In Wild Rose Time

She lay a long while, piecing out the story, remembering what was back of it.

“As you did not die, your mother will come out of the Island early in June. I suppose it was a sort of accident. Was she used to beating you?”

A flush went over the pallid face.

“No,” she replied quietly.

“Do you want to go back to her?”

“O, no, no!” with a note of terror in the voice. “I couldn’t live with her no more.”

“Have you any friends?”

There was a hesitating look, but the child did not answer. Had she any friend? Yes, Patsey.

“How would you like to go to some of the Homes? You would be well treated and taught some trade,” the nurse ventured kindly.

“I can work for myself,” returned Dil, with quiet decision. “I can keep house, an’ tend babies, an’ wash an’ iron.”

“Would you like a nice place in the country?”

“I want to stay in the city,” she said slowly. “There’s some one I want to see. It’s ’bout my little sister that’s dead. I can soon get some work.”

“How old are you?”

“I shall be fifteen long in the summer, a spell after Fourth of July.”

“You are very small. Are you quite sure?”

“Oh, yes. Why, you see, I was fourteen last summer. Jack was next to me. Then Bess. She was ’leven, but she hadn’t grown any ’cause she was hurted.”

“Hurt? How?” the nurse asked with interest. The children told their stories so simply.

“Along o’ father’s bein’ nawful drunk an’ slammin’ her agin the wall. He went to prison ’cause he most killed a man. Bess died just before Christmas. We was goin’ – ”

Dil paused. Would nurse know anything about a journey to heaven?

“Were you going to run away? But if the poor little girl was hurt, she is better off. God is taking care of her in heaven.”

“Oh, no. She isn’t there. She’s just dead. We was goin’ together in the spring, and – and some one was going with us who knew all ’bout the way.”

“My child, what do you know about heaven?” asked the nurse, struck by the confident tone.

“I didn’t know – much. I heard ’bout it at the Mission School, and told Bess. We wanted to go like Christiana. We met a man in the square last summer, an’ he told us ’bout his Lord Jesus, that he could cure little hurted legs that hadn’t ever grown any and couldn’t walk. An’ he promised to go to heaven with us. We was goin’ to start then, but we didn’t just know the way. I’d learned ’bout the river in the Mission School. An’ he said he’d bring us the book ’bout Christiana, an’ then we’d know; but we better wait, for it would be so cold before we got there, an’ the cold shrivelled up poor little Bess so. Well, we waited an’ waited, but he did come, an’ he brought the book. It was so lovely.” Dil gave a long, rapturous sigh, and a glory shone in her eyes. “An’ we found out ’bout crossin’ the river an’ the pallis. We see her goin’ up the steps. An’ then mammy took the book an’ burnt it up in a tantrum, an’ we couldn’t read it any more, but we’d got the pictures all fixed in our minds. Curis, isn’t it, how you can see things that ain’t there, when you’ve got thim all fixed in your mind?”

“And you were going to heaven?” Nurse was amazed at the great, if misplaced, faith. “And your friend – ”

The soft, suggestive voice won Dil to further confidence.

“He had to go ’way crost the ’Lantic Oshin. But he would have come back. He did just what he told you, always. An’ that’s why I must get well an’ go back an’ see him an’ tell him – ”

The voice faltered, and the eyes overflowed with tears. Dil’s hearer was greatly moved.

“Bess has gone to heaven first, my poor dear,” but her own voice was tremulous with emotion.

“Oh, she couldn’t. Why, she couldn’t walk, with her poor hurted legs, ’n’ ’twas so cold ’n’ all. An’ she wouldn’t ’a’ gone to the very best heaven, not even the pallis shinin’ with angels, athout me.”

“But you don’t understand” – how should she explain to the literal understanding. “The Lord came for her, took her in his arms, and carried her to heaven.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t ’a’ taken her athout sayin’ a word, and leaved me behind, ’cause he must ’a’ knowed we was plannin’ to go together. No; she’s just dead like other folks. An’ he can’t see her when he comes.”

There was a long, dreary, tearless sob.

“Oh, my poor child, she is safe with the Lord. Do you really know who God is?”

“Mr. Travis’s Lord Jesus lives in heaven,” said Dil, in a kind of weary, half-puzzled tone. “He told us how he come down to some place, I disremember now, an’ cured hurted people, an’ made blind folks see, an’ fed the hungry, an’ went back an’ fixed a beautiful pallis for them. There’s lots more in Barker’s Court that they swear by, but them ain’t the ones Mr. Travis meant.”

