"There!" triumphantly, "I might "a knowed that woman "d play some common trick like that! Now do you want ter know where Mis" Kennett re"ly doos live? Wall, _she lives in the rear_! Her number"s 32-1/2, "n I vow she gits more credit o" livin" in the front house "n I do, "n I pay four dollars more rent! Ever see her? I thought not! I guess "f you hed you wouldn"t think of her livin" in a house like this!"
"Excuse me. I didn"t expect to make any trouble"--
"Oh, I"ve nothin" agin _you_, but just let me ketch her puttin" on airs "n pertendin" to live like her betters, that"s all! She"s done it before, but I couldn"t never ketch her at it. The idee of her keepin" up a house like this!" and with a superb sniff like that of a battle-horse, she disappeared from the front window of her ancestral mansion and sought one at the back which might command a view of my meeting with her rival.
I slid meekly through a side gate, every picket of which was decorated with a small child, stumbled up a dark narrow pa.s.sage, and found myself in a square sort of court out of which rose the rear houses so objectionable to my d.u.c.h.ess in the front row.
It was not plain sailing, by any means, owing to the collection of tin cans and bottles through which I had to pick my way, but I climbed some frail wooden steps, and stood at length on the landing of Number 32-1/2.
The door was open, and there sat Patsy, "minding" the Kennett baby, a dull little lump of humanity, whose brain registered impressions so slowly that it would play all day long with an old shoe without exhausting its possibilities.
Patsy himself was dirtier than ever, and much more sullen and gloomy.
The traces of tears on his cheeks made my heart leap into my throat.
"Oh, Patsy," I exclaimed, "I am so glad to find you! We expected you all day, and were afraid you weren"t well."
Not a word of response.
"We have a chair all ready for you; it is standing right under one of the plant-shelves, and there are three roses in bloom to-day!"
Still not a word.
"And I had to tell the dog story without you!"
The effect of this simple statement was very different from what I had antic.i.p.ated. I thought I knew what a child was likely to do under every conceivable set of circ.u.mstances, but Patsy was destined to be more than once a revelation to me.
He dashed a book of colored advertis.e.m.e.nts that he held into the farthest corner of the room, threw himself on the floor at full length and beat it with his hands, while he burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.
"There! there!" he cried between his sobs, "I told "em you"d tell it! I told "em you"d tell it! I told "em you"d--but oh, I thought maybe you wouldn"t!" His wails brought Mrs. Kennett from a back piazza where she was washing.
"Are you the teacher o" the _Kids Guards_, "m?"
"Yes." It did not strike me at the time, in my anxiety, what a sympathetic rendering of the German word this was; but we afterwards found that "Kindergarten" was thus translated in Anna Street.
"Patsy couldn"t go to-day, "m, on account of him hevin" no good boots, "m, Jim not bein" paid off till Wednesday, "n me hevin" no notice he hed no clean shirt, "m, this not bein" his clean-shirt week, "m. He takes it awful hard about that there story, "m. I told him as how you"d be after tellin" another one next week, but it seems nothin" will comfort him."
"Ev"rybuddy"s allers lyin" to me," he moaned; "there warn"t another dog picture like that in the hull room!"
"Don"t take no notice of him, "m, an" he"ll git over it; he"s subjick to these spells of takin" on like. Set up, Pat, an" act decent! Tell the lady you"ll come when you git your boots."
"Patsy, boy, stop crying a minute and listen to me," I said. "If Mrs.
Kennett is willing, I have some things that will fit you; you shall come right back with me now,--all the children have gone,--and you and I will be alone with the sunshine and the birds and the fishes, as we were the other day, and I will tell you the dog story just as I told it to the other children this morning."
He got up slowly, rubbed his tattered sleeve across his wet cheek, and looked at me searchingly to see if I might be trusted; then he limped to the sink, treated his face and hands to a hasty but energetic scrub, seized his fragment of a hat, gave his brief trousers a hitch which had the air of being the last exquisite touch to a faultless toilet, and sat down on the landing to mend his twine shoe-lace.
"Who is your neighbor in Number 32, Mrs. Kennett?" I asked as I rose to go. "I went there to find you."
