"A great bunch of wild roses! Oh, then I know something about Patsey. It was one day in August. And-and I had the roses."
Dil"s face was a rare study. Virginia Deering bent over and kissed it.
Then the ice of strangeness was broken, and they were friends.
This was Patsey"s "stunner." She was very sweet and lovely, with pink cheeks, and teeth like pearls. Dil looked into the large, serious eyes, and her heart warmed until she gave a soft, glad, trusting laugh.
"Patsey"ll be so glad to have me find you! They were the beautifullest things, withered up some, but so sweet. Me an" Bess hadn"t never seen any; an" I put them in a bowl of water, an" all the baby buds come out, an" they made Bess so glad she could a-danced if she"d been well, "cause she used to "fore she was hurted, when the hand-organs come. They was on the winder-sill by where she slept, an" every day we"d take out the poor dead ones. "N" there was jes" a few Sat"day when we went up to the Square an" met the man. "N" I allers had to wheel Bess, "cause she couldn"t walk."
"What hurt her?"
"Well-pappy did. He was dreadful that night along a-drinkin", an" he slammed her against the wall, an" her poor little hurted legs never grew any more. An" the man said jes" the same as you,-that he"d been stayin"
where there was hundreds of thim, an" he made the beautifullest picture of Bess-she was pritty as an angel."
Miss Deering"s eyes fell on the little trail of freckles across Dil"s nose. They were very small, but quite distinct on the waxen, pale skin.
"And he painted a picture of you! He put you in that wild-rose dell. I know now. I thought I must have seen your face."
Dil looked almost stupidly amazed.
"Bess was so much prittier," she said simply. "_Do_ you know "bout him?
He went away ever so far, crost the "Lantic Oshun. But he said he"d come back in the spring."
She lifted her grave, perplexed eyes to a face whose wavering tints were struggling with keen emotion.
"He couldn"t come back in the spring. He went abroad with a cousin who loved him very much, who was ill, and hoped to get well; but he grew worse and weaker, and died only a little while ago. And Mr. Travis came in on Monday, I think."
Her voice trembled a little.
"Oh, I knew he would come!" The glad cry was electrifying.
And she, this little being, one among the waifs of a big city, had looked for him, had a right to look for him.
"He ain"t the kind to tell what he don"t mean. Bess was so sure. An" I want to ast him so many things I can"t get straight by myself. I ain"t smart like Bess was, an" we was goin" to heaven when he come back; he said he"d go with us. An" now Bess is dead."
"My dear little girl," Virginia held her close, and kissed the cool, waxen cheek, the pale lips, "will you tell me all the story, and about going to heaven?"
It was an easy confidence now. She told the plans so simply, with that wonderful directness one rarely finds outside of Bible narratives. Her own share in the small series of tragedies was related with no consciousness that it had been heroic. Virginia could see the Square on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and Bess in her wagon, when she "ast Mr. Travis to go to heaven with them." And the other time-the singing. Ah, she well knew the beauty and pathos of the voice. How they had hoped and planned-and that last sad night, with its remembrance of wild roses.
Dil"s voice broke now and then, and she made little heart-touching pauses; but Virginia was crying softly, moved from the depths of her soul. And Dil"s wonderful faith that she could have brought Bess back to life bordered on the sublime.
"Oh, my dear," and Virginia"s voice trembled with tenderness, "you need never doubt. Bess _is_ in heaven."
"No," returned Dil, with a curious certainty in her tone, "she ain"t quite gone, "cause I"ve seen her. We all went up to Cent"l Park, Sunday week ago. I was all alone, the boys goin" off walkin", an" me bein"
tired. I wanted her so much, I called to her; an" she come, all beautiful an" well, like _his_ picture of her. I c"n talk to her, but she can"t answer. There"s a little ketch in it I can"t get straight, not bein" smart like to understand. But she"s jes" waitin" somewheres, "n"
he kin tell me how it is. You see, Bess wouldn"t go to heaven "thout me, an" he would know just where she is. For she couldn"t get crost the river "n" up the pallis steps "les I had hold of her hand. For she never had any one to love her so, "n" she wouldn"t go back on me for a whole world."
Miss Deering could readily believe that. But, oh, what should she say to this wonderful faith? Had it puzzled John Travis as well?
"And who sent you here?" she asked, to break the tense strain.
Dil told of the fainting spell, and Mrs. Wilson and Miss Lawrence, who had been so good.
"But now he"s come, you see, I must get well an" go down. He"ll be there waitin". I"d like to stay with the boys, but somethin" draws me to Bess.