The nurse was as much astonished by the confident ignorance as Mr. Travis had been, and felt quite as helpless.

“I wish you could believe that little Bess is in heaven,” she said gently.

“She couldn’t be happy athout me,” the poor child replied confidently, with tears in her faltering voice. “I always tended her, an’ curled her hair, an’ wheeled her about, an’ – an’ loved her so.” The tone sank to a touching pathos. “An’ she didn’t go crost no river – she couldn’t stand up ’thout bein’ held. An’ oh, do you s’pose I’d gone an’ left Bess for anything? No more would she gone an’ left me.”

The brown eyes were heart-breaking in their trustful simplicity. The child’s confidence was beyond any stage of persuasion. With time one might unravel the tangle in her untutored brain, but she could not in the brief while the child would remain in the hospital.

“Tell me about your friend, Mr. Travis,” the nurse said, after a silence of some moments.

“He painted pictures, an’ he made a beautiful one of Bess. But mammy burned it with the book. She said there wasn’t any heaven anyway. An’ Mrs. Murphy said it was purgatory, ’n’ if you paid money, you’d get out. But Bess would go there. An’ he didn’t say nothin’ ’bout purgatory. He come one day an’ sang the beautifullest hymn ’bout ’everlastin’ spring,’ an’ everybody cried. Poor old Mrs. Bolan was there. But when he comes back he’ll tell me just how it is.”

Perhaps that was best. Nurse went about her duties, the strange, sweet, entire faith haunting her. And the pathos of the two setting out for a literal heaven!

There were days when Dil sat in a vague, absent mood, her eyes staring into vacancy, seeming to hear nothing that went on about her. But she improved slowly; and though the nurse tried to persuade her to go to some friends of hers, she found the child wonderfully resolute.

And yet, when she was discharged, an awful sense of loneliness came over Dilsey Quinn. The nurse gave her a dollar, and an address to which she was to apply in case of any misfortune.

“You’ve been so good,” Dil said, with swimming eyes. “An’ I’ll promise if I don’t get no place.”

And now she must find John Travis. He would surely know if Bess could get to heaven in any strange way, alone in the night. And if she was there, then Dil must go straightway. She could not even lose a day.

The world looked curious to her this April day. There were golden quivers in the sunshine, and a laughing blueness in the sky. And oh, such a lovely, fragrant air! Dil felt as if she could skip for very joy.

She found her way to the square, and sat down on the olden seat. Already some flowers were out, and the grass was green. The “cop” came around presently, but she was not afraid of him now. She rose and spoke to him, recalling the summer afternoon and the man who had made pictures of herself and Bess.

“I don’t know who he was. No, he hasn’t been back to inquire.” The policeman would not have known Dil.

“His name was Mr. John Travis. He writ it on Bess’s picture. I was so ’fraid I’d miss him. But he will come, ’cause he can’t find no one in Barker’s Court. An’ when I get a place, I’ll come an’ bring the number, so’s you can tell him.”

“Yes, I’ll be on the lookout for him.” The child’s grave, innocent faith touched him. How pale and thin she was!

Then she considered. Mrs. Minch would be in the court, she thought. Perhaps she might steal in without any one seeing her who would tell her mother afterward. And she could hear about Dan.

She stopped at a baker’s, and bought some lunch. But by and by she began to grow very tired, and walked slowly, looking furtively about. She was almost at Barker’s Court when a familiar whistle startled her.

“O Dil Quinn, Dil!” cried a dear, well remembered voice.

Patsey Muldoon caught her hand as if he would never let it go. He had half a mind to kiss her in the street, he was that glad. His eyes danced with joy.

“I’ve been layin’ out fer ye, Dil, hangin’ round an’ waitin’. I was dead sure yous’d come back here. An’ I’ve slipped in Misses Minch’s, an’ jes’ asked ’bout the old gal, an’ I told her ’f you come, jes’ to hold on t’ye.”

“O Patsey!”

“How nawful thin ye air, Dil. Have ye got railly well?”

Dil swallowed over a great lump in her throat, and had much ado not to cry, as she said, “I’m not so strong.”

“Well, we want ye, we jes’ do,” and he laughed.

“What for?” It was so good to have any one want her in this desolation, that she drew nearer, and he put her hand in his arm in a very protecting fashion.

