CHAPTER VBREAKFAST FOR TWO
The Higgledy-Piggledy Shop was fortunate in having so many partners or near-partners, for Josie O'Gorman was destined to be very busy for many days in looking into the mystery of Peter and Polly and the handsome young woman of the arches. Elizabeth Wright, with the assistance of Irene Macfarlane, was capable of managing the shop alone, with the exception of the fine laundering, and that perforce must wait for Josie's leisure.
On the day following the discovery of the whereabouts of the young woman and the children, Josie was called to the telephone by Dr. Weston. Mary Louise had informed the old man of Josie's real profession, the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop being a mere by-product of the business of being a trained detective, and of her willingness to serve the Children's Home in the latter capacity whenever they needed her.
"Miss O'Gorman, if you are not too busy I am in great need of your services," Dr. Weston said. "I have a feeling the matter is urgent."
"I'll be right over," was Josie's brisk reply.
"Thank goodness I haven't begun on those lace collars," she said to Elizabeth. "Lace should be washed and ironed at one sitting. You can expect me when you see me, dear. Irene will come in and help keep shop and if you get up against it call on Mary Louise or one of the other girls. So long!"
She found Dr. Weston somewhat perturbed.
"It is those same children who were here yesterday, Miss O'Gorman. They came back this morning without the woman; just walked in announcing they had come to stay and seemed to think we were expecting them. They said the young woman, whom they call Cousin Dink, had sent them. I have tried to question them, but their answers are confused and contradictory. I felt that perhaps it was better to wait for you and see what you could find out."
"You will keep them, will you not?"
"I don't know. We will if I can do as I want you know the board—"
"Yes, I know the board," said Josie with, a smile.
"Sometimes they are great on rules and regulations, and one of our rules is that we must know where the children come from and who they are so we can hand over a record to the persons who are desirous of adopting them."
"I guess that is a pretty good rule, but it should work both ways. I must say I think the ones who do the adopting should have better recommendations than the poor kiddies. If they don't like the children they can bring them back, but the poor babies have to stay put whether they like the adopters or not. Where would these children go if you can't keep them?"
"The poorhouse, I think! You see, the orphan asylums are run by churches and usually take only the children whose parents were of their religious convictions. These children are too old for a foundling's home. But I do hope we may be allowed to keep them here."
Josie found the children in the parlor, huddled together on the sofa, a forlorn pair. At their feet was the same bumpy bundle of clothes.
"We comed back," the boy said. "Where is the story-telling lady? The reason we comed back was because I thought she'd be here, too. Cousin Dink told us she'd be here."
"Well, so she will," said Josie. "Where is Cousin Dink?" she asked Polly.
"I don't know and I don't care one bit," said Polly, without meaning to be pert but simply declaring the truth.
"But did she not bring you here?"
"No ma'm! She yanked us out of bed this morning and made us dress just as fast as we could and then she pulled us out in the street—"
"Did you have no breakfast?"
"I had a pickle and Peter had a cream puff she forgot to eat last night. I was awful 'fraid it might give him the tummy ache because cream puffs are mighty poor breakfast eatin's, 'specially when they are left-overs, but Peter has powerful tough insides. I believe he can eat almost anything."
"And how about you? Doesn't a pickle for breakfast make you feel kind of queer?"
"Oh, my insides are even better than Peter's. The pickle was just the thing because it kept me from wanting anything else."
"Well, I tell you what we are going to do: we are going around the corner to a nice little place and have some breakfast. You can just leave your bundle here," she said, as Polly stooped to pick up the untidy parcel.
"It's right important, because it's all Peter an' me's got," said Polly.
"Dr. Weston will take care of it for you. Now come along, because cream puffs and pickles need something to keep them company." As they passed through the office Josie told Dr. Weston where they were going.
"Bless my soul! I never thought of asking them if they were hungry. Well, come back as soon as you finish and we will see what can be done."
"If you don't mind my making a suggestion, I think the wisest thing to do in this case would be to telephone Mary Louise and let her tackle the board. They could hardly refuse her anything just now."
Such hungry children! First Josie ordered oatmeal and cream; then toast and scrambled eggs; and topped it all off with pancakes and maple syrup. She noticed that although the children were almost starving their table manners were good.
"Gently reared!" she said to herself.
"My, but it's been a long time since—" began Polly, and then stopped short.
"Since what?"
"Nothing! I was just—just—" The little girl faltered and was silent.
"All right, honey, don't you tell me a thing you don't want to tell me," said Josie kindly, "but you must remember that I am your friend and if you need me—"
"We do need you and I do want to tell you—but—but—"
"Now, Polly, you 'member what Cousin Dink said," broke in Peter, with his mouth full of pancakes.
"Yes, and you remember what Mother said about talking with your mouth full," admonished Polly.
"Yes, but she just said people would think we were po' whites if we had bad manners and would blame her. An' you 'member Dink said if we talked 'bout things bad men would git us."
"Well, no bad men are going to get you while I am around, I can tell you that," declared Josie stoutly.
"Not even p'licemen?"
"Not even policemen! They are my friends and they are your friends, too. Their business is to look after little children."
Josie smiled her friendly smile.
"Well, Cousin Dink was skeered to death of p'licemen an' she was a great deal bigger'n you."
"Was she really? What did she think policemen would do to her?" asked Josie.
"Git her!"
"Your mother wasn't afraid of policemen, was she?"
"No'm, my mother was jes' 'fraid of mice an' snakes."
"Your mother isn't with you, is she?"
