, good-bye–everybody. Every single dear good body!”
Turning, with Bonny Angel once more in her own arms, walking backward to have the very last glimpse possible of these new friends, with eyes fast filling again, and stumbling over her long skirt that had lost its last hook, Glory Beck resumed her seemingly hopeless search.
However, she was not to depart just yet nor thus. To the surprise of all, Dennis himself now appeared in the doorway and held up his hand to detain her. Until then, he had showed but slight interest in her, and his strange staring at Bonny had been unnoticed by his wife. Now his face wore a puzzled expression and he passed his hand across his eyes as if he wished to clear his sight. He gazed with intensity upon Glory’s “Guardian” once more, and at last remarked:
“Pease in a pod. ’Tother had yellow curls. Awful trouble for them, plenty as kids are the country over. Pease in a pod. Might try it;” and turning sidewise he pointed toward the distant great house on the hill. Then he retreated to his fireside again, and Mary was left to interpret. She did so, saying:
“He’s sayin’ the ‘family’ ’s in some sort o’ trouble, though I hadn’t heard it. Though, ’course, they’ve been home only a few days an’ whatever any the other hands what’s been down to see him sence has told him he hain’t told me. But I make out ’t he thinks Looeegy’s playin’ up there on the terrace might do noh arm an’ll likely cheer ’em up a mite. That’s what I make out Dennis means. You an’ the organ-man’d best make your first stop along the road up to the big house. If they won’t pay anything to hear him play, likely they will to have him go away, bein’s they’re dreadful scared of tramps an’ such. Good-bye. Come an’ see us when you can!”
chhdr
“Sure, and it’s not meself can tackle the road, the day. As well be ‘docked’ for the end as the beginnin’, an’ I’m minded to keep that lot company a piece,” remarked Timothy Dowd, to his sister’s husband’s cousin. “That monkey is most interestin’, most interestin’ an’ improvin’; an’ ’tisn’t often a lad from old Ireland has the chance to get acquaintance of the sort, leave alone that Glory girl, what’s took up quarters in me heart an’ won’t be boosted thence, whatever. The poor little colleen! A-lookin’ for one lost old man out of a world full! Bless her innocent soul! Yes. I’ve a mind to company them a bit. What say, Mary, woman?”
“What need to say a word, sence when a man’s bent to do a thing he does it? But keep an open ear, Timothy, boy. I’m curious to know what sort o’ trouble ’tis, Dennis hints at, as comin’ to them old people yon. And he’d never say, considerin’ as he does, that what goes on in the big house is no consarn o’ the cottage, an’ fearin’ to remind ’em even’t we’re alive, lest they pack us off an’ fetch in folks with no childer to bless an’ bother ’em. Yes, go, Timothy; and wait; here’s one them handy catch-pins, that Glory might tighten her skirt a bit.”
Timothy’s usually merry face had been sadly overclouded as he watched the departure of Glory and her companions, but it lightened instantly when Mary favored his suggestion to follow and learn their fortune. With his hat on the back of his head, his stick over his shoulder, and his unlighted pipe in his mouth–which still managed to whistle a gay tune despite this impediment–he sauntered along the road in the direction the others had taken, though at some distance behind them. But when they passed boldly through the great iron gates and followed the driveway winding over the beautiful lawn, his bashfulness overcame him, and he sat down on the bank-wall to await their return, which must be, he fancied, by that same route; soliloquizing thus:
“Sure, Tim, me boy, if it’s tramps they object to, what for ’s the use o’ turnin’ your honest self into such? Them on ahead has business to tend to; the business o’ makin’ sweet music where music there is none; an’ may the pennies roll out thick an’ plenteous an’ may the Eyetalian have the good sense in him to share them same with my sweet colleen. It’s thinkin’ I am that all is spent on such as her is money well invested. So I’ll enjoy the soft side this well-cut top-stone, till so be me friends comes along all in a surprise to see me here.”
His own whistling had ceased, and though he listened closely he could not hear Luigi’s organ or any sound whatever. The truth was that the way seemed endless from the entrance to the house upon the terrace; and that having reached it at last, both Luigi and Glory were dismayed by the magnitude of the mansion and confused by its apparently countless doorways. Before which they should take their stand, required time to decide; but unobserved, they finally settled this point. Luigi rested his instrument upon its pole, loosed Jocko to his gambols, and tuned up.
