For a moment Danny was taken in. "Why, Rosie, aren't you just afther tellin' me about the scar that wasn't there?"
"Yes, and I'm sorry now I told you." There was a gleam in Rosie's eye which declared very emphatically that the sequel to that story would never again be related. "Listen here, Danny Agin! Now I understand—if my mother made up something about that scar, it was just to hide something else that was worse!"
"Why, Rosie! Ye don't say so!" For a moment Danny looked at her in astonishment. Then he lay back with a wheezy guffaw. "Rosie, ye'll be the death o' me yet! I suppose if the truth was known, Jamie beats yir ma every night of her life to a black-and-blue jelly! Don't he now?"
Rosie covered herself with an air of distant reserve. "I'm not going to tell you what he does. That's a family matter. But I will say one thing: You think Terry's awful nice, don't you? Everybody does. But do you know what he'd do to me if I was to lose one of his paper customers? He'd just beat the puddin' out o' me—yes, he would!"
"Why, Rosie!" Danny looked shocked."What's this ye're sayin'? I thought you and Terry were great friends."
"Great friends? Oh, yes, we're great friends all right. You can always be great friends with a fellow like Terry as long as you run your legs off for him. But just let something happen, and then——"
Rosie ended with a "Huh!" and shook her head gloomily.
Danny gasped. "You don't say so, Rosie!"
There was the sound of an opening screen, and Danny, knowing that his wife must be coming, with a wheezy chuckle called out:
"Mary, Mary, do ye know who's here? It's Rosie O'Brien, and she's one of ye! She's fallen into line!"
Mrs. Agin came out on the porch, and stood for a moment looking from Danny to Rosie. She was a tall, gaunt old woman with thick white hair and thick eyebrows, which were still dark. She gave one the impression of great tidiness and cleanliness, together with the possibility of that caustic speech which so often characterizes the good housekeeper.
Rosie appealed to her eagerly: "Mis' Agin, I think Danny's just awful!"
Mrs. Agin glanced sharply at Danny, and then, with a seemingly clairvoyant understanding that the subject under discussion related somehow to the eternal war of the sexes, she went over to Rosie's side at once.
"What's he been sayin' to you, dear?"
"He's making fun of me because I told him if I was to lose one of my paper customers, Terry would beat me. And he would, too!"
Mrs. Agin turned on Danny severely. "Take shame to yourself, Dan Agin, to be teasin' Rosie O'Brien!"
"And listen here, Mis' Agin," Rosie continued. "He's been sayin' just awful things about us!"
"About us, Rosie? Do you mean about both of us?"
"About all of us, Mis' Agin—us ladies."
Rosie sat up very straight and severe.
Danny seemed to think the situation amusing, but he was the only one who did. Mrs. Agin glared at him darkly.
"Dan Agin, what's this ye've been sayin' to Rosie?"
Danny continued to shake with silent mirth, so Rosie answered for him:
"He says what all of us ladies wants is this: We want to be beat, and we don't want to be beat. Now, isn't that the silliest thing you ever heard, Mis' Agin? And he says when we marry a brute of a man, we pretend that he's kind and nice, and when we marry a nice, kind man, we let on he's a brute."
"Dan Agin, what do ye mean, puttin' such nonsense into Rosie's head? Answer me that now!"
"And listen, Mis' Agin," Rosie went on. "Justbecause he's that kind of a man himself, he thinks everybody else is. And they're not! Every one thinks my father's so quiet and nice, but I guess I know him! Sometimes he's just awful! And Terry, too! But Danny here, he thinks they're every one of them just as harmless as he is. I guess he's so scared himself that that's the reason he tries to make out that other men are, too!"
Mrs. Agin glared at Danny a moment in silence. Then she spoke:
"Dan Agin, how dare ye go blastin' the reputation of decent men! There are others like ye, do ye say? There are not! There's not another woman in Ameriky that's stood what I've stood for forty years! Ah, many's the time it was just one black murtherin' look I was cravin' from ye to bear out me story that I had married a man, instead of a joke! And did ever I get it from ye, Dan Agin! I did not—bad cess to ye for a soft-hearted, good-for-nuthin' of a man that'd let a woman thrample ye in the dust if she wanted to! 'Twas yir luck that ye little deserved to marry a decent, quiet woman like meself!"
"Ye're right, Mary!" Danny murmured meekly. "Ye're a fine woman!"
"Hold yir tongue, Dan Agin, or, cripple that ye are, I'll be givin' you the lickin' that I've wanted to give you these forty years every time ye've let me have me own way when I oughtn't have had it!"
Rosie stood up to go. "I have one more paperto deliver, Mis' Agin, so I'll have to say good-bye. If Terry was to know that I stopped to talk before I had delivered all my papers, he'd beat me half to death."
Mrs. Agin smiled on her affectionately. "Good-bye, Rosie dear. And mind, now, if ever again Danny goes talkin' such nonsense, ye're to call me, and I'll soon settle him. Now run along, or that brute of a Terry'll be after you."
"Good-bye, Rosie," Danny called out, in a tone of hypocritical meekness that made Rosie's blood boil anew.
Rosie stopped and turned about to give him the look of scorn that he deserved.
"Danny Agin, you just ought to be ashamed o' yourself the way you treat poor Mis' Agin!"
"I am, Rosie," Danny gasped in a voice of mock tears exasperating beyond words.
Rosiehurried away, furious at Danny, and furious also at her own father. Any man who puts his womenfolk to such shame ought to be choked! In spite of certain drawbacks, Janet McFadden's lot was happier than Mrs. Agin's, or than Rosie's own. At least no one ever called into question Dave McFadden's ability to govern his own household. This was so patent to the world at large that Janet could actually go about pretending that her father was a sentimental weakling. Happy, happy Janet!
It made Rosie shudder in self-disgust to think of the many damning admissions that she had made Janet. Well, at any rate, she would never again be caught. She had learned a thing or two since yesterday. Moreover, she would lose no time in setting Janet right. She would stop to see Janet now on her way home. That scar story would make Janet open her eyes! And Rosie would not foolishly situate it on a spot as easy of detection as her mother's right shoulder. Nev-er!
A woman who was sweeping the steps in front of the tenement where the McFaddens lived, made the friendly inquiry: "Lookin' for Janet?"
Rosie nodded.
"Better not go up," the woman advised. "Dave McFadden's just come in soused again."
Rosie paused.
"Is he beating Janet?"
"No, I don't think so. Janet knows pretty well how to take care of herself. Gee, you ought to see her dodge him! She's a wonder! He wouldn't ha' caught her last time if she hadn't slipped."
Rosie started on, and the woman called after her: "I tell you, you better not go up! Dave sure is out lookin' for trouble!"
The warning was a kindly one, but Rosie saw no reason for accepting it. The truth was that, in her present mood of resentment against the Danny Agins and Jamie O'Briens of life, she felt that it would be a relief to see a man who was confessedly out looking for trouble.