"No'm, she—I reckon she's dead—me'n Polly ain't quite sure. Sometimes when we begs to go home Cousin Dink says she is dead an' th' ain't no home to go to an' sometimes when Polly an' me can't stop cryin' Cousin Dink says if we stop an' are real good some day she might take us back to our mother."
"Cousin Dink is a born liar, so we don't know what to think," spoke Polly coolly.
"Is she really?" questioned Josie cautiously. "I hope you and Peter don't tell lies."
"We don't know how to very well because we were not born that way, but Cousin Dink has taught us right smart. You get out of lots of trouble if you can lie easy like Cousin Dink."
Josie felt satisfied now that she would be able by degrees to extract their story from the children. "There is nothing like a pleasantly full stomach to make one talk," she said to herself. "I had a feeling pancakes would turn the trick. Dr. Weston was trying to get something out of them when the poor little creatures were too hungry to expand."
"Who is Cousin Dink? Is she your mother's cousin?"
"She ain't 'zactly our cousin—that is, she told me so one time when she got so mad with me 'cause I chopped off my hair. That was two or three days ago. I couldn't get the tangles out and she wouldn't try, but just pulled the comb through as though she liked to hurt me, so I just up and cut it off with one slash. She said, 'God knows I'm glad you are no blood relation to me, you abominable brat!' I was so glad to near for sure that she wasn't a really truly cousin that I didn't mind a bit being called an abominable brat. Cousin Dink is always talking about God—not praying or loving him, but saying 'God knows!' and 'God is my witness!' and sometimes even worse things, but Peter and I never say the things she says because we know our mother wouldn't like it."
"Have you always known your Cousin Dink?"
"Oh, no indeed! We never saw her until the day she came and brought us away."
"Away from your mother and father?"
"No, just away from home! You see, our father went to fight in the war. That was a long time ago, so long ago that Peter can't remember him, but he tries to. He can remember the porridge bowl with rabbits on it that Father gave him. He gave me one, too, with chickens on it. And he can 'most remember how Father used to tell us to eat up all the cream out of the bottom so the poor rabbits and chickens could breathe. I was not as old as Peter is now when he went away and Peter wasn't but two. And after he was gone Mother used to cry a lot but she never did let people see her, that is, no people but me, but she worked so hard knitting and making bandages and things that she got sick. And after she got sick she cried all the time and didn't mind who saw her."
"Where was your home?"
"Don't tell her! Don't tell her, Polly!" cried Peter. "Don't you remember what she said 'bout our never telling that? She said a p'liceman as big as the giant Jack killed would git us—an' he would gouge out our eyes an' then he would go an' take Mother to jail an' maybe he'd even hang her by the neck until she was dead."
"Has your mother done anything wicked that a policeman would do such a thing to her?" asked Josie patiently and gently.
"Our mother do anything wicked!" exclaimed Polly. "Why she was the goodest person in all the world."
"Don't you know policemen never do anything to good people. They don't do anything to bad people either but arrest them and then the judge decides what is to be done to them. The policemen are really good, kind men, as a rule."
"I believe Cousin Dink was lying, anyhow," declared Polly stoutly. "How could a policeman get our mother if our mother was already dead? I wish I knew whether our mother was dead or not. I believe she must be or she would not let us be traveling around with Cousin Dink, eating cream puffs and pickles for breakfast. Mother was powerful particular about what we ate for breakfast."
"I can find out whether or not your mother is dead if you will only tell me what your name is and where you lived before you were taken off by Cousin Dink," said Josie.
"You are sure they won't get me if I tell," whispered Polly. "Cousin Dink told me I must tell everybody that my mother and father were dead and that I loved her like a sister or aunt. She didn't want to be old enough to be a mother. She said I must forget where I lived before she carried us off. Sometimes I do almost forget it because it seems so long ago."
"You got as far as the time your mother cried all the time," suggested Josie. "What happened then?"
"Uncle Chester came back to Atlanta and said she must go to a hospital and he wouldn't let any of her friends see her. He wouldn't let us see her, either."
"And who is Uncle Chester? Is he your mother's brother or your father's?" asked Josie, making a mental note of the little girl's slip concerning Atlanta.
"Oh, he isn't either, at least, not a really and truly brother. He always called our father Brother Stephen, but his name is Chester Hunt and father's name was Stephen Waller."
"You say your father's name was Stephen Waller. Do you think he is dead?"
"I think so sometimes and sometimes I don't. I don't know what to think. If he is alive why didn't he come back to Mother and if he is dead why didn't Mother know it for sure? When the war got over we thought he was coming home and Mother stopped crying and soldiers kept on coming back and Daddy wasn't with them. And she wrote letters to the President and everybody and nobody seemed to be able to tell her much of anything about Daddy. One time after a big fight he was missing and still some of the men in his regiment say they saw him alive but they don't seem to know just where. And it was all so mixed up and Mother got awful sick and then Uncle Chester came."
"Didn't your mother have any brothers or sisters or any relations of her own?"
"No, ma'm, she never did have any and her mother and father died when she was little and she was brought up in France in a convent 'cept'n she wasn't a Catholic."
"Did you live in a house in Atlanta or an apartment?"
"We had a great big house and three automobiles and a whole lot of servants. Cousin Dink says I am lying when I say that because she wants people to think we are poor little orphans that she had to support. I know her tricks."
"What was your address in Atlanta?"
"Oh, gee! I've let out Atlanta and I reckon I might as well tell the address."
Josie wrote it down. She could trust herself to remember any name, but she was more careful with numbers.
"You don't know where they took your mother? To what sanitarium?"
"No, they never told me and when I asked Uncle Chester he pretended at first he didn't hear and then when I kept on asking him he told me to shut my mouth. Uncle Chester had always been nice to us but then he got as sour as pickles."
