When at last the trying on was over, and the Tony generosity was sufficiently enlarged upon, the ladies, as is the way with the best of the s.e.x, fell into a mild gossip before separating. And while racy bits of Tenement shortcomings were being handed around, the small object of this gathering, too young, alas, to know the joys denied her because of her limited abilities to understand the nature of the conversation, slipped down from Mrs. O"Malligan"s lap, and eluding Mary"s absent hold, proceeded to journey about the room, until reaching the open door, she took her way, un.o.bserved, out of the O"Malligan first floor front and leaving its glories of red plush furniture and lace curtains behind her, forthwith made her way out the hall door into the street.
The hot, garbage-strewn pavements and sunbaked gutters swarmed with the sons and daughters of the Tenement. Directly opposite its five-storied front was the rear entrance to the Fourth Regiment Armory. And there, at that moment, a sad-eyed, swarthy Italian,--swinging his hand-organ down on the asphalt pavement in front of the Armory"s open doors, was beginning to grind out his melodies. And with the first note, children came running, from doorstep and curb, from sidewalk and gutter, while, at the same moment, in the open door of the Armory appeared a small, chubby-cheeked boy, who had upon his head a soldier cap so much too large for him as to cover the tips of his ears entirely, and who, moreover, wore, buckled about his waist, a belt gay as to tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and glittering with silver finishings. If the Fourth Regiment boasted a Company of Lilliputian Guards here surely was a member.
The Angel, in the Tenement door, was enchanted. How different a world from that upstairs room under the roof! She kept step to the music and nodded her head to the fascinating little boy in the Armory door. And the sharp eyes of that young gentleman had no sooner espied the nodding little creature in the doorway opposite, than heels together, head erect, up went a quick hand to the military cap. The Angel was being saluted, and while her ignorance of the fact prevented her appreciating that honor, the friendliness of the little boy was alluring. Down the steps she came, her little feet tripping to the measure of the music, her skirts outheld, and flitting across the pavement and over the curb, she made for the group of children in the street. Cobblestones, however, being strange to the baby feet, up those dancing members tripped and down the Angel fell, just as a wagon came dashing around the corner of the streets.
Out rushed the small boy from the Armory door, and, scattering the crowd around the organ, caught the fallen Angel by the arm, and raised his hand with an air of authority, as, with a grin, the driver on the wagon drew up his horse and surveyed the group, and the sad-eyed Italian, recognizing the superior attraction, shouldered his organ and moved on.
"h.e.l.lo," cried the man on the wagon seeing the child was not hurt, "yer can soak me one if it ain"t little Joe! Where"d yer git dem togs, kid?
What"r" yer goin" in fer anyhow, baby perlice?"
The region in the neighborhood of Joey"s waist swelled with pride, and his chubby face bore a look of wounded dignity. "There ain"t no perlice about this yere, Bill, it"s a sojer I be, see?"
Being pressed by Bill to explain himself, Joey unbent. "Yer see, Bill, Dad ain"t never showed up fer to git me--seen anything of Dad since he got out, Bill?"
Bill nodded.
"What"s he up to now?" queried Joey.
"Shovin" the queer," admitted Bill laconically, "nabbed right off an" in the cooler waitin" his turn, yer won"t be troubled by him fer quite a spell, I"ll give yer dat fer a pointer, see?"
Joey saw, and for the s.p.a.ce of half a second seemed somewhat sobered by the intelligence. "I guessed as much," said he, "yer see, after he got nabbed first, mammy she--yer didn"t know as mammy took an" died, did yer, Bill?" and Joey faltered and let the Angel take possession of his cap and transfer it to her own curly head while the Tenement children applauded with jeering commendation, seeing there was a standing feud between Joey and the rest of the juvenile populace over its possession.
"No," Bill allowed, he did not know it, but, seeing that she was always ailing, Bill was in no wise surprised.
"An"--an" since then, I"m stayin" over ter th" Arm"ry wid Old G. A. R.
Yer know him, Bill, Old G. A. R. what takes care of th" Arm"ry. He was there afore yer left th" grocery."
Bill remembered the gentleman.
"I stays wid him an" he drills me an" makes me scrub, hully gee, how he do make me wash meself, Bill! An" there"s one sojer-man, th" Cap"n, he give me these togs, he did, an" he tol" Old G. A. R. to lem"me eat along wid him over ter Dutchy"s Res"traunt," nodding toward a cheap eating-house at the corner, "an" he"d stand fer it. They calls me major, all of "em to th" Arm"ry, Bill, see?" and Joey was waxing voluble indeed, when he turned to see the mob of jeering children make off up the street, his cap in their midst, while the wailing Angel was being rescued from under the horse"s very hoofs by Mary Carew.