The McFaddens lived on the fourth floor back. Their door was open, so Rosie could hear that something was going on as she climbed the third flight of stairs. When she reached the top, her courage faltered. Had the McFadden door been closed, very probably she could not have forced herself to knock; but, as it was open, if she slipped along the dark hall quietly, she could take a peep inside before announcing herself.
"Daddy!" she heard cried out suddenly. It was Janet's voice. "My arm! You're hurting me! Please let go! I'll be good!"
"Arguin' with your own father, eh?" Dave's thick voice boomed and rumbled. "Well, I'll learn you a lesson!"
"But, Daddy," Janet coaxed; "wait a minute! The door's open! Please let me shut it! Some one will hear us! Please let go of me just a minute!"
Then, just as Rosie reached the door, there was a scuffle inside, and Janet must have escaped her father's clutches, for instantly the door slammed. It slammed so nearly into Rosie's face that, with a gasp, she turned and fled. Down the three flights of stairs she ran, past the woman on the front steps without a word, and on to the safety of home as fast as her panting heart could carry her. There, spent and breathless, she murmured to herself:
"Well, anyhow, I'm mighty glad it ain't me, 'cause I can't dodge worth a cent!"
That night after supper, while Rosie was washing dishes, when Jamie O'Brien called: "Rosie dear, like a good child, will ye bring me me pipe and a few matches?" Rosie sang out in tones positively vibrating with feeling: "Yes, Daddy darling, I will! I'll bring them this very minute!"
Later she perched herself on the side of her father's chair, and put an arm about his neck.
"Good old Daddy! Did you have a good run today, dearie?"
Jamie sucked his pipe hard and, after thinking a while, answered: "Pretty good."
"And, Daddy dear, did they take off that car that had a flat wheel?"
This was a question that required considerable deliberation. Rosie waited, and at last had her reward.
"Sure they did."
"Oh, Daddy!" Rosie hugged him suddenly, and kissed his thin, leathery cheek. "I just love you so much! I wouldn't change you for any other father in the world!"
After getting the full purport of this declaration, Jamie remarked: "That's good!"
Rosie slipped impulsively from the arm of the chair into Jamie's lap. It was not a comfortable arrangement for Jamie, but he was a patient soul, and made no outcry.
Rosie snuggled up to him affectionately. "Say, Daddy," she whispered, "if I was awful bad, what would you do to me? Wouldn't you just beat me?"
Jamie relit his pipe, took one puff, examined the sky line, then shook his head knowingly: "I would that! But, Rosie dear, you mustn't be bad, you know."
Rosie took a long, shivery breath. "Oh, Daddy, please don't beat me! I'll be good, honest I will!"
Midsummercame and with it a great suffocating blanket of heat which brought prostration to the world at large and to little Rosie O'Brien a new care and a great anxiety.
"I don't mind about myself," she murmured one breathless sultry morning as she served George Riley his late breakfast. Even George, who paid scant attention to weather, looked worn and pale.
Rosie sat down opposite him as he began eating and stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and very serious.
"It's Geraldine, Jarge. I don't know what I'm going to do. The poor birdie was awake nearly all night. I hope you didn't hear us. I don't want to disturb you, too."
George shook his head. "Oh, I slept all right. I always do. But it was so blamed hot that when I got up I felt weak as a cat." He bolted a knifeful of fried potatoes, then asked: "What's ailing Geraldine? Ain't her food agreeing with her?"
Rosie sighed. It was the sigh of a little mother who had been asking herself that same questionover and over. "It's partly that; but I think the food would be all right if only other things were all right. You're a man, Jarge, so you don't understand about babies. It's Geraldine's second summer and she's teething. Her poor little mouth's all swollen and feverish. It would be bad enough in cold weather, but in this heat she hardly gets a wink of sleep.... I tell you, Jarge, if we don't do something for her real quick, she's just going to die!" Rosie dropped her head on the table and wept.
"Aw, now, 'tain't that bad, is it, Rosie?"
"Yes." The answer came muffled in tears. "It's just awful, Jarge, the way they go down. They'll be perfectly well, and then before you know what's happening they just wilt, and you can't do anything for them. And if Geraldine dies, I—I want to die too!"
"Aw, Rosie, cheer up! She ain't going to die!" George's words were brave but his face was troubled. "I suppose, now, if she was only in the country, she'd be all right, wouldn't she?"
Rosie wiped her eyes and sighed. "Is it cool in the country, Jarge?"
Rosie stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and very serious.
"You bet it is—just as cool and nice! The grass is green and wind's always a-blowin' in the trees and you can hear the gurgle of the creek down at the bottom of the meadow. And at night you can sleep on the big upstairs porch, if you want to, and you always get a breeze up there. And you needn't be afraid of mosquitoes and flies, either, 'cause mother always has things screened in with black mosquito-netting. Oh, I tell you it's just fine in the country!"
George paused a moment, then laughed a little apologetically. "Leastways, Rosie, that's how I always think of the country now. Of course we do have sizzling weather out there just as much as we do here; but it's different, somehow. Out there you get a chance to cool off. They ain't them ever-lasting paved streets all around you, sending out heat like a furnace night and day just the same.... Do you know, I ain't felt like myself for three weeks! If I was back home now I tell you what I'd do: I'd go down to the creek and take a dip and then I'd come in and, by gosh, maybe I wouldn't sleep!"
Rosie sighed again. "Well, no use talking about the country. It's the city for ours, even if Geraldine does die."
Tears again threatened and George hastened to give the comforting assurance: "Aw, now, Rosie, it ain't that bad, I know it ain't. Besides, this weather can't keep up forever. We'll be having a thunderstorm any time now, and that'll cool things off." Then, to change the subject: "What does your mother say about Geraldine?"
"Pooh!" Rosie tossed her head in fine scorn. "I'd like to know what my mother knows about babies!"
George protested. "She ought to know something. She's had a few herself."
"Jarge Riley, you listen to me." Rosie looked at him fixedly. "With some women, having babies don't mean one blessed thing! They just have 'em and have 'em and have 'em, and that's all they know about them. Take me, now, and I'm twelve, and take ma, and I don't know how old she is, but she has had eight children, so you can judge for yourself, and right now she's so ignur'nt about the proper care and feeding of babies that I wouldn't dare trust Geraldine to her alone for twenty-four hours!"
Rosie paused impressively, then concluded with the damning statement: "All the time she was taking care of that baby she never once boiled a nipple! Never once!"
George blinked his eyes in puzzled thought. "Do you got to boil 'em?"
For a moment Rosie glared unspeakable things. Then she answered with crushing emphasis: "You certainly do!"
George moved uneasily. "No hard feelings, Rosie. I was just askin'."
Rosie was magnanimous. "I'm not blaming you, Jarge. You're a man and not supposed to understand about sterilizing. But I do say it's disgraceful in a mother of eight.... Why, do you know what ma was feeding Geraldine when I took hold of her? Nothing but that old-fashioned baby-food that nobody but ignur'nt people use now. It's the first thing they hand out to you at the drug-store, if you don't know the difference. It makes babies fat but it don't give them one bit of strength, and people like ma suppose if a baby's fat, of course, it's all right. Oh, such ignur'nce!" Rosie sighed wearily and cast long-suffering eyes to heaven.
