“well, upon my word!”
mary jane opened her eyes. then she rubbed them to see more clearly. indeed, she rubbed them twice before she made out her mistake and was able to say:
“oh! i am so sorry! i—i didn’t mean—but i can’t be arrested! i can’t—my mother—i—.”
she scrambled up somehow, picked her crutches from the ground and set off again. she dared not look behind her but was quite sure that the hard-faced policeman was in full pursuit. off she was, indeed, only to be brought to a sudden stop, while a shiver of fear ran through her. but she made no further outcry and rested quietly upon her wooden feet, to hear her doom.
“why, you poor little girl! you look scared. you haven’t done any harm, not a bit. in fact, you’ve saved me quite a chase. i’m not so swift as you are, hard as i tried to catch you.”
mary jane shivered and still said nothing, nor could she lift her eyes from the ground. their gaze rested idly upon the man’s feet and she fancied that the gloss upon his shoes equalled the radiance of the electric light.
“and now that i have caught you, i want to thank you, with all my heart, for your kindness to my precious child. i believe the good lord sent you, just in the nick of time, with your ready answer and your readier sympathy. yet to think that, after all this, you should run away, at night and alone. you poor, brave little child.”
then she heard, through her puzzled understanding, another voice speaking in jesting surprise.
“turn your back on an old friend, would you, miss bump! well, we will have to see about that, indeed!”
those were tones to banish fear! and now, in truth, mary jane’s eyes were raised and she saw standing there and smiling down upon her none other than the gray gentleman.
the revulsion of feeling was too much for her self-control, and dropping her face against his hand she began to cry, with all the abandon of those who seldom weep.
“why, little girl! what is it? were you so badly frightened as all that? there, there. you’re with friends now, child, who love you and will take care of you.”
with that she felt herself lifted in the gray gentleman’s arms, and her head forced gently down upon his shoulder, while her crutches fell noisily to the stones. however, they were promptly picked up again by the other gentleman, who was also gray—as to hair and beard—and who made almost as much noise as the crutches, because he kept blowing his nose so vigorously. then she heard him softly slap her own gray gentleman’s free shoulder and exclaim, in a husky voice:
“it’s all right, neighbor! the lord has been good to us. bonny-gay is almost herself again and was laughing—actually laughing—to see me, her dignified daddy, run out of her room to try a race with miss mary jane here. oh! it’s too good to be true!” and again there was a tremendous flourish of handkerchief, and a sound like a small fog horn.
“thank god!” murmured the gray gentleman, and mary jane felt him tremble. instinctively she raised her head to comfort him and touched his thin cheek timidly with her lips.
but there was no timidity in the kiss he returned her as he set her upon the ground, and with all his usual cheerfulness, demanded:
“well, little traveler, how do you propose to get home again?”
“i don’t know!” the tone was a happy one and seemed to mean: “and i don’t care! you are to find the way for me!”
“you don’t, eh? but i’m thinking that good mother of yours will be hungry for a sight of your face, and it’s time we remembered her. mothers are queer bodies. they like to have their youngsters around them, be they never so bothersome. yet, since she’s waited so long, i think it will do no harm for her to wait a while longer. i’d like to have you pay me a little visit, as well as bonny-gay, and i’ll invite you to my house to take supper with a lonely old fellow who’ll entertain you as well as he can.”
it was hard to refuse, she would so much have liked to see the home of her friend, of the friend of all the children whom she knew. but the vision of her mother, waiting and anxious, was too much for her loyal heart, so she declined as prettily as she knew how, only requesting:
“now, please, you are to tell me the quickest way home to dingy street and i’ll go. you must know it, for you’ve been there so often.”
“yes, i know it, and i’ll take you at once. i’ll do more. i’ll invite myself to supper with you after i get there, since you can’t stop with me.”
“very well,” said mary jane, though not with much enthusiasm. she was afraid he would think her mother’s supper a poor one. however, he was quite welcome to what they had, and she added more cordially: “i know mother’d think it an honor, only i’d have to stop at the baker’s on the way.”
she didn’t quite understand why both gentlemen laughed so heartily. they now seemed in[100] a mood, each one of them, to laugh at any and everything which happened, and bonny-gay’s father teased the other a little about his great appetite, which required the contents of a bake-shop to satisfy. then he added, with a manner that admitted of no denial:
“but you’ll have to defer your visit, neighbor, till another time. i claim the privilege of conveying this young lady to her destination, and my man has already summoned a cab. here it comes, now; for i’d rather trust a city cabby to find out odd places than my own coachman.”
here came the cab, indeed, and from the vine-clad mansion on the corner also came a liveried servant bearing a big basket tightly covered.
“with the mistress’ compliments, and miss bonny-gay is sending this to the baby.”
