But all this while the little brain was at work. "Goin" to Angel"s mamma,--her goin" to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo as it rested on Norma"s shoulder.
Norma paused on the crowded sidewalk, to take breath beneath the shade of a friendly awning. "Not to-day, my angel," she panted, "to-day your Norma is going to take her precious where there are ever so many nice little girls for her to dance with."
"Angel likes to dance with little girls, Norma," admitted the baby, while Norma made ready to thread her way across the street through the press of vehicles.
"I"ll not say one word to her about being frightened," reflected the wise chorus lady, "and she"s such an eager little darling, thinking of other things and trying to do her best, maybe she won"t think of it. If she can only keep the place while that child is sick,--what a help the money would be!"--and the usually hopeful Norma sighed as she hurried in the side entrance of the handsome stone building known to the public as The Garden Opera House.
The next afternoon, at The Garden Opera House, as the bell rang for the curtain to rise, Mary Carew, in best attire of worn black dress and cheap straw hat, was putting the Angel into the absent fairy"s cast-off sh.e.l.l, which consisted of much white tarlatan as to skirts and much silver tinsel as to waist, with a pair of wonderful gauzy wings at sight of which the Angel was enraptured.
Miss Bonkowski being, as she expressed it, "on in the first scene," Mary Carew had been obliged to forsake jean pantaloons for the time being and come to take charge of the child, who in her earnest, quick, enthusiastic little fashion had done her part and gone through the rehearsal better even than the sanguine Norma had hoped, and after considerable drilling had satisfied the authorities that she could fill the vacancy.
As for the Angel, in her friendly fashion she had enjoyed herself hugely, accepting the homage of the other children like a small queen, graciously permitting herself to be enthused over by the various ladies who, like Norma, const.i.tuted "the chorus," and carrying home numerous offerings, from an indigestible wad of candy known as "an all-day-sucker," given her by her fairy-partner, to a silver quarter given her by the blonde and handsome tenor.
"She is the most fascinating little creature I ever met in my life,"
the prima donna had cried to the excited Miss Bonkowski, who had never been addressed by that great personage before,--"did you ever see such heavenly eyes,--not blue--violet--and such a smile--like the sun through tears! Who is she,--where did she come from? Such grace,--such poise!"
The Angel"s story was recited to quite an audience, in Miss Bonkowski"s most dramatic manner. But long before the chorus lady had finished, the great singer, lending but a wandering attention after the few facts were gathered, had coaxed the child into her silken lap, and with the mother touch which lies in every real woman"s fingers from doll-baby days upward, was fondling and re-touching the rings of shining hair, and, with the mother-notes which a child within one"s arms brings into every womanly woman"s voice, was cooing broken endearments into the little ear.
Meanwhile the Angel gazed into the beautiful face with the calm and critical eyes of childhood. But what she saw there must have satisfied, for, with a sigh of content, she finally settled back against the encircling arm. "Pretty lady," was her candid comment. "Angel loves her."
Flattered and praised as she had been, it is doubtful if the great singer had ever received a tribute to her charms that pleased her more.
"Bring her to my room to-morrow to dress her," she said to Miss Bonkowski in soft, winning tones that were nevertheless a command, unpinning the two long-stemmed roses she wore and putting them in the baby fingers, "and bring her early, mind!" And so it was that Mary Carew, nervous and awkward, was there now, doing her best to dress the excited little creature, whom nothing could keep still a second at a time.
"Thank you, ma"am," Mary managed to breathe as the great personage, turning the full radiance of her beauty upon the bewildered seamstress, took the necklace of flashing jewels from her maid"s fingers and bade her help Mary.
The great lady laughed. "You"re nervous, aren"t you?" she said good-humoredly, too human not to be pleased at this unconscious tribute on Mary"s part.
"If the child can only do it right, ma"am," said Mary, in a voice she hardly knew for her own, overcome this by graciousness no less than by the splendor.
"Right," said the lady, clasping a bracelet upon her round, white arm, and settling her trailing draperies preparatory to going on, "right! Of course she will, who ever heard of an Angel going wrong!" and laughing she sailed away.
"Now," cried Miss Bonkowski, rushing in a little later, "give her to me, quick, Mary! If you stand right here in the wings you can see nicely,"
and the excited lady, wonderful as to her blonde befrizzlement, gorgeous as to pink skirt, blue bodice and not the most cleanly of white waists, bore the Angel, like a rosebud in a mist of gauze, away.
Left alone amid the bustle and confusion Mary stood where Norma had directed, gazing out upon the stage like one in a dream. Never in all her colorless life had she been in the midst of such bewildering splendors before. Was it any wonder that Norma Bonkowski was different from the rest of the Tenement when she shared such scenes daily?
Still further dazed by the music and the glimpses she could catch of the brilliantly lighted house, Mary held her breath and clasped her hands as she gazed out on the stage where, across the soft green, from among the forest trees, into the twilighted opening, glided the fairies; waving their little arms, tripping slowly as if half-poised for flight, listening, bending, swaying, whirling, faster, swifter, they broke into "The Grand Spectacular Ballet of the Fairies," as the advertis.e.m.e.nts of the opera phrased it. Faster, swifter still, noiselessly they spun, here, there, in, out, in bewildering maze until, as the red and yellow lights cast upon the stage changed into green, their footsteps slackened, faltered, their heads, like tired flowers, drooped, and each on its mossy bank of green,--the fairies sank to sleep.