CHAPTER VIA SUCCESSFUL DISGUISE
When Josie and her little friends reached the Children's Home they found Mary Louise waiting for them.
"It is all right," she whispered to Josie. "Dr. Weston and I have had the whole board on the line one by one and we have talked them into letting the poor kiddies stay. It is against the rules of the board to take children who can give no credentials but all the same we have worked it. Poor lambs, where else can they go? If Danny and I had not moved into such a tiny flat we might have taken them, but as it is—"
"As it is you and Danny had better be by yourselves awhile," asserted Josie. "You had better interest yourself in the institution and in children in general and not particularize too much. Poor Danny has had a hard enough time to deserve a little honeymooning period before he adopts a lot of orphans."
Although she was so independent, Josie had a strong feeling of sentiment and was essentially feminine in spite of her rather boyish attire. She was a firm believer in what she called "old-fashioned love." Danny Dexter had no better friend than the girl detective, and nobody had understood better or sympathized more in the trials Danny had endured the first few months of his married life than did Josie O'Gorman.
Peter was delighted at again seeing the "story-telling lady." "I was wondering about the robins all night," he said. "That was one reason I stopped crying when Cousin Dink told us we must come here. You see, Cousin Dink used to tell me if we didn't behave she would put us in a 'sylum and that folks in 'sylums didn't give you nothin' to eat but calf neck an' sheep's tails an' sour bread an' scorched oatmeal. Somehow, when we saw you yesterday an' you tol' me about the robins I thought Cousin Dink might have been tellin' one of her whoppers."
By degrees Josie got from the little waifs as much of their story as they could remember. Polly thought they had been with Cousin Dink for about a year. She had taken them from place to place, sometimes stopping in small villages, sometimes in great cities, but never for more than a few weeks anywhere.
Cousin Dink semed to be a relation of Chester Hunt, and Chester Hunt, as near as Josie could make out, was either a half-brother or stepbrother to Stephen Waller, the father of the children. Stephen Waller evidently was among those missing in one of the battles in the Great War. The mother was perhaps crazed by grief and uncertainty. Why the children should have been put in charge of such a person as Cousin Dink remained a mystery that Josie O'Gorman was determined to solve. Why she should have left them for the Children's Home Society to take care of and where she had flitted in the meantime were other questions Josie was determined to have answered. It was a case that appealed to her detective instincts.
As was her habit, she took her story to Captain Charlie Lonsdale, chief of police, and asked his advice. He listened carefully to all her points.
"Sounds shady, very shady. Evidently this Dink is a bad 'un, but who is employing you on this case?"
"Nobody. I'm just on my own, but I can't sit still and see two clever little kids done out of home and mother and maybe a fortune just because nobody makes it his business to dig out the evidence. I'd like to travel a little, anyhow, so I'm going on a trip to Atlanta and see for myself who these Wallers are and what this Chester Hunt is doing and if the father is really dead. Sooner or later somebody is going to want to know and your Aunt Josie is going to have that information when it is called for."
Captain Lonsdale smiled. "The real spirit of a detective, my child, is to be interested in every mystery whether it is your business or not. I give you all honor because of it. But tell me, who is to defray expenses? One can't live on curiosity."
"Almost!" laughed Josie. "But this time Mary Louise is to help me out. I am going to take a holiday, I tell you, and go on a trip for my health, so why shouldn't I pay for my own jaunt?"
"No reason at all. I wish I had a few like you on the force. My men are afraid to take a taxi when it is of paramount importance to get to a spot in a hurry. Afraid somebody won't reimburse them."
"That's not their fault," declared Josie. "I fancy they have families to support and maybe the city is slow to recognize their expense accounts. I have nobody to support but myself and I would pay out my whole income just for the satisfaction of getting ahead of some crook. This Cousin Dink is the limit for selfishness and impertinence. You haven't advised me yet."
"Tell me first what your plans are?"
"Well, first I'm going to find out all I can here in Dorfield about this woman. I'm thinking of staying a few days in that greasy Todgers to get on to her all I can from the standpoint of her fellow boarders."
"Good! Then what?"
"Then I'll go on to Atlanta and see what I can see."
"Will you be traveling for your health ostensibly?"
"No indeed! I'm going to get a job as saleslady for some kind of household novelty, house-to-house canvass."
"Good. What next?"
"When I find out all I want to know I'll come back and tell you about it."
"Fine!"
"Any other advice to offer?" asked Josie, trying to hide a sly little smile. One of her quiet jokes was that Captain Lonsdale always labored under the impression that he gave her advice. Of course, his habit was to applaud her decision, but the kindly police officer really thought Josie's plans of campaign originated with him. She always came to him and he always backed her up. She declared the moral support he gave her was better than the good advice he thought he gave her.
"Nothing else," replied the kind chief. "But don't run any risks. A man like this Chester Hunt and a woman like this Dink person are often capable of any crime to attain their ends."
"I'll be careful," said Josie, "but I can't promise not to run risks. I don't see what fun there is in the business without some few risks."
"Bless me, child, you are surely your father's own daughter! Pity you weren't a son!"
"Pity nothing!" answered Josie hotly. "You have plenty of sons on your police force. I should think you'd be glad of an occasional daughter. Slater is a son of somebody and didn't he let the Markles get off? Don't talk to me about sons!"
"All right, daughter, never again!" grinned the chief.
From the police station Josie went back to the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop. She found Elizabeth Wright and Irene attending to business, which was flourishing.
"We are missing you a lot, but I fancy we can manage," said Elizabeth. "The laundry work is not urgent and if it does become so we shall have to turn it down. I'd do it if I could but I'm the bummest ever."