I feel most tore in two. An" ther"s a chokin" in my throat, an" my head goes round, an" I can"t hardly wait, I want to see her so. When I tell Patsey and Owny all about it, I"m most sure they"ll want me to go, for they know how I loved Bess. An" when _he_ comes, he"ll know what"s jes"
right."
They were silent a long while. The bees crooned about, now and then a bird lilted in the gladness of his heart. Virginia Deering was asking herself if she had ever loved like this, and what she had suffered patiently for her love. For her self-will and self-love there had been many a pang. But she let her soul go down now to the divinest humiliation. Whatever _he_ did henceforth, even to the dealing out of sorest punishment, must be right evermore in her eyes.
The children were coming back from their ride, joyous, noisy, exuberant; their eyes sparkling, their cheeks beginning to color a little with the vivifying air and pleasurable excitement. Dil glanced at them with a soft little smile.
"I think they want you," she said. "They like you so. An" I like you too, but I"ve had you all this time."
"You are a generous little girl." Virginia was struck by the simple self-abnegation. "I will come back again presently."
She did not let the noisy group miss anything in her demeanor. And yet she was thinking of that summer day, and the poor roses she had taken so unwillingly. How she had shrunk from them all through the journey! How she had tossed them out, poor things, to be fought over by street arabs.
They had come back to her with healing on their wings. And that John Travis should have seen them, and the two little waifs of unkind fortune. Ah, how could _she_ have been so fatally blind and cruel that day among the roses? And all for such a very little thing.
What could she say to this simple, trustful child? If her faith and her beliefs had gone outside of orthodox lines, for lack of the training all people are supposed to get in this Christian land, was there any way in which she could amend it? No, she could not even disturb it. John Travis should gather in the harvest he had planted; for, like Dil, she believed him in sincere earnest. She "almost knew that he meant to set out on the journey to heaven," if not in the literal way poor, trusting little Dil took it. And she honored him as she never had before.
She came back to Dil for a few moments.
"Don"t you want to hear about the picture?" she asked. "It quite went out of my mind. Mr. Travis exhibited it in London, and a friend bought it and brought it home. I saw it a fortnight ago. So you brought him a great deal of good fortune and money."
"I"m so glad," her eyes shone with a soul radiance; "for he gev us some money-it was for Bess, an" we buyed such lots of things. We had such a splendid time! Five dollars-twicet-an" Mrs. Bolan, an" she was so glad "bout the singin". But I wisht it had been Bess. He couldn"t make no such beautiful picture out"n me. Bess looked jes" "s if she could talk."
"He put you in that beautiful thicket of roses." Ah, how well he had remembered it! "I do not think any one would have you changed, but you were not so thin then."
"No;" Dil gave the soft little laugh so different from the other children. "I was quite a little chunk, mammy alwers said, an" I don"t mind, only Patsey wants me to get fatter. Mebbe they make people look beautifuller in pictures," and she gave a serious little sigh.
Then the supper-bell rang. Dil held tightly to the slim hand.
"They"re all so good," she said earnestly. "But folks is diff"rent. Some come clost to you," and she made an appealing movement of nearness.
"Then they couldn"t understand "bout me an" Bess-that she"s jes" waitin"
somewheres till I kin find out how to go to her, an" then he"ll tell us which way to start for heaven. I"m so glad you know _him_."
Dil tried again to eat, but did not accomplish much. She was brimful of joy. Her eyes shone, and a happy smile kept fluttering about her face, flushing it delicately.
"You have made a new child of her," said Miss Mary delightedly. "I thought her a dull and unattractive little thing, but such lives as theirs wear out the charms and graces of childhood before they have time to bloom. We used to think the poor had many compensations, and amongst them health, that richer people went envying. Would any mother in comfortable circ.u.mstances change her child"s physique for these stunted frames and half-vitalized brains?"
Virginia Deering made some new resolves. It was not enough to merely feed and clothe. She thought of Dilsey Quinn"s love and devotion; of Patsey Muldoon"s brave endeavor to rescue Owen, and keep him from going to the bad, and his generosity in providing a home for Dil, to save her from her brutalized mother. Ah, yes; charity was a grander thing,-a love for humanity.
Dil came to say good-night. Virginia was startled by the unearthly beauty, the heavenly content, in her eyes that transfigured her.
"You breathe too short and fast," she said. "You are too much excited."
"I d"n" know-I think it"s "cause _he"s_ comin". "N" I"ve waited so, "n"
now it"s all light "n" beautiful, "n" I don"t feel worried no more."
"You must go to sleep and get rested, and-get well." Yes, she _must_ get well, and have the different kind of life Virginia began to plan for her.