II – SATURDAY AFTERNOON

The boys waited until they were sure their mother was having her evening treat. Mrs. MacBride’s was a very fascinating place, a sort of woman’s club-house, with a sprinkling of men to make things merry. Decent, too, as drinking-places go. No dancing girls, but now and then a rather broad joke, and a song that would not appeal to a highly cultivated taste. There was plenty of gossip, but the hours were not long.

Dil washed up the dishes, dumped the stove-grate, and took the ashes out to the box. Then she swept up the room and set the table, and her day’s work was done.

Patsey Muldoon came in with his heartsome laugh.

“O Patsey, they’re the loveliest things, all coming up so fresh an’ elegant, as if they grew in the water. Bess is wild about thim;” and Dil’s tone was brimful of joy.

They went in and sat on the cot.

“They do seem alive,” declared Bess, with her thin, quivering note of satisfaction. “I do be talkin’ to thim all the time, as if they were folks.”

Patsey laughed down into the large, eager, faded eyes.

“Sure, it’s fine as a queen in her garden ye are! We’ll say thanky to my lady for not kapin’ them herself. An’ I had a streak of luck this avenin’, an’ I bought the weeny thing two of the purtiest apples I could find. I was goin’ to git a norange, but the cheek of ’em, wantin’ five cents for wan!”

“I like the apples best, Patsey,” replied the plaintive little voice. “You’re so good!”

“I had one mesilf, an’ it’s first-rate. Casey’s goin’ ter lick me – don’t yer wish him luck?”

Patsey laughed again. He seemed much amused over the fact.

“No, I don’t,” said Dil stoutly. “Was it ’bout the flowers?” and Dil began to peel the soft harvest apple, looking up with eager interest.

“The cop gev him a clip, an’ he was mad all through.” Patsey nodded humorously.

“What would he have done with the roses?” Dil asked, with pity in her voice.

“Taken ’em to his best gal!” This seemed an immense joke to the boy.

“An’ I’m your best girl, Patsey,” said Bess, laying her little hand on his, so brown.

“That you jest are, an’ don’t yer forgit it,” he replied heartily.

Dil fed her with slices of the apple. It was so refreshing to her parched mouth and throat. Patsey had so many amusing incidents to relate; but he always slipped away early, before the boys came home. He wanted no one telling tales.

Then Dil gave Bess her evening bath, and rubbed the shrunken legs that would never even hold up the wasted body. Ah, how softly Dil took them in her hands, how tender and loving were her ministrations. All her soul went out in this one passionate affection.

“Your poor flannils is all in rags,” she said pityingly. “Whatever we are to do unless some one gives mammy a lot of old stuff. O Bess! And there are such lovely ones in the stores, soft as a pussy cat.”

“Mine are cool for summer.” Bess gave a pitiful little laugh. Buying clothes for her was a sheer waste, in her mother’s estimation.

Then Dil held the thin hands and fanned her while she crooned, in a sort of monotone, bits of beautiful sentences she had gathered in her infrequent inspection of windows where Christmas or Easter cards were displayed. She could not carry the simplest tune, to her passionate regret, but she might have improvised chanting sentences and measures that would have delighted a composer. She had transformed Bess’s pillowed couch into a bed, and these hot nights she fanned her until she drowsed away herself. She used to get so tired, poor hard-worked Dilsey.

But the pathetic minor key of her untrained and as yet unfound voice Bess thought the sweetest music in the world. She was not fond of the gay, blatant street songs; her nerves were too sensitive, her ear too finely attuned to unconscious harmonies.

The tired voice faltered, the weary head drooped, the soft voice ceased.

Bess roused her.

“Dil, dear, you must go to bed. I am all nice and cooled off now, and you are so tired. Kiss me once more.”

Not once but many times. Then she dropped on her own little bed and was asleep in a moment. Did God, with all his millions to care for, care also for these heathens in a great enlightened city?

It was Bess who heard the boys scuffling in and just saving themselves when their mother’s heavy tread sounded in the room. It was the poor child, racked by pain, whose nerves were rasped by the brawls and the crying babies, the oaths and foul language, and sometimes a fight that seemed in her very window.

Yet she lay there with her bowl of roses beside her, now and then touching them caressingly with her slight fingers, and inhaling the delicate fragrance. She was in a little realm of her own, unknowingly the bit of the kingdom of heaven within one.

But Bessy Quinn did not even know that she had a soul. There was a great hungry longing for some clean and quiet comfort, a mother she was not always afraid of, and Dil, who was never to tend babies any more. And if there could be flowers, and the “everlasting spring,” and one could live out in the green fields.

They talked it over sometimes – this wonderful place they would like to find.

Morning always came too soon for Dilsey Quinn. Her mother wanted a cup of coffee, and ordered what Dil was to cook for the boys. It was a relief to see her go; but the babies began to come in at seven, and sometimes they were cross and cried after their mothers.

But on Saturday there was a great change. Mrs. Quinn washed at home; Dilsey scrubbed the floors, ironed, was maid of all work, for there was not often any babies; Mrs. Quinn did not enjoy having them around.

This afternoon she was going to “Cunny Island” with a party of choice spirits. She felt she needed an outing once a week, and five days’ steady washing and ironing was surely enough. Dil helped her mother off with alacrity. This time she was unusually good-natured, and gave the children a penny all round.

