Part 18 (1/2)

”He's a nice chap.” Selwyn's voice was unqualifiedly emphatic. ”And his father is as honest a man as ever lived. His mother, I believe, comes of pretty plain people.”

”I don't know where she comes from, but she's made a success of her son, which is what a good many well-born women fail to do. People aren't responsible for their ancestors, but they are for their descendants to a great extent, and Mrs. Cressy seems to understand this more clearly than certain ancestrally dependent persons I have met. I'd like to know her.”

”You're looking at me as if I didn't agree with you. Some day I hope there may be deeper understanding of, and better training for, the supreme profession of life; but to get out of generalizations into a concrete case, what can I do in the way of service to Miss Swink and Mr. Thomas Cressy? Being, as I said before, an interested party, I hardly--”

A knock on the door behind him made Selwyn start as if struck; gave evidence of strain and nervousness of which he was unconscious, and, jumping up, he went toward the door and opened it. In the hall Bettina and Jimmy Gibbons were standing. The latter was twisting his cap round and round in his hand, his big, brown eyes looking first at Bettina and then at me and then at Selwyn, but to my ”Come in,” he paid no attention.

Getting up, I went toward him, put my hand on his shoulder. ”What is it, Jimmy? Why don't you come in?”

”My shoes ain't fitten. I wiped them, but the mud wouldn't come off.” His eyes looked down on his feet. ”I could tell you out here if you wouldn't mind listening.”

”I told him I'd take the message or call you down-stairs, but he wouldn't let me do either one.” Bettina, hands behind her, nodded in my face. ”His mother says her boarder is dying and she wants to tell you something before she dies, and she told Jimmy he must see you himself. Grannie's gone to prayer-meeting with Mrs. Crimm, and afterward to see about a sick person. I'm awful sorry to interrupt you, and if the lady hadn't been dying--”

”You're not interrupting.” I drew the boy inside. Bettina came also. From the fire to which I led him, Jimmy drew back, however, and blew upon his stiff little fingers until it was safe to put them closer to the blazing coals. Looking down at his feet, I saw a large and ragged hole on the side of his right shoe from which a tiny bit of blood was slowly oozing upon the rug.

”What's the matter with your foot, Jimmy? Have you cut it, stuck something in it? You must take your shoe off and see what's the matter.” I pointed to the floor.

”I didn't know I'd done it.” Craning his neck to its fullest extending. Jimmy peered down at the bleeding foot, then looked up at me. ”I'm awful sorry it got on the rug. I'll wipe it up in a minute.” Imperishable merriment struggled with abashed regret, and, holding out the offending foot, he laughed wistfully. ”It ain't got no feeling in it, though it's coming. I guess it's kinder froze.

They're regular flip-flops, them shoes are.”

Under his breath I heard a smothered exclamation from Selwyn. He was standing in front of the boy, hands in his pockets, and staring at him. He knew, of course, there were countless ill-fed, ill-clothed, unprotected children in every city of every land, but personally he had come in contact with but few of them, and the bit of flesh and blood before him stabbed with sharp realization. Helplessly he turned to me. ”The boy's half frozen. Where did he come from? What does he want you to do?”

Jimmy looked up at me. ”Mother told me to hurry. The doctor's done gone and Mrs. Cotter says she's bound to see you before she dies.

She's got something to tell you. She says please, 'm, come quick.”

Hesitating, I looked at the boy, who had come closer to the fire.

”Did the doctor say she was dying? I saw her yesterday and she seemed better. Miss White was to see her to-day.”

”Miss White is there now.” Jimmy lifted his right foot and held it from the ground. The warmth of the room was bringing pain to the benumbed member into which something had been stuck. ”She told me to tell you please, 'm, to come if you could. Mrs. Cotter says she can't die until she sees you, and she's so tired trying to hold out.

She won't have breath left to talk, mother says, if you don't hurry.”

Perplexed, uncertain, I waited a half-minute longer. Mrs. Cotter, the renter of Mrs. Gibbons's middle room, and sometime boarder, I had seen frequently of late. Nothing human could have stood what she had been forcing herself to do for some weeks past, and that resistance should have yielded to relentless exaction was not to be wondered at.

Ten hours a day she sewed in the carpet department of one of the city's big stores, and for some time past she had been one of the office-cleaning force of the Metropolitan Building, which at night made ready for the day's occupants the rooms which were swept and dusted and scrubbed while others slept or played, or rested or made plans for coming times. The extra work had been undertaken in order to get nourishment and medicine needed for her little girl, who had developed tuberculosis. There was nowhere for the child to go. The insufficient sanatorium provided by the city for its diseased and germ-disseminating poor was over-crowded. To save her child she had fought valiantly, but her life was the forfeit of her fight. I wondered what she wanted to tell me.

I looked at Selwyn, in my eyes questioning. Mrs. Mundy was out. I could not leave Bettina alone in the house. What must I do?

”Do you think she is really dying? People like that are often hysterical, often nervously imaginative.” Selwyn's voice was worried. ”You ought not to be sent for like this. It isn't right.”

”She wouldn't have sent as late as this, but the doctor says she won't last till daybreak.” Jimmy twisted his cap into a round, rough ball. ”I'll get Mrs. Mundy for Bettina if you'll tell me where she is.”

”You can't get her. She's out the prayer-meeting by now and gone to see somebody who sent for her. I don't know who it is, and I ain't by myself. Miss Sallie Jenks is sitting with me while grannie's out.” Bettina's tones were energetic. She turned to me. ”You needn't stay back on my account, Miss Danny. Aren't you going?”

”Yes--I'm going.” I walked toward my bedroom. At its door I stopped. ”I'm sorry, Selwyn, but I'll have to go. The woman is dying.”

Selwyn's teeth came together sharply and in his eyes were disapproval and protest. For a half-minute he did not speak, then he faced me.

”If you insist, there's nothing to be said except that I am going with you. Where's your telephone? I'll get a cab.”

”Oh no! You must not go.” Back to the door, I leaned against it.