Joey put his spirit of inquiry before even his cap. "Is she er Angel, say?" he inquired of Miss Carew, turning his back on Bill without ceremony who with a grin and a nod to the group of Tenement ladies at the door, drove off, "I heerd yer had er Angel over there, but I didn"t know as it was straight, what they was givin" me, see?"
"That"s what she is, the darling yonder," declared Miss Bonkowski from the curbstone, nodding airily, "you"ve got it straight this time, Joey.
And if what Peter O"Malligan says about your picking her up just now is so, you"re welcome to come over some time and play with her."
"Yes, it"s true," supplemented Mary Carew, trying to pacify the struggling Angel in her arms who, gazing after the children, showed a decided inclination to descend to human level and mingle with them of earth, "it"s true an" that"s jus" what she is,--the Angel of this Tenement, an", as Norma says, you"re free to come over and play with her, though there ain"t many of you I"d say it to;" and with that the tall, gaunt Mary bearing the baby, followed Norma into the house and up the narrow, broken stairs, and along the dark halls past door after door closed upon its story of squalor and poverty, until, at last, panting with the child"s weight, she reached their own abode under the roof.
"Which," as Mary had been wont, in the past, to observe, "was about as near Heaven as the poor need look to get." But now, for some reason, these bitter speeches were growing less frequent on Mary Carew"s lips since she opened her door to entertain an Angel.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ANGEL BECOMES A FAIRY.
July pa.s.sed, and in August, the heat in the room beneath the roof set the air to shimmering like a veil before the open window, and Mary Carew, gasping, found it harder and harder to make that extra pair of jean pantaloons a day. And, as though the manager at the Garden Opera House had divined that Miss Bonkowski had left another birthday behind her, like milestones along the way, that lady"s salary received a cut on the first day of August.
At best, the united incomes of the two made but a meagre sum, and there was nothing for it now but to reduce expenses. The rent being one thing that was never cut, the result was a scantier allowance of food.
Moreover, the mortals seeing to it that their heavenly visitant had her full craving satisfied, it was small wonder that the bones in Mary"s face pressed more like k.n.o.bs than ever against the tight-drawn skin, or that the spirits of the airy, hopeful, buoyant Norma flagged. Indeed, had not the warm-hearted, loving little creature, repaid them with quick devotion, filling their meagre lives with new interests and affections, despair or worse--regret for their generous impulse--must now have seized their hearts.
Invitations, too, grew rare, from the other ladies of the Tenement, bidding the little stranger whose simple friendliness and baby dignity had won them all, to dine or to sup, for hard times had fallen upon them also. A strike at a neighboring foundry, the shutting down of the great rolling-mill by the river had sent their husbands home for a summer vacation, with, unfortunately, no provision for wages, a state of affairs forbidding even angels" visits, when the angel possessed so human a craving for bread.
Even Mrs. O"Malligan, whose chief patron, Mrs. Tony, together with her children and their dozens of dresses, had gone for a summer outing, had no more on her table than her own family could dispose of.
But the Angel,--""Eaving bless her," as Mrs. Tomlin was wont to observe when the Angel, coming to see the baby, would stand with grave wonder, touching the pallid little cheek with a rosy finger to make the baby smile,--the Angel noted nothing of all this. Even the memory of "_Mamma_" was fading, and Mary, Norma, the Tenement, the friendly children swarming staircase and doorway, were fast becoming her small world.
With instinct born of her profession, the chorus-lady had long ago recognized the wonderful grace and buoyancy of the child"s every movement, and to her surprise found that the baby had quite a knowledge of dancing.
"Who taught you how, my precious?" she would ask, when the child, as if from the very love of motion, would catch and spread her skirts, and, with pointed toe, trip about the room, "tell your Norma who taught the darling how to dance?"
The baby glancing over her shoulder, with the little frown of displeasure that always greeted such ignorance on Norma"s part, had but one reply: "Tante," she would declare, and continue her measured walk about the floor. So, for pastime, Norma began teaching her the figures of a dance then on the boards at the Opera House, to which her little ladyship lent herself with readiness. The motions, sometimes approaching the grotesque in the lean and elderly chorus-lady as she bobbed about the limited s.p.a.ce, courtesying, twirling, pirouetting, her blonde hair done up in kids,--herself in the abbreviated toilet of pink calico sack and petticoat reserved for home hours, changed to unconscious grace and innocent abandon in the light, clean-limbed child, who learned with quickness akin to instinct, and who seemed to follow Norma"s movements almost before they were completed.