Balancing a conciliatory knife on his finger, George appealed to her as man to man: "Now, Rosie, see here: I'm not saying that you don't know all about babies, 'cause I think you do. I know the way you been finding out things at the Little Mothers' Class and I know the way you study that book. But facts is facts, Rosie, and after all, your ma has raised five kids out of eight, and that ain't so bad."
"Go on." Rosie looked at him challengingly.
George had no more to say.
Rosie had. "Jarge Riley, you know as much about babies as a rabbit! Don't you know that Geraldine is a bottle-baby?"
An expression of helpless wonderment spread over George's face. "Why, Rosie, ain't they all bottle-babies? Seems to me I always seen 'em give bottles to all of 'em."
"All of them bottle-babies! Jarge, you're more ignur'nt than I supposed. Why, every last baby my mother's had except Geraldine has been a breast-baby!"
The pink of an unexpected embarrassment mounted to George's shiny cheekbones.
Rosie surveyed him critically. "I suppose, now that you come to think about it, it seems to you they must all be breast-babies, too. Tell me, ain't that so?"
"Search me if it ain't!" George spoke in candid bewilderment.
"That just shows how much you know and yet you're willing to sit there and argue with me. Now I suppose you think it takes as much brains to raise a breast-baby as a bottle-baby." There was a question in Rosie's tone but George, breathing hard, had no opinion to hazard. After a moment of impressive silence, Rosie continued: "Any ordinary, ignur'nt, healthy woman, with lots of good milk, can raise a baby, but when it comes to bottle-feeding——"
Rosie broke off suddenly and her face took on the expression of a listening mother.
"Rosie! Rosie!" Mrs. O'Brien's voice called. "Geraldine's awake and is crying for you."
Rosie paused long enough to say, in parting: "There's lots more I could tell you, Jarge, if I had time."
"Oh, don't mind me, Rosie. Just run along. I'm sure Geraldine needs you." George spoke with a certain relief. The weight of the new knowledge that Rosie had already imposed upon him seemed as much as he could bear for the present.
Rosie left him. She felt cheered and comforted, as talking out her troubles with George always cheered and comforted her. Dear old George! Rosie didn't know what she would do without him.
It was well that she had the consciousness of his friendly interest to support her, for the day was to prove a trying one. Not a breath of air stirred, and Geraldine, languid and feverish, tossed and fretted unceasingly. Ordinarily Rosie could have given her whole attention to the ailing baby, but today she had to take her mother's place as cook for dinner, since a large family washing required all of Mrs. O'Brien's time and strength. If Geraldine would only have fallen off to sleep, Rosie could have managed simply enough; but the poor child could not sleep. So Rosie spent a frantic morning running back and forth between kitchen and front room.
"Why, Rosie, what ails you? You're not eating a bite," her father remarked during dinner.
"It's too hot to eat," Rosie murmured.
"Give me your meat!" Jack cried out. "Please, Rosie!"
Without a word, Rosie passed him her plate.
In mid-afternoon, when it was time for Rosie to go about her business of delivering papers, she entrusted the care of Geraldine to Janet McFadden. For several days now she had been employing Janet for this duty. Out of her own earnings she was paying Janet two cents a day, and she did not grudge the money. Janet was the one person to whom shewas willing to entrust Geraldine at this critical time. Janet knew as much about babies as Rosie herself, for she had gone to the Little Mother classes with Rosie and had faithfully studied the book. So Rosie started out with the feeling that she need not hurry back.
She loitered along slowly; after the rush of home it was good to loiter. Even the blazing sun was restful compared with home and its unending demands. Rosie covered the ground at snail's pace, resting at the least provocation of shade, and stopping to look at the least hint of anything happening or likely to happen.
It was five o'clock when she reached home again, and time to give Geraldine her afternoon bath. Mrs. O'Brien was still at the ironing-board and Rosie had to shift clothes-horses to find a place on the floor for the big basin.
"Ah, now, and ain't Rosie the kind sister to be giving Geraldine a nice bath!" Mrs. O'Brien began in her usual tone and manner. "Your poor ma wishes there was some one to give her a nice bath!" She rambled on while Rosie splashed Geraldine and then began wrapping her in a towel.
"I wouldn't moind it so much if only it cooled off of nights." Mrs. O'Brien wiped her moist face with her apron, and sighed. "It's played out I am, Rosie. I can't stand another minute." She took a long, uncertain breath and dropped heavily into a chair.
Rosie, with Geraldine in her arms, paused in the doorway. She, too, wanted to escape from the hot kitchen, but something in her mother's tone held her.
Mrs. O'Brien swayed listlessly in her chair. "It's sick at me stomach I'm feelin'. The smell o' the kitchen goes agin' me.... Rosie dear——" Mrs. O'Brien broke off to look at Rosie a moment in silent appeal. "Rosie dear, do ye think just for tonight ye could cook the supper for me? I hate to ask you—I do that, for ye've had a hard day of it with poor wee Geraldine fretting her life away. And I'm not forgetting that ye helped me this noon. I wouldn't be asking another thing of you today if I could help it, but I'm clean tuckered out ironin' them last shirt-waists for Ellen, and I tell ye, Rosie, I feel like I'd faint if I thried to stand up in front of that stove."
Tears of self-pity came to Rosie's eyes and she wanted to cry out: "And what about me? Don't you suppose I'm tired, too?" But the sight of her mother's face going suddenly pale and of her hands beginning to shake, checked her, and she said, quietly enough: "All right, Ma, I will. You take Geraldine and go out in front. Maybe it's a little cooler there."
Mrs. O'Brien started off, murmuring gratefully: "Ah, Rosie dear, ye're a darlint and I don't know what I'd do without you!"
Rosie, left to herself, instead of taking comfort at thought of her own nobility of conduct, leaned miserably against the kitchen door and burst intotears.... "I don't see why I always got to do all the disagreeable things in this house, and I always do got to, too! I—I—I'm tired, I am!"
She sobbed on awhile brokenly, then slowly dried her eyes, for it was half-past five and time to set to work for supper.
Rosiewas spoken of in the family as a good cook, but this afternoon there was so little of any housewifely pride left in her that she fried the potatoes as carelessly as Ellen would have fried them, and she scorched the ham. She set the table after some fashion, and then, when all was ready, went through the house calling, "Supper's ready! Supper's ready!"
As the family straggled in, Rosie went on to her next duty of putting George Riley's supper into a tin pail.
"Better hurry," Terence warned her. "You'll be missing Jarge's car."
"I can't hurry any faster," Rosie murmured; but she did, nevertheless, snatch up the pail and start off.