"Did you indeed, "m? Well, I hope she treated you civil, "m, though it don"t be much in her line. She"s a Mis" Mooney, "m. I know _her_, but she don"t know _me_ anny more sence she"s riz in the wurrld. She moved out of this house whin I moved into it, but none of us ladies here is good enough for her to "sociate with _now_, "m! You see her husband was in the rag, sack, and bottle business, "m, "n a wealthy gintleman friend set him up in a fish-cart, an" it"s kind of onsettled her, "m! Some folks can"t stan" prosperity. If "t bed bin grad_joo_al like, she might have took it more natcheral; but it come all of a suddent, an" she"s that purse-proud now, "m, that she"ll be movin" up on n.o.b Hill ef she don"t hev no stroke o" bad luck to show "er her place! Good day, "m!"
I carved my way through the tin cans and bottles again under the haughty eye of my d.u.c.h.ess of the fish-cart, and in a few minutes Patsy and I were again in Silver Street.
When we entered the room he looked about with an expression of entire content. "It"s all here!" he said with a sigh, as if he had feared to find it a dream.
The chair with its red cushion pleased him greatly; then, after a few moments" talk to make him feel a little at home, we drew up to the picture, and I took his cleanest hand in mine, and told him the story of Victor, the brave St. Bernard dog.
It was an experience never to be repeated and never to be forgotten!
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE STORY OF VICTOR."]
As you sit at twilight in the "sweet safe corner of the household fire,"
the sound of the raindrops on the window-pane mingling with the laughing treble of childish voices in some distant room, you see certain pictures in the dying flame,--pictures unspeakably precious to every one who has lived, or loved, or suffered.
I have my memory-pictures, too; and from the fairest frame of all shines Patsy"s radiant face as it looked into mine long ago when I told him the story of Victor.
CHAPTER VI.
A LITTLE "HOODLUM"S" VIRTUE KINDLES AT THE TOUCH OF JOY.
"If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it."
The next morning when I reached the little tin shop on the corner,--a blessed trysting-place, forever sacred, where the children waited for me in sunshine, rain, wind, and storm, unless forbidden,--there on the step sat faithful Patsy, with a clean and shining morning face, all glowing with antic.i.p.ation. How well I remember my poor lad"s first day! Where should I seat him? There was an empty s.p.a.ce beside little Mike Higgins, but Mike"s character, obtained from a fond and candid parent, had been to the effect "that he was in heaven any time if he could jest lay a boy out flat"! And there was a place by Moses, but he was very much of a fop just then, owing to a new "second-hand" coat, and might make scathing allusions to Patsy"s abbreviated swallow-tail.
But a pull at my skirt and a whisper from the boy decided me.
"Please can"t I set aside o" you, Miss Kate?"
"But, Patsy, the fun of it is I never do sit."
"Why, I thought teachers never done nothin" but set!"
"You don"t know much about little boys and girls, that"s sure! Well, suppose you put your chair in front and close to me. Here is Maggie Bruce on one side. She is a real little Kindergarten mother, and will show you just how to do everything. Won"t you, Maggie?"
We had our morning hymn and our familiar talk, in which we always "outlined the policy" of the new day; for the children were apt to be angelic and receptive at nine o"clock in the morning, the unwillingness of the spirit and weakness of the flesh seldom overtaking them till an hour or so later. It chanced to be a beautiful day, for Helen and I were both happy and well, our volunteer helpers were daily growing more zealous and efficient, and there was no tragedy in the immediate foreground.
In one of the morning songs, when Paulina went into the circle and threw good-morning kisses to the rest, she wafted a dozen of them to the ceiling, a proceeding I could not understand.
"Why did you throw so many of your kisses up in the air, dear?" I asked, as she ran back to my side.
"Them was good-mornings to Johnny Ca.s.s, so "t he wouldn"t feel lonesome," she explained; and the tender bit of remembrance was followed out by the children for days afterward. Was it not enough to put us in a gentle humor?
Patsy was not equal to the marching when, later on, the Lilliputian army formed itself in line and kept step to the music of a lively tune, and he was far too shy on the first day to join in the play, though he watched the game of the b.u.t.terfly with intense interest from his nook by the piano.
After the tiny worm had wriggled itself realistically into a coc.o.o.n it went to sleep; and after a moment of dramatic silence, the little one chosen for the b.u.t.terfly would separate herself from the still coc.o.o.n and fly about the circle, sipping mimic honey from the child-flowers.