The strains which most ears would have found harsh and discordant sounded pleasantly enough to the listening Timothy, who nodded his head complacently, wishing and thinking:
“Now he’s off! May he keep at it till he wheedles not only the pence but the dollars out the pockets o’ them that hears! ’Twill take dollars more’n one to keep Glory on her long road, safe and fed, and—Bless us! What’s that?”
What, indeed, but the wildest sort of uproar, in which angry voices, the barking of dogs, the screams of frightened women drowning the feeble tones of “Oft in the Stilly Night,” sent Timothy to his feet and his feet to speeding, not over the graveled driveway, but straight across the shaven lawn, where passage was forbidden. But no “Keep off the grass” signs deterred him, as he remembered now, too late, all that he had heard of the ferocity of the Broadacre dogs which its master kept for just such occasions as this.
“Bloodhounds! And they’ve loosed them! Oh, me darlin’ colleen! Ill to me that I let ye go wanderin’ thus with that miserable Eyetalian! But I’m comin’! Tim’s comin’!” he yelled, adding his own part to the wild chorus above.
He reached the broad paved space before the great door none too soon, and though, ordinarily, he would have given the yelping hounds a very wide berth, he did not hesitate now. Huddled together in a group, with the frantic animals bounding and barking all around them, though as yet not touching them, stood the terrified Luigi and his friends; realizing what vagrancy means in this “land of the free,” and how even to earn an honest living one should never dare to “trespass.”
But even as Timothy forced his stalwart frame between the children and the dogs, the great door opened and a white-haired gentleman came hurrying out. Thrusting a silver whistle to his lips he blew upon it shrilly, and almost instantly the uproar ceased, and the three hounds sprang to his side, fawning upon him, eager for his commendation. Instead of praise, however, they were given the word of command and crouched beside him, licking their jaws and expectant, seemingly, of a further order to pounce upon the intruders.
“Who loosed the dogs?” demanded the gentleman, in a clear-ringing, indignant tone.
Now that he seemed displeased by their too solicitous obedience, none of the gathering servants laid claim to it; and while all stood waiting, arrested in their attitudes of fear or defense, a curious thing happened. Glory Beck threw off the protecting arms of Timothy Dowd and, with Bonny Angel clasped close in her own, swiftly advanced to the granite step where the white-haired gentleman stood. Her face that had paled in fear now flushed in excitement as with a voice unlike her own she cried:
“You, sir! You, sir! What have you done with my grandfather?”
The gentleman stared at her, thinking her fright had turned her brain; but saying kindly, as soon as he could command his voice:
“There, child. It’s all right. The dogs won’t touch you now.”
“The dogs!” retorted the child, in infinite scorn. “What do I care for the dogs? It’s you I want. You, that ‘Snug-Harbor’-Bonnicastle-man who coaxed my grandpa Simon Beck away from his own home an’ never let him come back any more!”
Then her anger subsiding into an intensity of longing, she threw herself at his feet, clasping his knees and imploring, piteously:
“Oh! take me to him. Tell me, tell me where he is. I’ve looked so long and I don’t know where and–please, please, please.”
For a moment nobody spoke; not even Colonel Bonnicastle, for it was he, indeed, though he silently motioned to a trustworthy man who had drawn near to take the dogs away; and who, in obedience, whistling imperatively, gathered their chains in his hands and led them back to their kennel.
When the dogs had disappeared, the master of Broadacres sank into a near-by chair, wiping his brow and pityingly regarded the little girl who still knelt, imploringly. He was trying to comprehend what had happened, what she meant, and if he had ever seen her before. Captain Simon Beck! That was a familiar name, surely, but of that ungrateful seaman, who wouldn’t be given a “Snug Harbor” whether or no, of him he had never heard nor even thought since his one memorable uncomfortable visit to Elbow Lane.
“Simon Beck–Simon Beck,” he began, musingly. “Yes, I know a Simon Beck, worthy seaman, and would befriend him if I could. Is he your grandfather, child, and what has happened to him that you speak to me so–so–well, let us say–rudely?”