It seemed to her the street was even hotter and more breathless than the smoky kitchen. The late afternoon sun was still beating down on pavements and houses and people, fiercely, unceasingly, as it had been since early morning, and all things alike looked worn and dusty and utterly fatigued. Little shop-girls were trailing listlessly home, their hats crooked,their black waists limp with perspiration, their hair hanging about their pale faces in shiny, damp strings. Yet, tired as they were, they were still attempting forlorn, giggly little jokes and friendly greetings.
One girl called out in passing: "Gee, Rosie, ain't this the limit?" Another asked facetiously: "Well, kid, how does this weather suit you?" and a third stopped her to exclaim breathlessly: "Say, Rosie, ain't you just crazy with the heat!"
Rosie reached the corner in good time for George's car. There was a slight congestion in traffic and George had a moment or two before dashing back to his place on the rear platform. He looked dirty and hot. His collar was in a soft welt, his face streaked with dust and perspiration. His expression, usually good-natured, was gloomy and irritable.
"What you got tonight?" he asked, lifting the lid of the pail. "What! Ham again? Ham! What do you think I am? It's ham, ham, ham, every night of the week till I'm sick and tired of it! Here! Take it back—I don't want it! I'll buy me something decent to eat!"
"Why, Jarge!" Rosie had never heard him talk that way before. She hadn't supposed he could talk that way to her. The unexpectedness of it was like a blow. For the first time in their acquaintance she shrank from him. Her face quivered, her eyes filled with tears. "Why, Jarge!" she stammered again.
The motorman of George's car sounded his gong in warning and George, without another word, dropped the pail at Rosie's feet and jumped aboard.
Rosie, dazed and crushed, stood where she was until the car disappeared. At first she was too hurt to cry out; too surprised by the suddenness of the attack to formulate her protest in words. One thing only was clear, namely, that George Riley had failed her. She could never again believe in him blindly, implicitly, as heretofore. There she had been supposing him so much better than any one else, and he wasn't at all. Probably he wasn't as good!... One little corner of her heart pleaded for him, whispering that poor George must have forgotten himself for the moment because, like the rest of the world, he was crazy with the heat. But Rosie silenced the whisper by exclaiming passionately: "Even if he was, I don't see why he had to go and take it out on me! I'm sure I'm not to blame!"
After a pause her heart again sought weakly to excuse him by suggesting that perhaps Mrs. O'Brien did serve fried ham with a certain monotonous regularity. Rosie was not to be taken in by that. "Well," she demanded grimly, "what does he expect on a five-dollar-a-week board, with meat the price it is! Lamb chops and porterhouse steak?" After that her heart said nothing more, realizing, apparently, that so long as Rosie cared to nurse her grievance, she could find reasons in plenty. AndRosie did care to nurse it, and by the act of nursing soon changed it from a feeling of bewildered woe to one of mounting indignation.... If George Riley wanted to act that way, very well, let him do so. But he better not think that she, Rosie O'Brien, would stand for any such treatment, for she just wouldn't!
At home she was able to explain quietly enough that George hadn't wanted any supper. Jack at once called out: "Give me his ham! Aw, please, now, Rosie, give it to me! Give it to me!"
"No, Jackie, you're too little to have meat at supper," Rosie explained. "This is for Terry. Here, Terry."
Terence accepted the windfall with a gallant, "Thanks, Rosie." Then he added: "But don't you want a piece of it yourself?"
"No, Terry, I'm not hungry. Besides, ma has saved me a little piece."
"And here it is, ye poor lamb." Mrs. O'Brien touched her affectionately on the cheek. "Sit right down and eat it before Geraldine wakes. Ye've hardly had a bite all day."
Rosie took her place at the table and tried to eat. It was no use; and suddenly, as much to her own surprise as to the others', she burst out crying.
"Mercy on us!" Mrs. O'Brien threw up astonished hands. "What's happened now?"
"N-nothing," Rosie quavered, pushing her plate away and dropping her head upon the table.
"What's ailin' you, Rosie?" her father asked gently.
"E-E-Ellen's got to do the dishes tonight. I-I-I'm too tired."
"I'm awful sorry," Ellen began, "but tonight, Rosie, I got to go out early. I got to go over to Hattie Graydon's for a note-book."
"Note-book nuthin'!" Terence glared at Ellen angrily. "That's the way you get out of everything, with your note-books and your Hattie Graydons and your old business college! Listen here, Ellen O'Brien: you'll do those dishes tonight or I'll know why!"
"Huh!" snorted Ellen. "From the way you talk, a person would suppose you were my father."
"Wish I was your father for ten minutes—long enough to give you a good beatin'!... Who do you think you are, anyway? A real live lady? Everybody else in the family's got to work, but not you!"
"Ah, now, Terry," Mrs. O'Brien expostulated, "you mustn't be talkin' that way to your poor sister Ellen. She's got her own work to do at school and I'm sure it's hard work, ain't it, Ellen dear?"
"Say, Ma, you fade away!" Terence waved his hand suggestively. "What you don't know about Ellen's a-plenty! Just look at her, the big lazy lump! There she's been sitting in a comfortable cool room all day long with a fan in one hand and a pencil in the other and her mouth full of chewing-gum, pretending to study, and you and Rosie have been up here in this hot little hole working like niggers. Aw, why do you let her fool you? Why don't you make her do something?"
Ellen, her head tossed high, appealed to her mother. "Ma, will you please explain to Mr. Terence O'Brien that I'd be perfectly willing to wash and wipe the dishes every night of my life if it wasn't for my hands. If ever I'm to be a stenog, I've got to take care of my hands."
"What about Rosie's hands?" Reaching over, Terence drew one out from beneath Rosie's face and held it up. At that moment it was a pathetic little hand, shaken by sobs and wet with tears, but its roughened skin and short, stubby nails were evidence enough of the work that it did.
"Well, what about them?" Ellen, at least, was unmoved by the exhibit. "Rosie's not going to be a stenog, is she?"
Terence almost choked in fury, but before he could find an answer sufficiently crushing, his father spoke.
"See here, Ellen, we've had talk enough. You'll be doing the dishes tonight before you go after the note-book. That ends it."
"Very well!" Ellen flounced out of the room, then flounced back. "But if I don't get my certificate next month, you'll know whose fault it is!"
"Ain't she the limit?" Terry addressed his inquiry to the gas-jet, and small Jack, taking up theword, called after her: "Ellen, you're the limit! You're the limit!"
"Fie on you, Jackie!" Mrs. O'Brien said reprovingly. "You mustn't be talkin' that way to your sister."
But Jack, hopping about the kitchen like mad, kept shouting, "You're the limit! You're the limit!" until there was a sudden wail from the front of the house.
"Now see what ye've done, ye naughty b'y! Ye've waked up Geraldine!"
Jack subsided abruptly and Rosie, with a sigh, stood up.
Her mother looked at her compassionately. "Sit where you are, Rosie dear, and rest, and I'll take care of Geraldine."
"No, I'll go."