All? All but one; one was left, in whose baby mind was fixed an unfaltering supposition that she must dance, as she had done alone, over and over again at the rehearsals for her tiny benefit, until the music stopped. So, while Norma Bonkowski wrung her hands and the stage manager swore, and all behind the scenes was confusion and dismay, the Angel danced on.
The prima donna whose place it now was, as the forsaken princess, lost in the forest, to happen upon the band of sleeping fairies, waited at her entrance, watching the child as, catching and spreading her fan-like skirts of gauze, she bent, swayed, flitted to and fro, her eyes big and earnest with intentness to duty, her yellow hair flying, all unconscious, in the fierce glare of the colored lights, of the sea of faces in the house before her.
With a sudden flash of intuition Norma Bonkowski flew to the manager.
"Stop the music, make them stop," she begged.
He glared at her savagely, but nevertheless communicated the order to the orchestra, and as the music waned to a mere wailing of the violin, the little dancer, rosy, hot, tired, whirled slower, slower,--then sank on her bed of green, and like her companions feigned sleep with the cunning pretence of childhood.
But not even then could the prima donna make her appearance, for, in the storm of applause which followed, the revived efforts of the orchestra were drowned.
The face of the manager broadened into smiles, Norma Bonkowski fell against Mary Carew with tears of relief, and the prima donna with good-natured readiness stepped upon the stage, lifted the now frightened child who, at the noise, had sprung up in alarm, and carried her out to the footlights, the other children peeping, but too well drilled, poor dears, to otherwise stir. The audience paused.
"Wave bye-bye to the little girl over there," whispered the prima donna with womanly readiness, nodding toward the nearest box, filled with children eagerly enjoying "The Children"s Opera of the Princess Blondina and the Fairies."
Though frightened and ready to cry, the Angel waved her hand obediently, and the prima donna, nodding and smiling in the unaffected fashion which was half her own charm, carried the child off the stage amid applause as enthusiastic as she herself was used to receiving.
It had all taken place in a very few minutes, but as the smiling singer said, handing the Angel over to the manager, even in those few moments, "She has made the hit of the season," then, turning, re-entered the stage, her voice, with its clear bell-like tones, filling the house with the song, "Blondina Awakening The Fairies."
Nor did it end with this, for the Angel was forthwith engaged, at what seemed to Norma and Mary a fabulous price, to repeat her solo dance at every Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day matinee during the further run of the opera.
CHAPTER V.
THE ANGEL RESCUES MR. TOMLIN.
It was on the afternoon that Mary carried back her week"s completed work that Norma, receiving an unexpected summons to the Opera House, was obliged, though with many misgivings, to leave the Angel in the charge of Joey. "But what else could I do," she reasoned afterward, "with Mrs.
O"Malligan out and Mrs. Tomlin sick, and n.o.body else willing, it appeared, to see to her?"
True, she had cautioned Joey, over and over again about keeping the child away from the window, and about staying right in the room until her return; but, notwithstanding, Norma could hardly have gotten to the corner before Joey, promptly forgetting his promise, and finding the room a dull playground, was enticing his charge into the hall and straightway down the stairs.
At the bottom of the second flight, the two children came upon Mr.
Tomlin entertaining two gentlemen callers. Only the week before, the Tenement had been called upon to mourn with the Tomlins, whose baby had been carried away in a little coffin after the fashion of tenement babies when the thermometer climbs up the scale near to one hundred. And since then, Mrs. Tomlin, refusing to be comforted, had taken to her bed, thus making it necessary for her husband to receive his company in the hall.
The callers, who, together with their host, were sitting on the steps, moved aside to allow the children to pa.s.s. The larger of the gentlemen was unpleasantly dirty, with a ragged beard and a shock of red hair. The other was a little man with quick black eyes and a pleasant smile.
Pa.s.sing these by, the Angel paused on the step above Mr. Tomlin and slipped her arms around his neck.
"Pick a back, my Tomlin," she sweetly commanded in the especially imperious tones she reserved for Mr. Tomlin"s s.e.x, "get up, horsey."
The good-natured giant, for such her Tomlin was, shouldered her as one would some precious burden liable to break, grinned, stood up and obediently trotted the length of the hall and back.
Joey, meanwhile, legs apart, stood eyeing the visitors attentively.
"Keep up that kind of talk," the dirty gentleman was urging, "and we"ve got him. He"s worth any three of ordinary strength, and he"s a favorite with the men, too."
Here the horse and his rider returned. "What a got in a pocket for Angel?" the young autocrat proceeded to demand when lifted down. Of all her masculine subjects in the Tenement, Mr. Tomlin was her veriest slave.
He produced a soiled but gay advertising picture. Her ladyship put out her hand. "But you must give us a dance fer it," coaxed Mr. Tomlin, anxious to display the talent of the Tenement. "She"s the young "un as dances at the Op"ry House, the kid is," he explained to his visitors, "they"ve had her pictoor in the papers, too. Miss Bonkowski, the chorus-lady upstairs, she"s got one of them, came out in a Sunday supplement, though I can"t say I see the likeness myself."
At this, the two gentlemen, who had seemed decidedly bored than otherwise at the interruption, deigned to bestow a moment of their attention upon the beautiful child in the faded gingham dress.
"She got skeered to the theyater the other day," put in Joey, "an" most cried when they clapped so, an" they promised her anything she wanted if she wouldn"t next time----"
"And her didn"t cwy," declared the baby, turning a pair of indignantly reproachful eyes upon Joey, "her danced, her didn"t cwy."
"Ain"t yer goin" to dance fer us now?" coaxed Mr. Tomlin.