“good enough!” answered the happy father, and took mary jane from the gray gentleman’s arms; who handed her crutches in after her, and himself closed the door of the cab with a cheerful snap.
“some other time, then, mary jane, i’ll expect a visit from you. my regards to your mother and i will be down your way before long. good-by.”
mary jane’s head whirled with the strangeness of it all. what a day it had been! and how simple and kind was this gray-haired father, who didn’t look half so strong as her own absent one, but who talked so fast and asked so many questions that, before she at all realized what she was doing, the cripple had given him their whole family history. save and excepting, of course, anything which related to her own affliction and its cause, or any possible fault of her beloved father.
“he works—i mean, he did work—for the b. & b. railroad folks. he—he—isn’t working just now. he went away, for a little while, but i guess he’s back again. won’t he be surprised to hear all that’s happened to me? he’ll be glad, after all, that she didn’t—oh! my sake! what am i saying!”
at mention of the company, the gentleman beside her had given a little start of surprise, but mary jane fancied that the jolting of the cab had moved him. she expressed her regret for the accident and added:
“but i like it. i never rode in a carriage but once before. that was yesterday when bonny-gay was hurt. but she’ll soon be well, now, i think. don’t you?”
“so i trust. so i trust and believe. but, tell me a little further of your father. what sort of work did he do? i happen to know something about that company and am interested in the details of all its concerns.”
“sometimes he was helping along the tracks; straightening them, changing the ties, and such things. sometimes he was over at the great sheds they’re building—monstrous ones, they are, almost all of steel. you ought just to see them by daylight. though i guess i can show them to you even to-night, ’cause they’re not so very far from our house.”
“indeed! did you say what street it was? i heard my neighbor give some directions to the driver for us, but paid little attention.”
“dingy street, number 97.”
“dingy street! you don’t say! why, i know that locality well. very well, indeed. a great many of—of the company’s employees live around there.”
“most all of them do, i guess.”
“so your father’s out of work, just now?”
“yes. but he’ll soon be ‘on’ again, i think. when he does work he gets real good wages. that is, if he isn’t ‘docked.’ i reckon the company is pretty strict. my mother says they don’t allow for anything. a man must do his task or leave it, and that’s the end.”
“but that is quite right and just, is it not?”
“i—suppose—it is. though poor men can’t always—i mean, they get discouraged sometimes. that makes them do and say things they wouldn’t else. it’s queer and unjust, my father says, for the company to have so much money and their men so little. that’s what made him glad—i mean not so sorry—when—when—things happen.”
mary jane paused, confused. twice she had nearly told this other father that her own father had been glad when bonny-gay had been hurt. she knew william bump would not have said anything so cruel if he had not been drinking; she was sure of that, for he was generally so kind of heart. but even yet she did not imagine that her companion was himself the president and head of that company whose wages her father gladly accepted even when he talked against it most fiercely.
however, mr. mcclure greatly enjoyed listening to this frank story of the underworkings of his vast enterprises. he was not only a very wealthy and powerful man, he was also a wise and just one. he felt the responsibilities of his position, and made it his business to know all employees by name and character, so far as that was possible. over this particular portion of his affairs, right in his own city, he had an almost daily supervision, and he knew william bump, in some respects, much better than this loyal little daughter did. his opinion of the father was very poor, and he had himself given orders, on the previous day, that the said william was never again to be taken on by his managers, “not in any capacity whatsoever.”
for some distance the gentleman made no response to mary jane’s last remark, and the silence was broken only by the roll of their own wheels, the ordinary sounds of the streets through which they passed, and the increasing rumble of the thunder. the storm was drawing nearer and he wished to escape it, if possible. he signalled the driver, after a while, and seeming to rouse himself from some deep thought, to: “make haste!”
the cabman lashed his horses into a gallop, and remembering the accident of her one other ride, mary jane began to grow afraid. she was afraid now, also, of this silent gentleman beside her and longed for her journey to end. to pass the time she tried to count the lamps on the street corners as they flew past her in the gloom, and to watch for the illuminating flashes of lightning, which came faster and faster.
suddenly, into this silence, mr. mcclure hurled a stern question, that compelled a truthful reply, whether she liked to give it or no.
“mary jane, of what was your father glad when that accident occurred?”
she caught her breath in alarm; then answered, frankly:
“he was glad because—because bonny-gay was hurt.”
“why?”
“oh! i don’t know. i mean—i guess he was so sorry about me—being like i am—and he thought it wasn’t fair. she was as beautiful and perfect as i was—was ugly; and her father had all the money and he had none. but it wasn’t right and it wasn’t him. indeed, indeed, it wasn’t. he didn’t know you, of course, and he didn’t dream that you could love her same as he loves me. but he’d be the first—the very first—to be sorry, after he came to himself.”