Rosie carried the child outside to the little front porch, where she rocked and crooned in the gathering darkness until Geraldine grew quiet. Then she put her to bed and later, at the proper time, gave her a last bottle. After that Rosie's day was done.
To be near Geraldine, Rosie was sleeping downstairs for the present, on the floor of the front room. Just as George Riley got home she was ready to retire.
"Good-night, everybody," she said.
George, looking a little sheepish, called after her: "Aren't you going to kiss me good-night, Rosie?"
Without turning back, Rosie made answer:"It's too hot to kiss." Then she told herself grimly: "There, now! I guess that'll jar him! If he thinks he can treat me like a nigger and then kiss me good-night, he's mightily mistaken." She closed the door of the room with a determined click and stood for a moment with her head high. Then she sank to the floor, a very miserable little heap of a girl who sobbed to herself: "But I wish he wasn't so mean to me!"
Itwas a sultry, oppressive night, hard enough for adults to endure and fearfully weakening to teething babies. The next day the heat continued and Geraldine fretted and drooped until Rosie was frantic with anxiety.
"Rosie dear, you're all pale and thin," her mother remarked, and Janet McFadden, looking at her affectionately, said: "Now, Rosie, why don't you let me deliver your papers for a couple of days? You're fagged out."
"No," Rosie said. "If you'll keep on coming over in the afternoon while I'm away, that's help enough."
"But, Rosie, I could do your papers easy enough. I know all your customers."
"'Tain't that, Janet. Of course, you know them. And I thank you for offering, for it sure is the hottest time of the day. But it's my only chance to get away from home for a little while and I think I'd just die if I didn't go."
So she went, as usual, though her feet dragged heavily and her eyes throbbed with a dull headache.
On the better streets the houses were tight shutto keep out the heat; but the doors and windows of the tenements were open, and Rosie could see the inside of untidy rooms where lackadaisical women lounged about and dirty, whiny children played and wrangled. Hitherto Rosie's thrifty little soul had sat in hard judgment on the inefficient tenement-dwellers, but today she looked at them with a sudden tenderness.
Poor souls, perhaps if all were known they would not be altogether to blame. Perhaps they, too, had once longed to give their babies the chance of life that all babies should have. Perhaps it was their failure in this, through poverty and ignorance, that was the real cause of their apathy and indifference. Rosie felt that she was almost going that way herself. Then, too, the husbands of many of these women were selfish and brutal; and surely it was enough to break a woman's spirit to have the man she had loved and trusted turn on her like a fiend. Rosie knew!
Not that she herself was angry any longer with George Riley. Goodness, no! It wasn't a question of anger. She simply had no feeling for him one way or another. How could she, when it was as if the part of her heart he had once occupied had been cut out of her with a big, bloody knife! She merely regarded him now as she would any stranger. She would be polite to him—she tried always to be polite to every one—polite, yes; but nothing more. So when she handed him his supper-pail that eveningat the corner, she said, "Good-evening." Common politeness required that much, but she did not feel that it required her to hear or to understand his plaintive, "Aw, now, Rosie!" as she turned from him.
No! Without doubt all that should ever again pass between them was, "Good-morning" or "Good-evening." And it was all right that it should be so. She wouldn't have it otherwise if she could. She told herself this as she walked home, repeating it so often that she quite persuaded herself of its truth. Yet, when Terry happened upon her unexpectedly a few moments later, he looked at her in surprise.
"What's the matter, Rosie? What you cryin' about?"
"N-nuthin'," Rosie quavered. "I—I guess I'm worried about Geraldine."
"Aw, don't you worry about Geraldine," Terry advised kindly. "This weather's got to break soon and then Geraldine'll be all right."
Terrywas right. The change came the very next afternoon. Rosie had finished her papers and was on her way home when suddenly the wind rose and great masses of black storm-clouds came driving across the sky. Thunder rumbled, lightning crackled, and in a few minutes rain came swishing down in great long, splashy drops.
Instead of running for shelter, Rosie obeyed the impulse of the moment and stood where she was. She clutched a lamp-post to keep from being blown away, and then, turning her face to the sky, let the sweet, comforting rain wash down upon her and soak her through and through.
It was like a great, cool, refreshing shower-bath: it washed the dusty earth clean once again; it brought back a crispness to the air; it loosened the nervous tension under which all living things had been straining for days.
The clouds broke as suddenly, almost, as they had gathered. Watching them, Rosie sighed and shivered. "Oh, but that was nice!" Her hair was plastered over her head in loose, wet little ringlets, and her clothes hung tightly about her body. Whenshe walked, her old shoes oozed and gurgled with water. She hurried home; yes, actually hurried, for it was cool enough to hurry; and besides, her wet clothes were beginning to chill her.
Janet McFadden met her with shining eyes. "Oh, Rosie, what do you think? She's asleep! And she's just took her bottle, too—all of it, without waking up! Oh, I'm so happy!"
Rosie looked at Janet affectionately. "You've been awful good, Janet, helping me this way."
"Good—nuthin'!" Janet scoffed. "Aren't you paying me good money?... But, Rosie, listen here about Geraldine: I wouldn't be a bit surprised if things'd be all right now. Those old teeth are certainly through. I let her bite my finger on both sides, just to see."
Perhaps Janet was right. Perhaps things were arranging themselves. Rosie's heart sang a tremulous little song of happiness as she rubbed herself dry and put on fresh clothes. The world wasn't such a bad place after all, and the people in it weren't so bad, either. There was Janet—good, kind Janet—and Terry, and nice old George Riley—Rosie stopped short to scowl at herself in amazement. Then she repeated, defiantly,nice old George Riley. For hewasnice! And he always had been nice, too! What if he had forgotten himself once? Hadn't other people as well? Hadn't everybody, Rosie herself included, been crazy with the heat?
As Rosie looked at things now her only surprisewas that George hadn't forgotten himself oftener! Come to think of it, he had kept his temper better than any one else in the family.... Dear old George! Rosie wanted to put her arms about his neck that instant and tell him how much she loved him.
Her first way of doing this was by saying to him as she handed him his supper-pail at six o'clock: "Oh, Jarge, what do you think? Geraldine's been asleep all afternoon!" This was a greeting very different from a cold, "Good-evening, Jarge," and George would understand the difference.
He did. His face beamed with understanding. "I'm awful glad, Rosie; honest I am!" Then as he ran back to his car he called out: "Rosie, wait up for me tonight. I've got something to tell you—something fine!"
"All right, Jarge, I will!" Rosie spoke with all her old-time enthusiasm, and waved him a frantic farewell.
Afterfinishing her household duties and preparing Geraldine's last bottle, Rosie had nothing more to do but to enjoy the cool of the evening with the rest of the family. They were seated on the little front porch, Mrs. O'Brien and Jamie on chairs and Terence on the porch steps. Rosie took her place opposite Terence to await the arrival of George Riley.
In good time he came, bursting with his bit of news. "Hello, Rosie! Hello, everybody!" he called out before he was inside the gate. He had a letter in his hand which he waved excitedly in Rosie's face.
