"Av ye plaise," she interrupted, "we"re not paupers. I"m well enough, ye see, to be takin" care of me own childers. An" he nor no one else nade throubble theirselves. I"m not askin" charity; an" av they did it unbeknownst to me, I"ll hammer thim well, that I will! They"re as well off as common folk, an" ye needn"t be worritin". Av that"s all ye come fer, ye kin be goin" about yer own bisniss, bedad! An" ye kin tell Mr.
What"s-his-name that I"m not sufferin" fer help."
This was not the fashion in which Miss Nevins was generally received.
"You do not understand"-with rising color. "We desire to be of whatever service we can; and if your child is ill, you cannot have a better friend-"
"Frind! is it? Bedad, I kin choose me own frinds! An" if he knows whin he"s well off, he"ll not show his foine forrum here, er his mug"ll get a party mash on it. Frind, indade!"
The irate woman looked formidable as she rose, but Miss Nevins did not mean to be daunted.
"You may see the time when you will be glad of a friend, though you need not worry about _his_ coming. I shall tell him you are not worth his interest. As for the child"-and her indignation sparkled in her eyes.
"The child wants none of his help, ye kin tell him. I kin look afther her mesilf."
"Good-day," and the visitor opened the door. Dil stepped back in the obscurity. The lady held up her fine cloth gown, and gave her nose a haughty wrinkle or two as she inhaled the stifling air once, and then did not breathe until she was in the court.
"Such a horrid hole!" she commented. "The child ought to be moved to a hospital-or perhaps she is well by this time. John is so easily taken in-his swans so often turn out to be geese. As if _I_ would have given her any money, the impudent, blowsy thing! I know pretty well how far to trust that cla.s.s! Though it"s rather funny," and she smiled in the midst of her disgust; "they are always whining and pleading poverty, and will be abject enough for a quarter. And she was very high and mighty! I"ll write a good long letter to John about it, but I won"t trouble her ladyship again."
Dil stood shaking with terror, and some moments elapsed before she had courage enough to open the door. She was in a degree prepared for a line of defence.
Her mother seized her by the arm, and fairly shouted at her,-
"Who was the man who kim to see ye, ye young huzzy?"
"Man! When did a man come? I don"t remember," a.s.suming surprise.
"I"ll help yer mem"ry thin wid that;" and Dil"s ears rang with the sound of the blow.
"There wasn"t any man since the wan that sang a long whiles ago. Mrs.
Murphy knew. She said he was a Moody an" Sankey man, an" that they do be goin" round singin" and prayin". An" they all stood in the hall, the women about. Mrs. Murphy kin tell you."
Mrs. Quinn was rather nonplussed.
"What did he gev ye?"
"Nothin"," sobbed Dil. "It was poor old Mrs. Bolan that had the money."
"Not a cint?" She took Dil by the shoulder. "Dil Quinn, I don" no whether to belave yer; but if he"d gev ye any money, an" ye"d bin such a deceivin" little thafe, I"d break ivery bone in yer mean little body.
Howld yer tongue! I ain"t done nothin" but ast a civil question."
Dil tried to stop sobbing. Her mother was in a hurry to get out, or matters might have been worse.
"Stop yer snivelin"," commanded her mother. "But if I hear of any more men singin" round, I"ll make ye wish yer never been born."
The baby cried at this juncture, and Dil took it up. Mrs. Quinn went out, and there would be peace until midnight.
Bess sat in the carriage, wild-eyed and ghostly, trembling in every limb.
"It was a norful lie!" sobbed Dil. "But if I"d told her, she"d killed me! _He_ wouldn"t a done such a thing; but n.o.body"d darst to tackle him, an" rich people don"t beat an" bang."
"You didn"t tell no lie," said Bess in a sudden strong voice. "_He_ never gev you no money. "Twarn"t your money "t all. Doncher know he put it in the bag the first time when you was feared to take it, an" he jes"
dropped it down here in the side of the kerrige. He never gev you a penny. An" it was _my_ money."
"O Bess! Ye"r such a bright, smart little thing! If you"d been well we"d just kept ahead of mother all the time;" and now the sunshine slanted over the brown quartz eyes that were swimming in tears. "I d"n" know, but I should have hated norful to tell a lie "bout him. He seems-well, I can"t somehow git the right words; but"s if you wanted to be all on the square when he liked you. I don"t b"leve he"d so much mind yer snivyin"
out a nickel when there was a good many babies, an" puttin" it back when there wasn"t, to save gettin" yer head busted. But he wouldn"t tell no lie. He kem when he said he would an" brought Christiana, an" he"ll come in the spring, sure."
"Yes, sure," said Bess, with a faint smile. "But you better ast Mrs.
Murphy to keep the book a few days, for mammy might go snoopin" about-"
"I just will; but I don"t b"leve she"d dast to hustle you round and find the money. An" now a week"s gone, an" there"s only three left, en then it"ll be anuther month, an" O Bess, spring! spring!"