“Well, I’ll tell ye. See, now, we was boardin’ with an old woman. There was five of us, but Fin, he waltzed off. The old woman died suddint like three weeks ago, an’ we’ve bin keepin’ house sence. The lan’lord he come round, ’n’ we promised the rent every Monday, sure pop; an’ we paid it too,” proudly. “We’ve got Owny. I’ve had to thrash him twict, but he’s doin’ fus’ rate now. An’ he sed, if we could git a holt o’ yous! He said ye made sech lickin’ good stews ’n’ coffee ’twould make a feller sing in his sleep.”

“O Patsey, you alwers was so good!” Dil wiped her eyes. This unlooked-for haven was delightful beyond any words.

“’Twas norful quair I sh’d meet you, wasn’t it? An’ we jes’ won’t let any one in de court know it, ’n’ they can’t blow on us. The ould woman’s up on de Island, but her time’ll soon be out. Dan, he’s gone to some ’stution. We’ll keep shet o’ her. She’s a peeler, she is! Most up to the boss in a shindy, now, wasn’t she? But when dey begins to go to de Island, de way gits aisy fer ’em, an’ dey keep de road hot trottin’ over it.”

Dil sighed, and shuddered too. We suppose the conscious tie of nature begets love, but it had not in Dil’s case. And she had a curious feeling that she should drop dead if her mother should clutch her.

“I don’t want to see her, Patsey, never agen. Poor Bess is gone – ”

“Jes’ don’t you mind. My eyes is peeled fer de old woman! An’ where I’m goin’ to take you’s so far off. But we’ll jes’ go an’ hev some grub. We’ll take de car. I’m out ’n a lark, I am!”

Patsey laughed, a wholesome, inspiriting sound. Dil was very, very tired, and it was so good to sit down. She felt so grateful, so befriended, so at rest, as if her anxieties had suddenly ended.

It was indeed a long distance, – a part of the city Dil knew nothing about, – across town and down town, in the old part, given over to business and the commonest of living. A few blocks after they left the car they came to a restaurant, and Patsey ordered some clam-chowder. It tasted so good to the poor little girl, and was so warming, that her cheeks flushed a trifle.

Patsey amused her with their ups and downs, the scrapes Owny had been in, and some of his virtues as well. Patsey might have adorned some other walk in life, from the possibilities of fairness and justice in his character.

Dil began to feel as if she belonged to the old life again. Her hospital experience, with the large, clean rooms, the neatness, the flowers, the visitors, and her kindly nurse, seemed something altogether outside of her own life.

They trudged along, and stopped at the end of a row of old-fashioned brick houses, two stories, with dormer windows. A wide alley-way went up by the last one. There was a building in the rear that had once been a shop, but now housed four families. Up-stairs lived some Polish tailors; at the lower end, a youngish married couple.

It was quite dusk now, but a lamp was lighted in the room. Two fellows were skylarking, but they stopped suddenly at the unusual sight of a “gal.”

“Why it ain’t never Dil!”

Owny was an immense exclamation point in supreme amazement.

“Didn’t I tell yous! I was a-layin’ fer her. An’ she’s jes’ come out o’ the ’ospital.”

“Dil, you look nawful white.”

“We’ll make her hev red cheeks in a little, jes’ you wait. This feller’s Tom Dillon.”

Dilsey took a survey of her new home, and for the first moment her heart failed her. It looked so dreadfully dirty and untidy. The room was quite large, with an old lounge, a kitchen table, a trunk, and some chairs; a stove in the fireplace, and a cupboard with the door swinging open, but the dishes seemed to be mostly on the table.

“We sleep here,” explained Patsey, ushering her into the adjoining apartment. There was an iron bedstead in the centre of the room, and four bunks in two stories ranged against the side. “Ye see, we ain’t much at housekeepin’, but youse c’n soon git things straight,” and Patsey laughed to hide a certain shame and embarrassment. “We’ll clean house to-morrer, an’ hev things shinin’. An’ here’s a place – ”

It was a little corner taken off the other room, and partly shut in by the closet. “Th’ ould woman used to sleep here – say, Dil, yous wouldn’t be afraid – tell ye, a feller offered me a lot o’ paper – wall paper, an’ we’ll make it purty as a pink.”

Dil had never seen “th’ ould woman,” and had no fear of her.

“It’ll be nice when we get it fixed,” she said cheerily.

Then Sandy Fossett came in, and was “introjuced.” He, too, had heard the fame of the ’lickin’ good stews,’ but he was surprised to find such a very little body.