Then he added, in that commanding tone which few who knew him ever disobeyed:
“Get up at once, child. Your kneeling to me is absurd, nor do I know in what way I can help you, though you think I can do so–apparently. Why! How strange–how like–”
He had stooped and raised Glory, gently forcing her to her feet, and as he did so, Bonny Angel turned her own face around from the girl’s breast where she had buried it in her terror of the dogs.
Wasted and shorn of her beautiful hair, clothed in the discarded rags of a Fogarty twin, it would have taken keen eyes indeed to recognize in the little outcast the radiant “Guardian Angel” who had flashed upon Glory’s amazed sight that day in Elbow Lane; yet something about it there was which made the near-sighted colonel grope hastily for his eyeglasses and in his haste overlook them, so that he muttered angrily at his own awkwardness.
Into the blue eyes of the little one herself crept a puzzled wondering look, that fixed itself upon the perplexed gentleman with a slowly growing comprehension.
Just then, too, when forgetting her own anxiety, Glory looked from the baby to the man and back again, startled and wondering, a lady came to the doorway and exclaimed:
“Why, brother, whatever is the matter! Such an uproar—”
But her sentence was never finished. Bonny’s gaze, distracted from the colonel to his sister, glued itself to the lady’s face, while the perplexity in the blue eyes changed to delight. With a seraphic smile upon her dainty lips, a smile that would have made her recognizable anywhere, under any disguise, the little creature propelled herself from Glory’s arms to the outstretched arms of Miss Laura, shrilling her familiar announcement:
“Bonny come! Bonny come!”
How can the scene be best explained, how best described? Maybe in words of honest Timothy Dowd himself; who, somewhat later, returning to the Queen Anne cottage, called the entire Fogarty family about him and announced to the assembled household:
“Well, sirs! Ye could knock me down with a feather!” after which he sank into profound silence.
“Huh! And is that what ye’re wantin’ of us, is it? Well, you never had sense,” remarked Mary, turning away indignantly.
Thus roused, the railroader repeated:
“Sure, an’ ye could. A feather’d do it, an’ easy. But sit down, woman. Sit down as I bid ye, an’ hear the most wonderful, marvelous tale a body ever heard this side old Ireland. Faith, I wish my tongue was twicet as long, an’ I knew better how to choose the beginnin’ from the end of me story, or the middle from any one. But sit down, sit down, lass, an’ bid your seven onruly gossoons to keep the peace for onct, while I tell ye a story beats all the fairy ones ever dreamed. But–where to begin!”
“Huh! I’ll give you a start,” answered Mrs. Fogarty, impatiently. “You went from here: now go on with your tale.”
“I went from here,” began Timothy, obediently, and glad of even this small aid in his task. “I went from here an’ I follyed the three of ’em, monkey an’ man an’ girl—”
“And the baby. That’s four,” corrected Dennis, junior, winking at a brother.
“Hist, boy! Childer should speak when they’re spoke to,” returned Timothy, severely, then continued, at length: “I went from here. And I follyed—”
Here he became so lost in retrospection that Mary tapped him on the shoulder, when he resumed as if no break had occurred:
“Them four to the gate. But havin’ no business of me own on the place, I stayed behind, a listenin’. An’, purty soon up pipes the beautiful music; an’ right atop o’ that comes–bedlam! All the dogs a barkin’, the women servants screeching, the old gentleman commandin’, and me colleen huggin’ the Angel tight an’ saying never a say, though the poor Dago Eyetalian was trembling himself into his grave, till all a sudden like, up flies Glory, heedin’ dogs nor no dogs, an’ flings herself at Broadacres’ feet, demanding her grandpa! Fact, ’twas the same old gentleman she’d been blamin’ for spiritin’ away the blind man; and now comes true he knows no more the sailor’s whereabouts than them two twinses yon. But I’ve me cart afore me horse, as usual. For all along o’ this, out comes from that elegant mansion another old person, the lady, Miss Laura Bonnicastle, by your leave. An’ she looks at the Angel in me colleen’s arms an’ the Angel looks at her; an’, whisht! afore you could wink, out flies the knowin’ baby from the one to the other! An’ then, bless us! The time there was! An’ you could hear a pin drop, an’ in a minute you couldn’t, along of them questions an’ answers, firing around, from one person to another, hit-or-miss-like, an’ all talkin’ to onct, or sayin’ never a word, any one. An’ so this is the trouble, Mary Fogarty, that Dennis wouldn’t mention. The Angel is their own child, and Dennis Fogarty’s the clever chap suspicioned it himself.”