"See this, Rosie? It's from mother; and what do you think? You and Geraldine are to go out to the country for two weeks and maybe three! What do you say to that?"
For a moment Rosie had nothing to say. Then she gasped: "Why, Jarge, what do you mean?"
"And you're to start tomorrow, Rosie, on the eleven o'clock train, and dad'll be at the station to meet you. You'll know him 'cause he looks just like the farmers in the Sunday papers, with a bigstraw hat and thin whiskers. And he drives an old white horse—Billy's his name."
"Mercy on us, Jarge Riley, how you talk!" Mrs. O'Brien leaned forward in excitement. "What's this ye're sayin'?"
George laughed and started over again. "You see, Mis' O'Brien, Rosie and me was talking the other day about babies and the country, and then Geraldine began crying and I thought to myself, 'Well, I'll just write to mother and see.' I wrote that morning, and here's the answer. The postman gave it to me as I was starting out this afternoon."
"That's it, is it?" Mrs. O'Brien seemed to understand perfectly. To Rosie, however, the news still sounded too good to be true.
"Jarge, do you mean your mother has invited Geraldine and me out to the country for a couple o' weeks?"
"Sure, that's what I mean. And you're to start tomorrow——"
"Oh, Jarge, and can Geraldine sleep on the upstairs porch where the breeze always blows and they's no mosquitoes or flies?"
"O' course she can, and you can, too!"
Rosie was laughing and crying together. "Do you hear that, Ma? She's going to have a chance to sleep and get back her strength and then she'll be able to pull over this horrible teething time, and then she won't—she won't have to die!"
Rosie put her arms about George's neck and coveredhis cheek with tears and kisses. Then suddenly she paused.
"But, Jarge, I don't know whether I can go! What about my papers?"
George laughed. "Aw, let the papers go blow! Anyway, can't Janet McFadden take them?"
Rosie appealed to Terry. "Can she, Terry?"
Terry nodded. "Sure she can. Don't you worry about those papers. Me and Janet'll get on all right. You take Geraldine and skip off and stay away as long as Mis' Riley wants you."
George spread out his hands. "So you see, Rosie, everything's arranged. You're to start tomorrow on the eleven——"
"But, Jarge, wait a minute! We can't start tomorrow 'cause our things aren't ready. A whole lot of Geraldine's clothes and mine, too, got to be washed."
"Can't you take 'em with you and wash 'em in the country?"
"Oh, Jarge!" The suggestion was evidently a horrible one, for Mrs. O'Brien and Rosie spoke together.
George looked troubled. "But, Rosie, you got to start tomorrow. Didn't I tell you that dad and Billy are going to drive down to meet you?"
Mrs. O'Brien stood up. "Make your mind easy, Jarge. Rosie'll be ready on time. I'll go in this minute and do that washin' now, and the things'll be all dry and ready for ironin' by early mornin'."
Rosie gasped. "Why, Ma, it's going on ten o'clock!"
"Rosie dear, I don't care what o'clock it's going on. If it's the last mortal thing I ever do for you, I'm going to do that washin' tonight, for, if I do say it, ye're the best child that ever trod shoe-leather."
Jamie O'Brien's tilted chair came down on the porch floor with a thud, while Jamie remarked solemnly: "You're right, Maggie; she is!"
Mrs. O'Brien moved toward the door. "Come on, Rosie dear, and help me gather the things."
Rosie started up, then paused to glance from one to another of them. In the soft glow of the summer night she could see that they were all looking at her with the same expression of love and tenderness. Rosie choked. "I don't see why—everybody's—so kind—to me!"
She turned back to George. "And I've been just horrible to you, Jarge! You'll forgive me, won't you? I guess it was the weather."
"Aw, go on!" George spoke with a gruffness that deceived nobody. "I guess it's been the weather with all of us!"
GeorgeRiley protested vigorously: "But I tell you she's only a little girl and she's got a baby and a big basket and I don't know how many other things and some one's just got to help her!"
With anxious headshakes Terence and Janet McFadden corroborated all George Riley said, but the gatekeeper was firm. "Only passengers this side the fence," he repeated.
So the three friends had to wait while the long train slowly disgorged. Terence stood guard on one sideofthe gate, George Riley on the other, while Janet pressed a tense searching face through the bars of the high division fence. The first arrivals were the dapper quick young men with new leather bags and walking-sticks who, in their eagerness to arrive, always drop off a train before it stops. After them came more men and the more agile of the women passengers. Then the general rush and crush: the fussy people laden down with parcels; old ladies struggling to protect their small handbags from the assaults of porters; distracted mothers jerking their broods hither and thither; middle-aged menmurmuring to wives and daughters, "No rush! No rush! Plenty of time!"
"Maybe she missed the train!" Janet McFadden suggested tragically.
The crush subsided, the last stragglers passed through the gate, and then, just as Janet remarked gloomily, "Well, I was perfectly sure she wasn't coming!" a little girl with a baby in her arms alighted from a coach far down the track and stood where she was while the conductor piled the ground about her with boxes and parcels and baskets innumerable.
"There she is! There she is!" Janet and Terence cried out together.
The gatekeeper looked at them a little less sternly. "Well, I guess you can come in now."
Janet dashed through the gate with her arms raised high, calling out a joyful "Rosie! Rosie!" George Riley and Terence followed close on her heels, and in a moment Rosie and the baby were enveloped in a cloud of hugs and kisses.
"Oh!" Rosie gasped, "but it's nice to be back! And I'm so glad to see you all!... Here, Jarge, you take that heavy box and be awful careful. It has jelly in it and canned fruit and I made them all myself, too! Your mother taught me how.... You take the big basket, Terry. That's our clothes. And I think you can take the basket of vegetables in the other hand. Janet'll take that bundle, won't you, Janet? They's two dressedchickens in it and I plucked them myself, too. Mis' Riley showed me how. And you take the shoe-box, Janet. It's full of cookies. Hold it straight so's not to break them.... I'll take that last basket in my other hand. You can't guess what's in it, can they, Geraldine? It's Geraldine's little pussy cat! We just couldn't leave it, could we, baby? Geraldine named it herself. She named it Jarge."
"After me, I suppose," George said, and they all laughed as if this were a mighty fine joke.
"Now are we ready?" Rosie asked, making a quick count of bundles and baskets. "I'm not leaving anything, am I?"
George groaned. "I should hope not! Tell you one thing: I can't carry any more. Say, Rosie, what have you filled your jelly glasses with? Rocks?"
This was another fine joke and it carried them out of the station and all the way to the cars.
"Now watch me play the Rube," George whispered with a wink. When the conductor came for their fares, George fumbled in his pocket, counted the change laboriously, then asked for an impossible transfer. The conductor tried patiently to explain, at which George slapped him on the shoulder and roared out: "Aw, go on! I'm a railroad man myself!" At this everybody laughed and the conductor and George became friends on the spot.