Dil lay on the lounge that night, but did not sleep much, it was all so strange. Any other body would have felt disheartened in the morning, but Patsey was “so good.” He “hustled” the few things out of the little room, asked the woman in the other part about making paste, and ran off for his paper. Dil found a scrubbing-brush, and had the closet partly cleaned when he returned. Mrs. Brian came in and “gave them a hand.” She was a short, stout, cheery body, with just enough Irish to take warmly to Dil.

If the poor child had small aptitude for book-learning, she had the wonderful art of housekeeping at her very finger ends. In a week the boys hardly knew the place. Dil’s little room was really pretty, with its paper of grasses and field flowers on the lightest gray ground. She scalded and scrubbed her cot, and drove out any ghost that might have lingered about; she made a new “bureau” out of grocery boxes, not that she had any clothes at present, but she might have. She was so thankful for a home that work was a pleasure to her, though she did get very, very tired, and a pain would settle in the place where the ribs were broken.

The living room took on a delightful aspect. The chairs were scrubbed and painted, the table was cleaned up and covered with enamelled cloth. And such coffee as Dil made; such stews of meat and potatoes and onions, and a carrot or a bit of parsley; and oh, such soups and chowders! When she made griddlecakes the boys went out and stood on their heads – there was no other way to express their delight. Fin came back in a jiffy, and another lad, named Shorty by his peers. Indeed, there could have been ten if there had been room.

Owen was very much improved. He was shooting up into a tall boy, and had his mother’s black eyes and fresh complexion. When the two boys talked about Bess, Dil could almost imagine her coming back. She sometimes tried to make believe that little Bess had gone to the hospital to get her poor hurted legs mended, and would surely return to them.

There was quite a pretty yard between the two houses. It really belonged to the “front” people. There was a grass-plot and some flowers, and an old honeysuckle climbing the porch. The air was much better than in Barker’s Court, and altogether it was a more humanizing kind of living. And though the people up-stairs ran a sewing-machine in the evening, there were no rows. Mr. Brian did some kind of work on the docks, and went away early, coming back at half-past six or so. He was a nice, steady sort of fellow; and though he had protested vigorously against a “raft of boys” keeping house, after Dil came he was very friendly.

Patsey also “laid out” for Mrs. Quinn. When she came down from the “Island,” she heard that her furniture had been set in the street, and then taken in by some of the neighbors. Dan was in a Home, Owen had not been seen, neither had Dilsey. Then the woman drank again and raged round like a tiger, was arrested, but pleaded so hard, and promised amendment so earnestly, that sentence was suspended.

It was well that Owen and Dilsey kept out of her way, for if she had found either of them she would have wreaked a full measure of vengeance upon them. There had never been a great deal of tenderness in her nature, and her experiences of the last ten years had not only hardened but brutalized her. The habit of steady drinking had blunted her natural feelings more than occasional outbreaks with weeks of soberness. She had no belief in a future state and no regard for it. Still, she had not reached that last stage of demoralization – she was willing to work; and when she had money to spend, Mrs. MacBride made her welcome again.

After Dil had her house a little in order, and had made herself a new gingham gown, she took her way one lovely afternoon over to Madison Square. She had meant to tell Patsey about John Travis, but an inexplicable feeling held her back. How she was coming to reach after higher things, or that they were really higher, she did not understand. Heaven was still a great mystery to her. With the boys Bess was simply dead, gone out of life, and sometime everybody seemed to go out of life. Why they did was the inscrutable mystery?

It was curious, but now she had no desire to finish Christiana, although she devoted some time every day to reading. The old things that had been such a pleasure seemed sacred to Bess, laid away, awaiting a mysterious solution. For she knew John Travis could tell her all about it.

Patsey had written her name and address on a slip of paper, several of them indeed, so as not to raise any suspicion. He laughed, and said she “was very toney, wantin’ kerds.” She saw the policeman, and was relieved that she had not missed Travis, yet strangely disappointed that he had not come.

The boys just adored her, and certainly they were a jolly lot. Sometimes they had streaks of luck, at others they were hard up. But every Saturday night the rent money was counted out to make sure, and the agent was soon greatly interested in her. She was a wonderful little market woman, and she found so much entertainment going out to do errands. She used to linger about the flower stands, and thrill with emotions that seemed strange indeed to her. She took great pleasure in watching the little flower bed a thin, delicate looking woman used to tend, that belonged to the front house.

One day Patsey brought her home a rose.

“Oh,” she cried, “if Bess was only here to see!” and tears overflowed her eyes. “O Patsey, do you mind them wild roses the lady gev you an’ you brought to us? They’re always keepin’ in my mind with Bess.”

“I wisht I knew where they growed, I’d go fer some. But ain’t this a stunner?”