There was an exultant gladness in Dil"s voice.
VII-MARTYRED CHRISTIANA.
Dil was always so tired, she went to sleep at once from exhaustion. But to-night every nerve seemed in a quiver. They had found some medicine that soothed Bess and kept her from coughing, so she slept better than in the summer. Dil tossed and tumbled. There had been given her a magnificent endowment of physical strength, and the dull apathy of poverty had kept her from a prodigal waste of nerve force. She was what people often called stolid, but she had never been roused. How many poor souls live and die with most of their energies dormant.
There had never been but one dream to Dil"s life, and that was Bess.
Here her imagination had some play. When they took their outings through the more respectable streets for the cleanliness and quiet, or paused awhile in the green and flowery squares, she sometimes "made believe"
that Bess was the lovely child in the elegant carriage, with wraps of eider down and lace, and she the nurse-maid in white ap.r.o.n and cap who trundled her along jauntily. Or else it was Bess, blue-eyed and golden-haired, sitting in a real "grown-up" carriage with her pretty mamma in silks and satins. The little nurse-maid was at home, putting everything in order, and waiting for the lovely princess to come back and tell her all she had seen. That and heaven had been the extent of her romancing.
But to-night a curious, separate life stirred within her. A consciousness of the great difference between such people as John Travis, even the lady in the hall who had so disdainfully gathered up her skirts and scattered a faint fragrance about. Why was such a great difference made? Why should she and Bess be Honor Quinn"s children?
Would another mother be given them in heaven?
The mothers in the court seemed to love their little babies, yet afterward they beat and banged them about. But the children in that clean, beautiful world where there was no pain, the children in heaven-ah! ah! She was not crying with human pa.s.sion; it was the deep anguish of the soul that cannot even find vent in tears, the throes of an awful inward pain, that seldom, thank G.o.d, comes to the young, that dense ignorance often keeps from the very poor.
"Took them in his arms." That was what John Travis had said. She was so tired to-night-not the fatigue of hard work altogether, but a great aching that had no name. If she could be taken in some one"s arms!
Dilsey Quinn could not remember being held, though her mother had been proud of her first-born, and fond too, in those days.
If Mrs. Quinn"s life had been a little more prosperous, if she had lived in a cottage with a patch of ground, a cow and some chickens, and the wholesome surroundings of the little village where she had reigned a sort of rural queen, her children might have known love and tenderness.
But the babies had come fast. Her man had taken to drink. They were crowded in among the poor and ignorant, where brawls and oaths, drinking and cruelty, were daily food. Ah, what wonder one lapses into barbarism!
For the last half-dozen years she had slaved, and sometimes gone hungry.
She could have strangled little Dan when he came, for adding to her burthens. How much of the peril of the soul depends upon the surroundings!
And now Dil longed for the strong arms to be about her. Do you wonder she had so little idea of a heavenly Father? The teaching of the Mission School had been measured by the hard, bare materialism of poverty, quite as upas-like as the materialism of philosophy. It had a rather dainty aspect when John Travis dallied with it among his college compeers; but it seems shocking when these hundreds of little children cannot even formulate the idea of a G.o.d. And though Dil stretched out her hands with an imploring moan, it was for some present and personal comfort.
Owny came creeping in softly, and just saved his skin, for to-night his mother returned earlier than usual. She was growing stout, and walked solidly. She seemed to be puttering about. Then she pushed Dil"s door wide open, and there was barely room for her. The lamp stood on the floor outside. Dil"s "chest of drawers" was covered with a curtain of various pieces, and she had ornamented the top with treasures found amid the cast-off Christmas and Easter cards that had fallen to her when more favored children had tired of them. A cigar-box was covered with some bits of silk, and held a few paltry "treasures." Some fancy beads, a tarnished bangle, a bit of ribbon, and so on, she found as she dumped them in her ap.r.o.n and then thrust them back. Next she dragged the articles out of the improvised "drawers," and shook them one by one.
Nothing contraband fell out. There was nothing to reward her search, and she glared at the child in the faded, shabby wagon.
Dil hardly breathed. She remembered in that half-frozen, fascinated sort of way that horrible events will rise up, ghost-like, in times of terror-that one night last winter, a woman farther up the court had murdered her two little children, and then killed herself. She was cold with an awful apprehension of evil. Even though she kept her eyes closed, she could seem to see with that awesome, inward sight.
Mrs. Quinn thrust her hand under Bess"s pillow, under her bed, and the poor child gave a broken, disturbed half-cry. Her efforts were fruitless; but before Dil could give a sound to her horrible fear, she had turned and was facing her. Then Dil sprang partly up, but the scream curdled in her throat.
"Oh, ye naydent disturb yersilf this time o" night. I was jist lookin"
in upon me two gals that the man was so distrissed about. Dil Quinn, av"
ye iver go to the bad like some gals, I"ll not lave a square inch of skin on yer body, ner a whole bone inside. I"ll have no men singin"