At the home corner, small Jack was waiting and, before Rosie was fairly off the car, he was callingout excitedly: "Hello, Rosie! Hello! What did you bring me from the country?"
"Oh, you darling Jackie! I'm so glad to see you!" Rosie kissed him on both cheeks, then answered his question. "A little turtle! It's in a box at the bottom of the vegetable basket that Terry's carrying."
Jack danced up and down in delight. "Oh, Rosie, can't I have it now? Please!"
"No, no, Jackie, you must wait till we get home."
"Aw, Rosie, all right for you!" Jack looked at her reproachfully, then shouted out: "Come on! Come on! Let's hurry home!"
At home Mrs. O'Brien and Jamie were waiting for them with outstretched arms.
"Ah, Rosie," her mother exclaimed, with fluttering hands and streaming eyes; "I'm that glad to see you, I'm weepin'! And will ye look at wee Geraldine as fat and smilin' as a suckin' pig! Ah, Geraldine darlint, come to yir own ma!"
Jamie O'Brien, less demonstrative than his wife, patted Rosie's head gently. "It's mighty glad I am to have you back. Why, do you know, Rosie, since you've been gone there hasn't been a soul in the house to hand me a pipe of an evening!"
"You poor old Dad!" Rosie began sympathetically. She would have said more but small Jack interrupted.
"Now, Rosie, give me my turtle! You promised you would!"
"Of course I did," Rosie acknowledged, "and I'll get it for you right now. Here, Terry, let me have the vegetable basket." Rosie thrust her hands among the onions and cabbages and drew out a small pasteboard box generously pierced with air holes.
"Here it is, Jackie dear."
Jack pulled off the string, tore open the box, and gaped in wide-eyed delight. "Oh, Rosie, thanks! thanks! It's a beaut!" For one moment mere possession was enough, on the next came an overpowering desire to exhibit his treasure before an admiring and envious world.
"Say, Rosie, I got to run down and see Joe Slattery. I'll be back in a minute."
Mrs. O'Brien put out a detaining hand. "No, you won't be going down to see any Joe Slattery! Dinner's ready and you'll be comin' in with the rest of the family this minute. Come along, Rosie dear."
Rosie paused. "Can't we keep Janet, Ma? Is there enough?"
Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head emphatically. "Sure there's enough and, if there ain't, we'll make it enough."
"Thanks, Mis' O'Brien, but I don't believe I better stay." Janet spoke regretfully. "You know my mother ain't very well these days and I don't like to leave her alone too long."
"Why, Janet!" Rosie looked at her friend in sudden concern. "Is your mother sick?"
Janet shook her head. "I don't know what's the matter with her. It seems like the hot weather and the work and the worry have been too much for her. But I'll be back, Rosie, at three o'clock for our papers. I got two new customers, didn't I, Terry? And, Rosie, what do you think? Terry gave me an extra nickel for each of them."
Janet started off and Mrs. O'Brien exclaimed: "Now, then, for dinner! All of yez!"
"See you later, Rosie," George Riley remarked, opening the door of his own room.
Mrs. O'Brien called after him excitedly: "Why, Jarge lad, where's this you're going? Aren't you sitting down with the rest of us?"
"I ain't more than had my breakfast," George explained; "and I think I better get in a little nap before I start out on my next run." He nodded to Rosie, smiled, and shut his door.
"Poor Jarge!" Mrs. O'Brien threw sympathetic eyes to heaven and sighed.
Rosie looked at her mother quickly. "Is there anything the matter with Jarge?"
"Poor fella!" Mrs. O'Brien went on in the same lugubrious tone. "He's as honest as the day and I'm sure I wish him every blessing under heaven. Never in me life have I liked a boarder as much as I like Jarge. He's no trouble at all, at all, and it was mighty kind of his mother inviting you andGeraldine to the country. No, no, Rosie, you must never make the mistake of supposing I'm not fond of Jarge!"
"Ma," Rosie begged; "tell me what's the matter!" She stopped suddenly and two little points of steel came into her blue eyes. "Is it Ellen? Has she been doing something to him again?"
Mrs. O'Brien looked grieved. "Why, Rosie, I'm surprised at you—I am that, to hear you talk that way about your poor sister Ellen. And such a bit of news as I've got about Ellen, too! Sit down now and, when I serve you, I'll tell you."
There was no hurrying Mrs. O'Brien and Rosie, knowing this, said no more. At heart she gave a little sigh. It was as if a shadow were overcasting the bright joy of her home-coming. She had arrived so full of her own happiness that she had failed to see any evidence of the care and worry which, she realized now, had plainly stamped the faces of her two dearest friends. Poor Janet McFadden! For one reason or another it had always been poor Janet. And now, apparently, it was to be poor George Riley as well.
"Now!" Everything was on the table and there was no further excuse for Mrs. O'Brien's not seating herself. She dropped into a chair and beamed upon Rosie triumphantly. "And just to think, Rosie dear, that you don't yet know about Ellen! Ellen's got a job! She's starting in on eight dollars a week and she's to go to ten in a couple of weeks if she's satisfactory. And you know yourself that twenty dollars is nothing for a fine stenographer to be getting nowadays. And twenty a week means eighty a month and eighty a month means close on to a thousand a year! Now I do say that a thousand a year is a pretty big lump of money for a girl like Ellen to be making!"
Mrs. O'Brien's enthusiasm was genuine but scarcely infectious. Terence jerked his head toward Rosie with a dry aside: "She started work yesterday on a week's trial."
Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, how you talk! On trial, indeed! As if a trial ain't a sure thing with a girl that's got the fine looks and the fine education that Ellen's got!"
"Fine education—rats! I bet she knows as much about stenography as a bunny!"
His mother gazed on him offended and hurt. "Since you're such a wise young man, Mister Terence O'Brien, perhaps you'll be telling us how much you know about it, yourself."
Terry's answer was prompt: "Not a blamed thing! But I tell you what I do know: I know Ellen, and you can take it from me she's a frost."
Rosie sighed plaintively. "But where does Jarge come in? What's the matter with Jarge."
Terence answered her shortly: "Oh, nuthin'. Ellen only played him one of her little tricks last week and he's mad."
"And I must say," Mrs. O'Brien supplemented, "Jarge does surprise me the way he keeps it up. After all, Ellen's only a young girl and he ought to remember that every young girl makes a mistake now and then."
"What mistake did she make this time?" Rosie spoke as quietly as she could.
"It's a long story," her mother said. "Since you've been gone she met a fella named Finn, Larry Finn, and we all thought him very nice, he was that polite with his hair always brushed and shiny and smooth. He had a good job downtown——"
"You know his kind, Rosie," Terry interposed; "a five dollar a week book-keep—silk socks but no undershirt. Oh, he was a great sport! Ellen was crazy about him."
"Terence O'Brien, have ye no manners to be takin' the words out of yir own mother's mouth! Now hold yir tongue while I explain to Rosie." Terence subsided and Mrs. O'Brien started in afresh: "Well, as I was saying, this Finn fella took a great fancy to Ellen and was coming around every night to see her. He took her to the movies and gave her ice-cream sodas and they were getting on fine. Then last week he was going to take her to the Twirler Club's Annual Ball."