“Huh! Now you’re fairy-talein’, indeed. ’Tis old bachelor and old maid the pair of them is. I know that much if I don’t know more,” returned the house-mistress, reprovingly.
Timothy was undisturbed and ignored her reproof, as he went on with his story:
“Their child was left for them to care for. The only child of their nevvy an’ niece, who’s over seas at the minute, a takin’ a vacation, with hearts broke because of word comin’ the baby was lost. Lost she was the very day them Bonnicastles set for leaving the city house an’ comin’ to Broadacres; an’ intrustin’ the little creatur’ by the care of a nursemaid–bad luck to her–to be took across the big bridge, over to that Brooklyn where did reside a friend of the whole family with whom the baby would be safe till called for; meanin’ such time as them Bonnicastles had done with the movin’ business an’ could take care of it theirselves, proper. Little dreamin’ they, poor souls, how that that same nursemaid would stop to chatter with a friend of her own, right at the bridge-end and leave the child out of her arms just for the minute, who, set on the ground by herself, runs off in high glee an’ no more to that story, till she finds herself in the ‘littlest house,’ where me colleen lived; an’ what come after ye know. But ye don’t know how the nursemaid went near daft with the fear, and wasted good days a searchin’ an’ searchin’ on her own account; the Bonnicastles’ friend-lady over in Brooklyn not expecting no such visit an’ not knowin’ aught; ’cause the maid carried the note sayin’ so in her own pocket. All them rich folks bein’ so intimate-like, preparin’ ’em wasn’t needful. And then, when the truth out, all the police in the city set to the hunt, and word sent across the ocean to the ravin’-distracted young parents, an’–now, all’s right! Such joy, such thanksgivin’, such cryin’ an’ laughin’–bless us! I couldn’t mention it.”
“But that poor little Glory! Hard on her to find the Angel’s folks an’ not her own!” said Mary, gently.
“Not hard a bit! She’s that onselfish like, ’twould have done you proud to see her clappin’ her hands an’ smilin’, though the tears yet in her eyes, ’cause she an’ Bonny must part. And ‘How’s that?’ asks Miss Laura, catching the girl to her heart and kissin’ her ill-cropped head, ‘do you think we will not stand by you in your search and help you with money and time and every service, you who have been so faithful to our darlin’?’ And then the pair o’ them huggin’ each other, like they’d loved each other sence the day they was born.”
Here, for sheer want of breath, Timothy’s narrative ended, but Mary having a vivid imagination, allowed it full play then and prophesied, sagely and happily:
“Well, then, all of ye listen, till I tell ye how ’twill be. That old man was run over in the street was Captain Simon Beck; and though he was hurted bad, he wasn’t killed; and though them clever little newsboys couldn’t find him, the folks Colonel Bonnicastle sets searchin’ will. An’ when he’s found, he’ll be nigh well; an’ he’ll be brought out here an’ kep’ in a little cottage somewhere on Broadacres property, with Glory to tend him an’ to live happy ever afterward. An’ that’ll be the only ‘Snug Harbor’ any one’ll ever need. An’ we shan’t have lost our Glory but got her for good.”
“But them Billy Button and Nick Parson boys, what of them?” demanded Dennis, junior, his own sympathy running toward the clever gamins.
“They’ll come too, if they want to. They’ll come, all the same, now and again, just for vari’ty like,” comfortably assented his mother. “An’ your father’ll get well, an’ we’ll move into that other house down yon, further from the big one; an’ them Bonnicastles’ll fix this up prime an’ Glory’ll live here.”
“So it ought to be, an’ that we all should live happy forever an’ a day!” cried Timothy, enjoying her finish of his tale more than he had his own part in it.
And so, in truth it all happened, and Mary’s cheerful prophecy was fulfilled in due time.