"It is wonderful--amazing!" Miss Bonkowski would exclaim, pausing for breath, "it is _genius_," and her voice would pause and fall reverently before the words, and the lesson would be resumed with greater enthusiasm than before.
But many were the days when, Norma away at rehearsal and Mary Carew, hot, tired, alas, even cross,--totally irresponsive to anything but the st.i.tching of jean pantaloons,--the Angel would grow tired of the stuffy room and long for the forbidden dangers and delights of Tenement sidewalks. Then, often, with nothing else to do, she would catch up her tiny skirts and whirl herself into the dance Norma had taught her, in and out among the furniture crowding the room, humming little broken s.n.a.t.c.hes of music for herself, bending, swaying, her bright eyes full of laughter as they met Mary"s tired ones, her curls bobbing, until breathless, hot and weary she would drop on the floor and fall asleep, her head pillowed on her soft dimpled arm.
But on one of these long, hot mornings when the heat seemed to stream in as from a furnace at the window and even the flies buzzed languidly, the Angel was seized with another idea for pa.s.sing time. Her vocabulary of Tenement vernacular was growing too, and she chattered unceasingly.
"C"rew, didn"t a fink Angel might go find her mamma?" she demanded on this particular morning.
"To-morrow," said C"rew, and the click in her tired voice sounded even above the whirring of the heavy machine, for C"rew"s head ached and her back ached, and possibly her heart ached too, for herself and Norma and the child and poor people in one-windowed tenement rooms in general.
"Didn"t a fink she might go play with little Joey?"
"No," said Mary decidedly, and she leaned back wearily and pushed her thin, colorless hair off her hot, throbbing temples, "no, you played down on the pavement with Joey an" th" rest yesterday, an the sun made you sick. But," with haste to avert the cloud lowering over the baby face, "if you"ll be real good an" not worry her, you can go down an" see Mrs. O"Malligan."
Fair weather prevailed again on the pretty face, and at Mary"s word the Angel was at the open door, tugging at the chair placed crossways to keep her from venturing out un.o.bserved, and with a sigh and a guilty look at the pile of unfinished work, Mary rose and carried her down to the good Irish lady"s door, and, with a word, hurried back.
Mrs. O"Malligan, big, beaming and red, smiled a moist but hearty welcome from over her tubs toward the little figure in the faded gingham standing shyly in the open doorway. "An" it"s proud to see ye I am, me Angel," she declared, "though there"s never a childer in call to be playin" wid ye."
But the Angel, nothing daunted, smiled back in turn, and climbed into a chair, and the two forthwith fell into friendly conversation, though it is doubtful if either understood one-half of what the other was talking about.
Presently Mrs. O"Malligan, with many apologies, went out into the back court to hang out the last of the family wash, and on her return, stopping short in the doorway, her jolly red face spread into a responsive smile. "The saints presarve us," she cried, "would ye look at the child?" for in the tub of blue rinsing water sat the gleeful Angel, water trickling from her yellow hair and from every st.i.tch of clothing, while her evident enjoyment of the cool situation found a response in Mrs. O"Malligan"s kind and indulgent heart.
"Angel take a baf," was the smiling though superfluous explanation which came from the infant Undine.
"An" it"s right ye are," laughed Mrs. O"Malligan, "an" sure I"ll be afther givin" ye a rale wan meself," and filling an empty tub with clean water, the brisk lady soon had the baby stripped to her firm, white skin and standing in the tub.
And what with the splashings of the naughty feet, and the wicked tumbles into the soap-suds every time the mischievous little body was rinsed, and Mrs. O"Malligan"s "Whist, be aisy," and "It"s a tormentin" darlint ye are," they heard nothing of the knocks at the door or the calls, nor knew that Miss Bonkowski, in street dress and hat, had entered, until she stood beside them with an armful of clean clothes.
"Was there ever such luck," she cried excitedly, "to find her all washed and just ready! Mary said she was here, and so I just brought her clean clothes down with me to save a trip back upstairs. Wipe her quickly, please," and with hands and tongue going, Miss Norma explained that one of the children in the juvenile dance on the boards at The Garden Opera House had been suddenly taken ill, and a matinee advertised for the next day.
"And it happens lucky enough," she went on, addressing the ladies who, catching wind of the excitement, had speedily gathered about the doorway, "it just happens I have been teaching her this very dance, and if she don"t get frightened, I believe she will be able to take the place."
So saying, Miss Bonkowski gave a pull out and a last finishing pat to the strings of the embroidered muslin bonnet the child had worn on her first appearance, and taking her, clean, dainty, smiling and expectant, into her arms, Miss Norma plunged out of the comparative coolness of the Tenement hallway into the glare of the August sun.