"Just tell them I'm off on a trip for my health," suggested Josie. "You can call it lungs or heart or just plain head if you'd rather, but I've got to be away for many days." She then told the girls all the complications concerning the children who had recently been gent to the home. "Keep your eyes and ears open for me, but your mouths shut, please. You two girls might pick up a lot to help me out. Now I must transform the plain Josie into a giddy miss after a job selling household and jewel novelties."
"Have you got the job?" laughed Irene.
"No, but I'm going to fix up so pretty and talk so silly I'll be sure to get it. There is an ad in the morning paper for canvassers for southern cities."
"Why do you go after that kind of job?" asked Elizabeth.
"Because nobody can pick up so much information concerning neighbors as a canvasser."
Josie disappeared into her sleeping compartment, packed her suitcase, and in half an hour emerged a changed being. The henna wig again served its turn and her countenance was so made up that her best friends had difficulty in recognizing her. Mary Louise, who came in at that moment, almost had hysterics when the same old Josie spoke from behind that painted mask.
"I wish I didn't have such a blob of a nose," she said ruefully. "There is mighty little to be done with a nose like mine unless I have paraffin injected under the skin right on top. Of course, I could make it up for the stage from the outside, but not for close inspection. Are my skirts too short for decency?"
Josie grimaced comically at her friends.
"No shorter than some we see, but to think of our Josie looking like that!" gasped Irene. "Let's see you walk."
Josie minced off with a good deal of hip movement according to the fashion of the day.
"I'd like to wear run-down heels, but I can't afford to ruin my feet. I have a pair of fancy blue and gray shoes I got at a second-hand shop and I'll put those on for dress occasions, but I'll have to wear my own decently sensible shoes when I am at work. I am going to be in town for a few days yet, but won't be staying here but at a swell third-class boarding house on Centre Street. If I should come in here and you have customers do you think you can keep straight faces?"
"We'll try!" giggled the partners.
"Here comes somebody now," cried Elizabeth. "You'd better hide!"
But there was no time to hide. The visitors turned out to be Mrs. Wright and a Mrs. Hasbrook, a rich woman who had recently moved to Dorfield, and according to Mrs. Wright's custom she had been among the first to call on the newcomer and now had her in tow telling her where to buy and what to buy. She had conducted her to the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop as a place where her fine damask could be laundered well. Mrs. Wright had recovered from her mortification over Elizabeth's engaging in this strange occupation and now that the shop was proving so successful and so fashionable she was not only reconciled but very proud of her daughter's connection with it and she took every opportunity to come to the shop and to bring others there.
"Where is Miss O'Gorman?" demanded Mrs. Wright. "I want Mrs. Hasbrook to talk with her concerning this work."
"She is not in," faltered Elizabeth.
"Not in! I saw her come in not half an hour ago. Mrs. Hasbrook was having a shampoo just across the street and I certainly saw Miss O'Gorman enter the building and I have not seen her depart."
Elizabeth looked hopeless under this relentless questioning of her determined parent. She turned to Josie for help. Josie arose to the occasion with such spirit that Mary Louise and Irene were taken completely off their guard and almost exploded with laughter. With a lisping drawl and a voice none of her friends had ever heard before Josie said:
"You were going to show me one of those vanity boxes. Miss O'Gorman told me you had some for seven dollars. I met her at the corner about five minutes ago."
"Oh, you did?" asked Mrs. Wright. "Well, I fancy I must have looked another way for a moment." She glanced curiously at Josie, who returned her stare with the utmost composure.
Elizabeth opened a drawer of vanity boxes and Josie crossed the room to inspect them with an exaggerated walk which reminded Mary Louise of a movie vamp. Again she was moved to laughter and had to pretend to sneeze.
"I am afraid you have caught cold," said Mrs. Wright. "You must take five grains of aspirin and go to bed. Follow it up with a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia and let your diet be light."
Mary Louise listened politely and Josie made her escape with her suitcase without purchasing the vanity box.
CHAPTER VIIJOSIE GETS A JOB
When Josie left the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop, after having hoodwinked Mrs. Wright, she made her way to a small hotel much favored by traveling men. It was the address given by a man who wished to employ a number of young women to travel in the South to introduce a line of household articles as well as some jewel novelties.
"What experience have you had?" the man asked her.
"Plenty of it," Josie answered with assurance. "I tell you, mister, I can sell anything from a baby's rattle to a tombstone. You can ask the girls who run the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop here in Dorfield. Ever hear of them?"
"Sure!"
"Well, I have a letter here from Miss Josie O'Gorman, who is chief cook and bottle washer 'round there and she will tell you that I am a winner. I tell you Mrs. Danny Dexter and Miss O'Gorman think old Sally Blossom is a peacherino."
The man took the letter, which was written on Higgledy-Piggledy paper and in Josie's best handwriting. In it the cleverness of Miss Sally Blossom was lauded to the skies. Josie blushed through her paint as he read it aloud.
"To think of my having the nerve to say all that about myself!" flashed through her mind. "But I bet it lands me my job."
It did. Since she was the first to apply she was given her choice of a field of operations and she chose Atlanta. She gave her address as 126 East Centre and made an engagement with the man to see him the next day to receive instructions and literature concerning her wares. Samples were to be sent to her at Atlanta.
"Now, having given my address as 126 East Centre, I must hurry over there and apply for board," said Josie to herself as she left the hotel.
The group gathered on the porch at 126 East Centre was the same as it had been on the day that Josie had tracked the elusive Dink to her lair. The young men were tilted back in their chairs at the same angle, and the young women were equally taken up with their ear puffs and frizzes. The clientele of 126 was an ever-changing one, but the class characteristics were stationary.