"The Twirlers' Ball!" Rosie looked at her mother questioningly.
That lady waved a reassuring hand. "Oh, the ball was all right this year—perfectly nice and decent. Ellen found out about it beforehand. Not like last year! No drunks was to be allowed on the floor and none of them disgraceful dances. Oh, if it had been like last year, I'd never have consented to Ellen's going! You know that, Rosie!"
"Huh!" grunted Terry.
His mother paid no heed to him. "As I was saying, Rosie, the night before the ball, Larry had to come excusing himself because they had just told him he would have to stay working till all hours the next night. So there was poor Ellen, who might have had her pick a week or two earlier, left high and dry at the last moment. I tell you, Rosie, it would have wrung your heart to see the poor girl's disappointment. A girl of less spirit would have given up, but not Ellen. Ellen was going to thatball and you know how firm Ellen is once she makes up her mind. So she just asked Jarge Riley to take her."
"Ma! Do you mean to say she had the cheek to ask poor Jarge after the way she's been treating him all these months!"
"Ah, ah, don't look at me that way, Rosie! Of course I mean it. Why shouldn't she ask him? He's a nice fella and, besides that, he's a friend of the family."
"Say, Terry, what do you know about that?" Rosie appealed to her brother sure that he, at least, would understand the humiliation she felt both at Ellen's manœuvre and at their mother's calm acceptance of it.
Terry did understand and gave her the sympathy of a quick nod and a short laugh. "What do you expect? You know Ellen."
"Well, all I got to say is: it's a shame!" Tears of indignation stood in Rosie's eyes. "She treats him like a dog and then, when it suits her, she makes use of him. It's an outrage—that's what it is! I suppose he went, of course. Poor Jarge is so easy."
Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head. "Sure he went. He didn't want to at first because he didn't like Ellen mixing up with the Twirlers. When she insisted, he said, all right, he'd go."
"Is that all?" Rosie asked.
"All!" echoed her mother. "Bless your heart, no! It's hardly the beginning!"
Rosie sighed.
"Aw, Ma," Terry protested, "look at you! You're tiring Rosie all out and it's only her first day home. Why don't you spit it out quick?"
"Terry, Terry, that's not a nice way to talk, telling your poor ma to spit it out! Shame on you, lad, for using such a word!"
"Well, what happened at the ball?" Rosie begged.
"I was coming to that, Rosie dear, when Terry interrupted me. As I was saying, who showed up at the ball quite unexpected-like but Larry Finn. When Ellen saw Larry she turned to Jarge and says to him that, if he wanted to go home early, he needn't wait for her, that Larry would take care of her."
"Oh, Ma!" Rosie's eyes grew bright and her cheeks a deeper pink. "Do you mean to say after letting poor Jarge take her and pay her admission she turned around and treated him like that!"
Mrs. O'Brien lifted disclaiming hands. "Mind now, I'm not trying to defend Ellen, but I do say she's only a young girl and young girls make mistakes now and then."
"Well,"—Rosie tried to speak quietly—"what did Jarge do?"
"What did Jarge do? Something awful! Now remember, Rosie dear, I'm not trying to run Jarge down. He's a nice fella and he's a kind fella and I've never had a boarder that was so easy to pleaseand, as I've told you before, it was mighty good of him having his mother invite you and Geraldine to the country. But I must say he did act something scandalous that night."
Mrs. O'Brien paused to shake her head impressively and Rosie, in desperation, appealed to Terence. "Tell me, Terry, what did he do?"
Terry grinned. "What did he do? Why, he laid for Larry Finn and, when Larry and Ellen came out, he punched Larry's face for him!"
"It was something awful!" Mrs. O'Brien again declared. "Every day for a week poor Larry had to carry a black eye with him down to the office. And you know yourself the way other men laugh at a black eye. And he's not been here to see Ellen since and Ellen's awful mad and, besides that, no one else has been coming, for the word has gone out that Jarge'll kill any fella that's fool enough to be showin' his face."
"Well, it's just good for her, too!" Ellen's unexpected plight was the one thing in the whole situation that gave Rosie any satisfaction. However, she gloated on it only for a moment. "But about Jarge, Terry—did he get pulled in that night?"
Terry shook his head. "No. You see the ball was ending up in a free-for-all, just like the Twirlers always do, and the cops were so busy inside that there was no one left to pay any attention to a little thing like Jarge's scrap."
"And I must say," Mrs. O'Brien continued, "I'm sorry for that poor Larry Finn, for it wasn't his fault at all, at all. It was Ellen's own arrangement."
"That's so," Rosie agreed. "By rights Ellen's the one that ought to have got beat up."
"Why, Rosie, I'm surprised to hear you say such a thing and about your own sister, too!"
Mrs. O'Brien's surprise was lost upon Rosie, who was looking intently at her father. "Say, Dad, what do you think of a girl doing a trick like that on two decent fellows?"
Jamie O'Brien, who had said nothing up to this, took a drink of tea, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and slowly cleared his throat. "It's me own opinion, Rosie, it's a very risky game that Ellen's playing."
"Risky? It's worse than risky: it's dishonest."
Rosie started to push back her chair, but her mother stretched out a detaining hand. "Wait a minute, Rosie. You haven't yet heard what I'm trying to tell you."
Rosie's eyes opened wide. "Is there any more?"
"To be sure there is, Rosie. You've only heard the beginning."
Rosie dropped back in her chair a little limply. What more could there be?
Mrs. O'Brien breathed hard and long; she sighed; she gazed about at the various members of her family. At last she spoke:
"I don't know what's come over Jarge since that night. You know yourself what an easy-going young fella he's always been, never holding a grudge, always ready to let bygones be bygones. Well, he's never forgiven Ellen from that night on. He scowls at her like a storm-cloud every time he sees her and last week, Rosie—why, you'll hardly believe me when I tell you what he said to her last week. We were all sitting here at the table: your poor da over there, and Terry in his place, and Jack beside him, and meself here. Ellen made some thriflin' remark about how silly a girl is to marry herself to one man when she might be going around having a good time with half a dozen—nuthin' at all, you understand, just the way Ellen always runs on, when, before I knew what was happening, Jarge jumped to his feet and pounded the table until every dish on it was rattlin'. 'That's how you feel, is it?' says he, glaring at poor Ellen like a mad bull. 'Well, if that's your little game,' says he, 'I've been a goat long enough. Not another thing will I ever do for you, Ellen O'Brien, not another blessed cent will I ever spend on you until you tell me you'll marry me and set the date. And what's more,' says he, 'I'll give you one month from today to decide,' says he. 'I'll be going back to the farm in September,' says he, 'so it's time I knew pretty straight just where we stand. So no more foolin', me lady,' says he. 'It's to be yes or no to Jarge Riley and that's the end of it.'"