“It’s jes’ splendid, an’ you’re so good, Patsey.”

“I wisht yer cheeks cud be red as that,” the boy said earnestly.

Mrs. Brian went out now and then to do a bit of washing, “unbeknownst to her man,” who thought he earned enough for both of them. She came and sat on the little stoop with Dil occasionally, and had a “bit of a talk.” Patsey had advised that she should let folks think both her parents were dead – he had said so in the first instance to make her coming with them seem reasonable.

But one day she told Mrs. Brian about little Bess, “who was hurted by a bad fall, and died last winter.” Then she ventured on a wonder about heaven, hoping for some tangible explanation.

“I s’pose it’s a good thing to go to heaven when you’re sick, or old an’ all tired out, but I ain’t in any hurry. I want a good bit o’ fun an’ pleasure first. My man sez if you’re honest an’ do the fair thing, it’s as good a religion as he wants, an’ he’ll trust it to take any one there. My ’pinion is that some of them that talks about it don’t appear to know, when you pin ’em down to the pint. My man thinks most everybody who ain’t awful bad’ll go. There’s some folks so dreadful you know, that the devil really ought to have ’em for firewood.”

No one seemed in any hurry to go. It was a great mystery to Dil. And now Barker’s Court seemed as if it must have been the City of Destruction. If only her mother had been like Christiana! It was all such a puzzle. She was so lonely, and longed for some satisfying comfort.

The weather was so lovely again. Ah! if Bess had not died, they would have started by themselves, she felt quite sure. And as the days passed with no John Travis, Dil sometimes grew cold and sick at heart. In spite of the boys’ merriment and kindliness, she could not get down to the real hold on life. It seemed to her as if she was wandering off in some strange land, when she used to sit alone and wonder; it could hardly be called thinking, it was so intangible.

XII – THE RESPONSE OF PINING EYES

The boys chipped in one evening and took Dil to the theatre. They were fond of the rather coarse fun and stage heroics. Dil was simply bewildered with the lights, the blare of the second-rate orchestra, and the crowds of people. She was a little afraid too. What if they should meet some one who knew her mother?

A curious thought came to her unappeased soul. Some one was singing a song, one of the rather pathetic ballads just then a favorite. She did not see the stage nor the young man, but like a distinct vision the little room in Barker’s Court was before her eyes. Bess in her old wagon, Mrs. Murphy with her baby in her arms, old Mrs. Bolan, and the group of listening women. The wonderful rapture in Bess’s face was distinct. It was the sweet old hymn that she was listening to, the voice that stilled her longing soul, that filled her with content unutterable.

There was a round of applause that brought her back to the present life. They were rather noisy here. She liked the dreamland best.

“That takes the cake jist!” declared Patsey, looking down in the bewildered face. “What’s the matter? Youse look nawful pale!”

“My head aches,” she said. “It’s so warm here. And it’s all very nice, but will it be over soon, Patsey?”

The boy was disappointed; but the next morning Dil evinced such a cordial interest in all the points that had amused them, that Patsey decided that it must have been the headache, and not lack of appreciation.

But he hung around after the others were gone, with a curious sense of responsibility.

“Youse don’t git reel well any more, Dil,” he said, his voice full of solicitude. “Kin I do anythin’ – ”

“O Patsey!” The quick tears came to her eyes. “Why, I am well, an’ everything’s so nice now, an’ Mrs. Brian jes’ lovely. Mebbe I ain’t quite so strong sence I was sick. An’ sometimes I get lonesome with you away all day.”

“I wish youse knowed some gals – ”

“Patsey,” a soft, tender light came to her brown eyes, “I think I miss the babies. They’re so cunnin’ an’ sweet, an’ put their arms round your neck an’ say such pritty little words. An’ if I could have some babies I wouldn’t wash any more. That puts me out o’ breath like, an’ hurts my side. ’Twas that tired me for last night.”

“Youse jist sha’n’t wash no more, then. But babies is such a bother!”

“I love thim so. An’ only two, maybe. Curis there ain’t a baby in this house, nor in the front, neither. Babies would seem like old times, when I had Bess.”

There was such a wistful look in her pale, tender face. Patsey thought she had grown a great deal prettier, but he wished she had red cheeks. And he was moved to go out at once and hunt up the babies.

Other girls might have made friends in the neighborhood; but Dil had never acquired friendly arts, and now she shrank from companionship. But she liked Mrs. Brian; and that very afternoon as they sat together Dil ventured to state her desires.