Josie tripped up the steps, assuming a kind of nonchalance as she calmly viewed the loafing boarders. They in turn gazed at her, some with interest and some with open disdain. With the boarders at 126 one must prove herself down to their standards before being accepted into their social order.
"Stuck up!" declared one young woman—the one with the most extreme ear puffs of all, the shortest skirt and the highest heels.
"Oh, I don't know," objected a man, removing the toothpick from his mouth and his gaudily socked feet from the railing. "I think she's some cutey."
A snicker of derision answered this sally.
"With them unstylish low heels? I guess you ain't got below her henna bob," snapped the girl, arching her instep and poking out her near-silk clad foot with its high-heeled, dirty, white kid pump.
Josie pulled the bell. It was the old-fashioned kind that must be pulled not pushed. When it was in working order a pull would set a wire in motion through the length of the house to the back entry and there a bell attached to the wire would start such a jangling that someone would come to the front door. This happened when the bell was in order, which was seldom the case at 126. When Josie gave a tug, which was vigorous and somewhat vicious from the embarrassment she could but feel at the overheard remarks, the bell handle with a coil of broken wire spring came limply away, and it was nothing but Josie's training that kept her ever on the alert that saved her from falling backwards.
"April fool!" called a grinning youth from the porch.
Josie laughed good-naturedly at her prospective fellow-boarder.
"Anyhow I know how not to get in," she said.
"'Tain't any trouble to get in this joint," ventured a woman. "There's more goin' than comin'. I'll never send a dog here."
"Oh, 'tain't so bad considering the H. C. of L.," put in a middle-aged man in a very tight Shepherd's plaid suit. "Mrs. Pete feeds us the best she can for the mon."
"Oh, you're sweet on Mrs. Pete," laugheed the youth who had called "April fool" to Josie.
"Is Mrs. Pete at home?" asked Josie, glad to know the name of her future landlady.
"Sure she's home! Just open the door and walk in. Follow your nose—there's cabbage to-day so it's easy—right down the hall until you come to some steps. Then fall down the steps to the dining room. If Mrs. Pete ain't there she's in the kitchen next to it."
Josie thanked the youth and followed his advice. She found everything as he had told her she would, even to Mrs. Pete in the kitchen. She was hardly prepared for the knock-down odors which greeted her nostrils as she fell down the steps, nor was she prepared for the appearance of Mrs. Pete.
Josie's first thought was: "How does the woman ever get down those narrow stairs?" but she realized afterwards that she was of the soft type of fat that could be squeezed into any space. She was bursting from a tight kimono, a garment usually the loosest of all apparel, but Mrs. Pete's arms quite filled the flowing sleeves and although it was drawn tightly around her huge hips the fronts refused to meet but took on the slant of a cutaway coat. There was no expression to her face. It was simply fat. Her eyes looked like raisins in a bun and her mouth had almost disappeared. One tooth projected as though nature had decided that would be the only way to save the mouth from being entirely submerged. Her nose would have been lost had it not been for a wart. She moved lightly and easily, reminding Josie of a balloon with not enough gas in it to soar aloft. She wore a black wig at a rakish angle and a string of huge pink beads were lost and found in the folds of fat of her neck.
"Well?" she questioned Josie in a voice that sounded as though she were speaking down an empty hogshead.
"I want a room and board," said Josie.
"How many in a room?"
"I'd like one to myself."
"Humph! You'll have to pay for it then."
Josie expressed her willingness and they soon came to terms.
"It's a room a professional lady has just left, her and two children. I don't usually take children but she engaged the room without letting on there were any kids. She didn't take her meals here regular so I never saw them much. Lord knows what the little things ate because she never brought them down to what few dinners she got here. I'm so fleshy like I never get up on the top floor. Here, Betty, you Betty! Come show this lady the room on the top floor, the one Miss Dingus just left," she called to a slouchy colored girl who was washing dishes at the sink.
"Dinner at half past one," boomed the landlady to Josie's back as she followed Betty up the narrow stairs.
"I ain't ter say cleaned up that there top floor room yit," confessed the maid, "but I'll try ter git it in fust rate fix befo' come night time."
"Oh, that's all right," said Josie. "You just give me some clean sheets and a clean pillow case and I won't mind the rest at all."
The room was large, the third floor back, with windows overlooking dingy back yards. Its disorder was astonishing.
"I didn't know it wa' quite so stirred up as this," exclaimed the girl. "These here, folks ain't many er 'em got no raisin'. They ought ter git bo'd an' lodgin' in a pig pen. I's kinder fussed ter be a showin' you sich a spot. Well," she added philosophically: "What kin you expect from a hog but a grunt?"
Josie laughed.
"Never mind, Betty," she said, giving the girl a quarter. "I can manage very well. You go on and finish your dishes and I will make up the bed myself if you get the bed linen."
Betty looked at Josie curiously.
"Say, miss, you belies yo' looks. You got the 'pearance er these here folks but you ain't got they ways. I been wuckin' in this here bo'din house fer three years an' I ain't never had a one of them give me mo'n a dime at a time unless'n it wa' ter git me not to tell Mrs. Pete 'bout some devilment or other they done got in."
Josie had not thought it necessary to be other than herself before the colored maid but she took herself severely to task for lowering her guard, even with anyone seemingly so unimportant as Betty.
"Father used to say that small things were the stumbling blocks of some of the biggest detectives," she said to herself. "I'll try to do better."
The grateful Betty returned immediately with clean sheets and pillow slips and one small towel. She then departed to finish her dishwashing.