Then Dil arrayed herself and Bess in their best. Dil was quite well off this summer; her mother often brought home clothes she could wear. But poor Bess had not been so fortunate. The little white cap was daintily done up, though Dil knew it would never stand another ironing. So with the dress, and the faded blue ribbon tied about her baby waist. They were scrupulously clean; one would have wondered how anything so neat could have come out of Barker’s Court.

It was a feat of ingenuity for Dil’s short arms to get the carriage down the narrow, winding stairs. Sometimes the boys would help, or Patsey would be there. Then she took the pillows and the faded rug, and when they were settled she carried down Bess. That was not a heavy burthen. She arranged her in a wonderful manner, pulling out the soft golden curls that were like spun silk. Bess would have been lovely in health and prosperity. Her blue eyes had black pupils and dark outside rims. Between was a light, translucent blue, changing like a sea wave blown about. The brows and lashes were dark. But the face had a wan, worn look, and the pleading baby mouth had lost its color, the features were sharpened.

One and another gave them good-day with a pleasant smile.

“It would be the Lord’s mercy if the poor thing could drop off quiet like,” they said to each other. It was a mystery to them how she managed to live.

They went out of the slums into heaven almost; over to Madison Square. Dil liked the broad out-look, the beautiful houses, the stores, the perspective of diverging streets, the throngs of people, the fountain, the flowers. There was an intangible influence for which her knowledge was too limited; but her inmost being felt, if it could not understand. Occasionally, like poor Joe, she was ordered to move on, but one policeman never molested her. Something in the pathetic baby face recalled one he had held in his arms, and who had gone out of them to her little grave.

Dil found a shady place and a vacant seat. She drew the wagon up close, resting her feet on the wheel. The last of the wild roses had been taken along for an airing. Poor, shrunken little buds, lacking strength to come out fully, akin to the fingers that held them so tenderly. Bess laughed at Dil’s shrewd, amusing comments, and they were very happy.

Two or three long, delicious hours in this fresh, inspiriting air, with the blue sky over their heads, the patches of velvety grass, the waving trees, the elusive tints caught by the spray of the fountain, and the flowers, made a paradise for them. They drank in eagerly the divine draught that was to last them a week, perhaps longer.

A young fellow came sauntering along, – a tall, supple, jaunty-looking man, with a refined and kindly, rather than a handsome face. His hair was cropped close, there was a line of sunny brown moustache on his short upper lip, and his chin was broad and cleft. It gave him a mirthful expression, as if he might smile easily; but there was a shadow of firmness in the blue-gray eye, and now the lips were set resolutely.

He stopped and studied them. They were like a picture in their unconventional grace. He was quite in the habit of picking up odd, rustic ideas.

“Hillo!” coming nearer with a bright smile. “Where did you youngsters find wild roses? They seem not to have thriven on city air.”

“Are they wild roses?” asked Dil. “What makes thim so?”

He laughed, a soft, alluring sound. Something in the quaint voice attracted him. It was too old, too intense, for a child.

“I don’t know, except that they are wild around country places, and do not take kindly to civilization. Where I have been staying, there are hundreds of them. You can’t tell much about beauty by those withered-up buds.”

“O mister, we had thim when they were lovely. On Chuesday it was – Patsey Muldoon brought thim to us. And they just seemed to make Bess all alive again with joy.”

The pretty suggestion of brogue, the frankness, so far removed from any aspect of boldness, interested him curiously.

“And had Patsey Muldoon been in the country?” he asked with interest.

“Oh, no. He was up to Gran’ Cent’l, an’ a lady who come on the train had thim. Patsey said she was beautiful and elegant, an’ she gev thim to him. An’ Jim Casey tried to get ’em, an’ they had a scrimmage; but Patsey ain’t no chump! An’ he brought thim down to Bess,” nodding to the pale little wraith. “Patsey’s so good to us! An’, oh, they was so lovely an’ sweet, with leaves like beautiful pink satin, and eyes that looked at you like humans, – prittier than most humans. An’ it was like a garden to us – a great bowlful. Wasn’t it, Bess?”

The child smiled, and raised her eyes in exaltation. Preternaturally bright they were, with the breathless look that betrays the ebbing shore of life, yet full of eager desire to remain. For there would have been no martyrdom equal to being separated from Dil.

“O mister!” she cried beseechingly, “couldn’t you tell us about them – how they live in their own homes? An’ how they get that soft, satiny color? Mammy brought us home a piece of ribbon once, – some one gev it to her, – an’ Dil made a bow for my cap. Last summer, wasn’t it, Dil? An’ the roses were just like that when we freshened them up. They was so lovely!”

He seated himself beside Dil. A curious impression came over him, and he was touched to the heart by the fondness and tender care of the roses. Was there some strange link —

“Was it Tuesday afternoon, did you say?” hesitating, with a sudden rush at his heart. “And a tall, slim girl with light hair?”

Dil shook her head with vague uncertainty. “Patsey said she was a stunner! An’ she went in a kerrige. She wasn’t no car folks.”

He laughed softly at this idea of superiority. “Of course you didn’t see her,” he commented reflectively, with a pleasant nod. How absurd to catch at such a straw. No, he couldn’t fancy her with a great bunch of wild roses in her slim hand, when she had so haughtily taken off his ring and dropped it at his feet.