“hmm. no man, rich or poor, has a right ever to be other than himself.”
“i suppose not. but things haven’t gone right with father since we came from the country.”
“humph!” was the contemptuous comment, and the little girl said no more.
oh! if they would only ever get to 97 dingy street! twice, now, she had been allowed the luxury of a carriage ride and each time how wretched she had been. at first she had liked bonny-gay’s father almost as much as she had the gray gentleman, when she first knew that good friend. she had chattered away to him almost as freely; yet after awhile he had allowed her to keep up the chatter rather for his own information than because he had seemed interested in her affairs. he was now become so stern and indifferent that she realized she had deeply offended him. to her relief, the cab turned sharply around the next corner and there she was, at last, in dear, familiar dingy street, with its tiny houses that were yet homes; in one of which was mother bump, her four sisters, and the wonderful baby! possibly, also, her father; though of him she thought less, just then, than of the motherly face which was, to her, the comeliest in all the world.
the cab stopped with a jerk. the cabman leaped down and opened the door. then he lifted out the covered basket, and afterward swung mary jane to the ground and supported her till the gentleman who remained inside the vehicle handed out her crutches.
the house door flew open, also, at the sound of wheels, and mrs. bump peered out into the night.
“what is it?” she called, her voice trembling with anxiety. that a carriage should stop before her humble home foreboded harm to some of her loved ones, and her first thought was of her crippled daughter.
“here am i, mother! home at last;” answered that daughter’s voice, cheerily.
then she turned to thank mr. mcclure for his kindness to her, but he did not hear her, apparently. the cab was already being whirled around, and the driver lashing his horses. a brilliant gleam of lightning, followed instantly by a terrific clap of thunder, startled them into a thought of shelter only. mrs. bump saw through the cab window that the gentleman raised his hat, then she seized the basket from the ground, and hurried mary jane indoors, just as the first great drops of a heavy shower came dashing down.
“oh! mother bump! i never saw such a lovely place as this dear old home! how glad i am to be here. has father come yet?”
“not yet, dearie. but he will soon, no doubt.”
“i hope he isn’t anywhere out in this storm; poor father.”
“bless you, child! the man has sense, hasn’t he? even dumb creatures know enough to go in when it rains. but tell me fast, darling, all that’s happened to you since you went away. my heart! this has been the longest day i ever knew! have you had anything to eat? what made you so late? how came you to be riding home in such grand style? and where got you this basket?”
“it’s the baby’s, mother. bonny-gay sent it to him;” cried the happy girl, running to seize that crowing infant from his trundle-bed and to cover his face with kisses. then she dropped her crutches and herself upon the floor, drew the baby to her lap, and from that lowly position began a swift, but rather mixed history of events since she had said good-by and hopped away in the morning.
the mother listened, losing never a word, and deftly simplifying matters now and then by a leading question, while at the same time she explored the big basket. it had evidently been filled in haste, and by the direction of bonny-gay, herself.
“this is for the baby, is it?” laughingly demanded mrs. bump, lifting out a great loaf of rich cake, carefully wrapped in waxed paper. “fine food for a year-old, that is. and this? and this? my heart, but whoever filled this basket had a generous streak!”
a fine roasted chicken, mate to that of which mary jane had already partaken, it might be, followed the cake. then came a picture-book, a jumble of toys, a box of candy, and an odd mixture of the things nearest at hand, and of which the sick child could think.
but crowning all these gifts, and the only one packed with any attempt at care, was the beautiful leghorn hat, with its nodding ostrich plumes and its general air of elegance.
“the darling, the darling! she did mean me to keep it, then!” cried mary jane, so delightedly that the baby immediately pat-a-caked with noisy vigor.
of course, even though they had long since enjoyed their ordinary supper, the watchful children were not to be put off without at least a taste of the baby’s good things; so the mother cut and divided with exact equality; and after a feast so hilarious that it brought joe stebbins in from next door to see what was the matter, everybody was sent to bed; even the tired mary jane, whose heart seemed brim full of both joy and anxiety.
she had explained to her mother how she had chattered to mr. mcclure, hiding nothing, even her unwise statement of william bump’s animosity toward the other, happier father.
mrs. bump had listened quietly, and she had pooh-poohed the little girl’s regrets! but her heart sank. mr. mcclure was the name of the head of the company. she knew that, though mary jane did not; and she realized that her husband’s last chance of reinstatement in the company’s employ had been ruined by the very one who would have sacrificed her very self to do him good.
“poor little daughter! but she must never know. never. it would break her loving heart! and it matters little now whether william comes home or not!” sighed the troubled wife and mother, as she laid her own weary head on her pillow for the night.