As soon as she was alone Josie, first taking the precaution of locking the door, began a search in the dirty grate for any papers that might prove of importance to the matter in hand.
The grate was piled high with old torn letters and some had been dumped in without even being mutilated. A match had evidently been applied to the mass of papers but had only charred the corners of the envelopes.
"Oh what a careless Cousin Dink! Now we will see what we can find," whispered Josie.
The girl worked quickly and methodically, sorting out the letters and putting them in neat packets and snapping rubber bands around them. She examined the seemingly worthless accumulation of advertisements and circulars, saving the envelopes wherever the date and postoffice stamp were legible. Every scrap of paper in the heaped fireplace was carefully scrutinized. What she deemed worthless was finally put back, care being taken to pull the mass apart so that the grate seemed to be as full as before.
"That Betty is too noticing to be careless," Josie reflected.
She then sat down by the window and began piecing together the letters Cousin Dink had taken the trouble to tear up.
"She had a reason for tearing up some and not bothering about others."
The ones that were mutilated were all in the same handwriting. Fortunately for Josie's patience they were not torn in very small pieces. Fitting them together was not a difficult task for one so alert and quick fingered as our little detective. In several instances the letter had been torn and the pieces all put back in the envelope. That made plain sailing indeed for the puzzle worker.
These letters that so especially interested our Josie were signed in various ways but always with the same flourish of the pen: "Yours always, C. H." "Lovingly, Ches." "Hastily, C." Several were signed: "Chester Hunt." The letters were a strange mixture of love and business. They commenced sometimes "Dear Coz:" sometimes "My own Dink:" or "My own dear girl:" Always, while they were more or less affectionate, Josie could read between the lines that this Chester Hunt could command Cousin Dink to do as he chose. Whether he controlled her by affection or whether by some other force it was hard to say. Sometimes his tone was frankly impatient but he usually ended up such epistles with repeated assurances of affection. Through the correspondence Josie traced much in regard to Peter and Polly. There was one telegram in which this Chester Hunt had summoned the woman to Atlanta. That was dated about a year before.
"Come—I need you—C. H." That was all.
"That must have been when she went and got the poor kids," Josie decided. "But there is one thing that is worrying me: why should this Dink have saved all these letters up to this time, and after having saved them so carefully, why now should she have torn them up and evidently attempted to destroy them?"
The letters had followed the woman to many places, now a small town in Louisiana, now Dallas, Texas, then St. Paul, Minnesota and so on. Sometimes they were addressed to Miss E. Dingus, sometimes Margery Dubois; sometimes Hester Broughton. Sometimes they were sent to a street number, but often to General Delivery. Mention was often made of the children and usually in rather impatient terms. The following are extracts from the letters:
"Don't let the brats worry you but you had better not let anything happen to them."
"Get a doctor if the pests are sick, because we don't want investigations."
"If they keep on insisting on going back to their mother just tell them she is dead."
"Caution them not to tell anything about themselves and if need be intimidate them. Polly can remember too much."
"Keep up and don't get too tired of your job. There will be an end of it sometime and you will receive your reward."
"Of course I mean to marry you as soon as I can arrange our affairs. It is important to go carefully for a while. Don't let the kids know there is any possibility of our marrying. Be sure and burn all of my letters."
"M. W. is safe behind bars. S. W.'s will has been probated, it being certain now that he is dead. I am sole executor and guardian of the children in case his wife should pass away without a will. She will I am sure."
"The infamous wretch!" exclaimed Josie,
In many of the letters there was a response to a plea for money and more money. "I send you all I can spare. Don't let the brats spend so much. They have been spoiled by too much indulgence already."
"Humph! Pickle and cream puffs for breakfast!" stormed Josie. "Mr. Chester Hunt I certainly hope to make you squirm. But I wish I could find out why Dink gave up the kiddies and why she destroyed her more-or-less love letters."
Every torn letter was pieced together and the contents mastered before Josie heard the dinner bell. The other communications appeared to be of little value—letters from theatrical persons from different parts of the country and a few from some man who signed himself "Mike." The letters from Mike, Josie put in a packet to themselves. "She may have another man on the string," she mused. "Mike may be our trump card, the joker."
All of Mike's letters were addressed to Margery Dubois. They were badly spelled and written in a labored handwriting but Josie felt that Mike was a worthy fellow. Reading character by means of chirography had been one of Detective O'Gorman's hobbies and Josie had taken up the science to some extent. As Josie perused these epistles she gathered that Mike had been Margery Dubois's dancing partner. Evidently they had been on the vaudeville stage together.
"Not love letters at all," Josie decided. "When he says he misses her so much, can't get along without her, he means he wants her to act with him again."
The last one was from Chicago. In it he made an urgent appeal to his former partner to join him there. "A big thing if you can come in a day or so. Plenty of tin and three-night stands in big towns. No barnstorming bizness in this job." This letter was signed Mike Brady and the Chicago address was given.
"That's where she has gone," decided Josie.
By the time the great gong in the basement clanged forth its summons to dinner Josie had grasped the contents of most of the letters found in the grate, had tied them in neat packages and had them carefully stowed away in her suitcase, the suitcase locked and the key in her pocket.
CHAPTER VIIIPETER REFUSES NEW PARENTS
The Children's Home Society moved to the old Hathaway house as soon as possible after Mary Louise signed the deed making over the property to the society. The new quarters were well suited to the needs of the Children's Home, large airy rooms with long porches and a delightful yard and garden where the little tots could play.
"I don't want to leave Mr. and Mrs. Robin before they hatch out their fambly," moaned Peter. "Looks like we can't never stay put, can we, Polly?"
"But the big house is much nicer, Peter dear," comforted Polly. "It kinder reminds me of where we lived one time with Mother and Daddy. That had a yard to it and lots of sweet violets bordering the walks. I wish you could remember the violets, Peter."
"I wish I could. Sometimes I 'most can—but don't you ever forget 'em, Polly. You keep on talking about 'em and maybe sometime I can 'member too the way I can the porridge bowls. I won't never forget our mother. I'm sure glad you didn't never let Cousin Dink know we had her picture, hers and Daddy's."
"Not me! That old Dink wouldn't have let me keep them. I haven't ever showed them to anybody but that nice Miss Josie girl. She is safe I believe and she wouldn't ever let Cousin Dink nor anybody know. She is going to have them framed and let us hang them up in our room. I like being here lots better than traveling 'round with old Cousin Dink, don't you, Peter!"
"I should say so. I hope nobody won't want to 'dopt us. They say folks is all time 'doptin' children from here. That's what the nurse told me when she washed my face and hands. She says, 'If you don't be clean nobody won't want to 'dopt you,' so I'm gonter be as dirty as ever I can be."
"Oh, Peter, what would Mother say? It would be real nice to be 'dopted if we could get 'dopted together."
"Oh, but they couldn't take me without you," and Peter began to weep. "Let's both of us have dirty faces all the time so nobody won't want us."
"No, let's both of us have clean faces all the time so somebody will want both of us. I'm mighty sorry I cut my hair off so jiggly. When it grows out I'm going to see if I can't save up some money and get a permanent wave so's I'll look lovely and everybody that comes to the home will say, 'Who is that charming child? I'll take her and her dear little brother too and well be a happy family.' Now wouldn't that be nice, Peter dear?"
"That 'pends on who it is. Supposin' it was a person like Cousin Dink that comed along an' took us away an' then knocked us around an' wouldn't let us stay put; I'm thinkin' about stayin' put for a while."
The two little waifs had many conversations similar to the foregoing. They soon fitted themselves into the life of the home. Peter was a general favorite because of his engaging manner and sweet confiding nature, while Polly made herself so useful in helping to care for the babies with which the home swarmed that the nurses declared they did not know what they would do without her. She was a motherly child and, having taken care of Peter so much during her mother's illness and after the wanderings with Cousin Dink began, she was well able to nurse the little ones.
"There's something about little babies that makes me happy all over and makes me want to cry too," she said to one of the nurses, holding to her bosom a little pink mummy-like bundle, a recent addition to the home. "I hope some nice kind lady is going to want this little baby child and she will grow up and never know she's 'dopted. Being 'dopted isn't so bad if you don't ever know it. Peter don't want ever to be 'dopted because he thinks somebody like Cousin Dink might get him. I hope they will just let me go on living here and by and by I can be a real sure-enough nurse and wash all the little babies and Peter can grow up and be a policeman or something. Peter used to be afraid of policemen but ever since Miss Josie told him what nice men they were and one time introduced him to a big cop on the corner and Peter shook hands with him, he's been thinking policemen are the finest things going and he wants to be one worse than anything. Peter could be a big policeman and could bring all the little homeless babies here and I could wash them clean and curl their hair and get them ready to be 'dopted."
One day shortly after they had moved to the Hathaway house a ringing of the front door bell heralded the advent of callers. Since callers often meant would-be adopters of infants it was natural for manager and nurses to wish to make as good a showing as possible. A lady and a gentleman were ushered into the parlor. Dr. Weston congratulated himself that everything was in such good order and that he could testify to the good health and disposition of so many of his charges.
"I am thinking of adopting a little boy," spoke the lady, an exceedingly prim little person with a determined chin. "My husband wants a boy, although I should really prefer a girl."
The husband, a sad-eyed man with a humorous twitch to his mouth, looked a bit astonished at this statement. He had been laboring under the idea that it was just the other way around—that he preferred a girl and his wife a boy—but it made very little difference. She was going to have what she wanted, even to the extent of making him pretend he wanted what she wanted.
"An infant, I presume, madam?" said Dr. Weston.
"No, not at all! I'd prefer a little boy who has cut his teeth and can talk. Of course I'd like him to have curls, and to come from a nice family, and to be perfectly sound and healthy, and to have no bad habits—such as eating plastering or having adenoids. I want a bright, attractive child with a sweet disposition so that I can raise him up for the ministry."
"Um-hum!" mused Dr. Weston. "I'll see what we have to offer in the way of angels. There are some children playing in the yard now, madam. Perhaps you and your husband would like to go have a look at them. The infants are on the southern porch in their cribs but the little ones who can toddle we keep out in the yard all we can."
The garden of the old Hathaway house again was the background for a picturesque scene. In the same spot where Hortense Markle had so cleverly staged Mary Louise's out door wedding not so many months before, ten little children from two years up to six were playing happily in a sand pile, recently donated to the home by Mrs. Peter Conant with shovels and buckets enough to go around and a few to spare for possible additions.
Peter Waller was evidently the chief engineer of the sand pile and the other children looked to him for inspiration, whether it were turning out whole spice cakes by packing down the sand in buckets and adroitly inverting them or excavating marvelous tunnels that one could actually see through.
"Now this is a tunnel," he said. "I know 'cause I've been through a whole lot of tunnels. Haven't I Polly?" calling to his sister who was patiently nursing a child with a bumped knee on a bench near by.
"Yes!" answered Polly, "but don't be too show-offy."
Peter disregarded this sisterly rebuke.
"Well, anyhow it is and I have. And this is a chu-chu track."
"Chu-chu track!" echoed his admirers who didn't at all mind his showing off.
"And when the chu-chu train goes in the tunnel it is all dark, as dark as dark, and the engine makes a rumblin' noise and the cars get all full of smoke. But you mustn't git scairt—nobody mustn't git scairt 'cause God is there in that tunnel same as he is on dry land and God loves you—"
"Dod loves us! Dod loves us!" cried a wee tot jumping up and down in the sand in a kind of ecstasy of emotion and the other babies took up the refrain and in a moment all of the sand diggers were shouting in glee but with absolutely no conception of what it all meant: "Dod loves us! Dod loves us!"
They were unconscious of the onlookers. Dr. Weston and the lady and gentleman stood close by hearing Peter's lecture and witnessing the sudden wave of emotion that took the children.
"Wonderful!" exclaimed the lady. "What a darling boy that is—the one who preached the sermon. I want him! Oh, how I want him! I could raise him to be a preacher, I am sure; and look at his curls!"
"He has only been with us a short time," said Dr. Weston, "so short a time that we should prefer keeping him until we find out more about him. He was left here with his sister under rather unusual circumstances."
"I don't care what the circumstances were, I want him. I will have him or none at all."
Dr. Weston glanced at the lady's determined chin and had a feeling she was going to get what she wanted.
"We have thought it advisable not to separate the two children," he continued in a soothing voice. "They have been through various vicissitudes together and a separation would hardly be right. There is his sister over there on the bench with the little child in her lap. Polly is a nice child, helpful and motherly and extremely intelligent."
"But her hair doesn't curl," objected the lady. "I would never adopt a girl whose hair doesn't curl. She would be a nuisance instead of a pleasure."
"Ah really!" from Dr. Weston.
The children were still unconscious of their audience. Peter was widening the tunnel at one end and at the other the eager babies were crowding together, peering through at the youthful civil engineer.
"Ith He in there?" queried one.
"Cose He's in here," announced Peter. "He's everywhere in the world—but He won't git you. He'll just be good to you an' love you an' maybe give you candy, 'cept'n I'd rather have pancakes."
"He shall have them!" cried the eager lady. "He shall have all he wants! Little boy," she asked, impulsively leaning over Peter, who had seated himself in the sand the better to proceed with his excavating, "dear little boy, wouldn't you like to come and live with me and be my little boy?"
Peter looked up startled and distressed. Polly dropped the child with the bumped knee and flew to Peter's side.
"I'll be so good to you and love you as though I were your own mother. You can have a pony to ride and a bicycle and skates—"
"Gee whilikins!" exclaimed Peter.
"I will adopt you—"
"'Dopt me! No you won't! I didn't know you meant to 'dopt me. Me'n Polly ain't ever gonter git 'dopted. We's gonter jes' live along here till we gits growed up an' maybe our mother won't be dead an' will come find us. Me'n Polly has to be together all the time," an expression of agony on his face. "Don't we, Polly?"
"Yes, yes, Peter darling!"
"Well you would hardly stand in your brother's light," spoke the lady a bit sharply. "It would certainly be to his advantage to come and live with me and my husband. He would take our name and be brought up exactly as though he were our own."
"But his own name is a good name," spoke Polly, holding her cropped head proudly. "Peter Waller is a very fine name. I have heard my mother say so often."
"Oh, you have! Well it is no better than Peter Thraves would be. My name is Mrs. Thraves, child."
The little girl was not a bit impressed.
"And mine is Miss Mary Washington Waller, Polly for short," spoke Polly, her head still up.
There was a look of breeding about the child and at the same time a hint of battle in her blue eye and her firm little mouth. Dr. Weston could not help smiling at Miss Mary Washington Waller.
"I am going to adopt your brother because I have taken such a fancy to him. He is so sweet and pious and I am going to raise him to be a preacher."
With that Peter set up such a yell as had never been heard before in the Hathaway garden. He flung himself in Polly's arms and burst into a storm of tears.
"I ain't gonter be no preacher! I—I am gonter be a p'liceman. I don't want to be 'dopted. That's what I git for lettin' you wash my face, Polly." He picked up a handful of dirt and smeared it over his face. With the help of the tears it was very effective. "I'm jest as bad as bad can be. I know a whole string of cuss words an' I can say them as fast as now-I-lay-me. Doggone, devil, deuce, dam, da—"
"Oh, Peter!" gasped Polly, putting her hand over her brother's mouth.
"Don't you stop me, Polly," sputtered Peter. "I ain't near done."
Mrs. Thraves turned away in disgust.
"I fancy it would be more satisfactory if we adopted an infant," she said to Dr. Weston, who was almost bursting with pent-up laughter. "Perhaps a little girl would be less apt to turn out badly. Boys are so deceptive. To think of that angel face! Such language!"
Mr. Thraves stood for a moment looking wistfully at Polly and Peter, who still clung to each other. Polly was drying Peter's tears and endeavoring to clean his dirty face, while she admonished him gently.
"Peter, you were so naughty. What will good Dr. Weston think of such a bad boy?"
"He won't think a thing. He wouldn't like to be 'dopted hisself when his mother might come alive any time an' he'd be gone off with his name changed an' everything. Why don't she be a preacher herself if she wants a preacher so bad? Why didn't she go marry a preacher an' have a whole lot of preacher chilluns? Say, Polly, please don't be mad of me. Did you know I was such a pretty cusser? I made up that cussin' all to once. It was just as easy as anything. I kinder s'prised myself."
Mr. Thraves gave an involuntary chuckle. He glanced at his wife, who was walking across the lawn, presenting a rather indignant and consciously virtuous back to naughty Peter. Down in his pocket went his hand and before Peter and Polly knew what had happened they found themselves each with a silver dollar clasped in a grubby fist.