Part 43 (1/2)
”Have you had a good time?” she asked when the last one was eaten, and she led the way to go down-stairs.
”Good time! That ain't nothin'! I've had a reg'lar bust! I'm comin'
agin'; it's bully. Now I must get my loaf and my shoes, and go along back and take a lickin'.”
That was the way Hazel caught her first child.
She made her tell her name,--Ann Fazackerley,--and promise to come on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and bring two more girls with her.
”We'll have a party,” said Hazel, ”and play Puss in the Corner. But you must get leave,” she added. ”Ask your mother. I don't want you to be punished when you go home.”
”Lor! you're green! I ain't got no mother. An' I always hooks jack.
I'm licked reg'lar when I gets back, anyway. There's half a dozen of 'em. When 'tain't one, it's another. That's Jane Goffey's bread; she's been a swearin' after it this hour, you bet. But I'll come,--see if I don't!”
Hazel drew a hard breath as she let the girl go. Back to her crowded cellar, her Jane Goffeys, the swearings, and the lickings. What was one hour at a time, once or twice a week, to do against all this?
But she remembered the clean little round in her face, out of which eyes and mouth looked merrily, while she talked rough slang; the same fun and daring,--nothing worse,--were in this child's face, that might be in another's saying prettier words. How could she help her words, hearing nothing but devil's Dutch around her all the time? Children do not make the language they are born into. And the face that could be simply merry, telling such a tale as that,--what sort of bright little immortality must it be the outlook of?
Hazel meant to try her hour.
This is one of my last chapters. I can only tell you now they began,--these real folks,--the work their real living led them up to. Perhaps some other time we may follow it on. If I were to tell you now a finished story of it, I should tell a story ahead of the world.
I can show you what six weeks brought it to. I can show you them fairly launched in what may grow to a beautiful private charity,--an ”Insecution,”--a broad social scheme,--a millennium; at any rate, a life work, change and branch as it may, for these girls who have found out, in their girlhood, that there is genuine living, not mere ”playing pretend,” to be done in the world. But you cannot, in little books of three hundred pages, see things through. I never expected or promised to do that. The threescore years and ten themselves, do not do it.
It turned into regular Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day afternoons. Three girls at first, then six, then less again,--sometimes only one or two; until they gradually came up to and settled at, an average of nine or ten.
The first Sat.u.r.day they took them as they were. The next time they gave them a stick of candy each, the first thing, then Hazel's fingers were sticky, and she proposed the wash-basin all round, before they went up-stairs. The bright tin bowl was ready in the sink, and a clean round towel hung beside; and with some red and white soap-b.a.l.l.s, they managed to fascinate their dirty little visitors into three clean pairs of hands, and three clean faces as well.
The candy and the was.h.i.+ng grew to be a custom; and in three weeks'
time, watching for a hot day and having it luckily on a Sat.u.r.day, they ventured upon inst.i.tuting a whole bath, in big round tubs, in the back shed-room, where a faucet came in over a wash bench, and a great boiler was set close by.
They began with a foot-paddle, playing pond, and sailing chips at the same time; then Luclarion told them they might have tubs full, and get in all over and duck, if they liked; and children who may hate to be washed, nevertheless are always ready for a duck and a paddle. So Luclarion superintended the bath-room; Diana helped her; and Desire and Hazel tended the shop. Luclarion invented a shower-bath with a dipper and a colander; then the wet, tangled hair had to be combed,--a climax which she had secretly aimed at with a great longing, from the beginning; and doing this, she contrived with carbolic soap and a separate suds, and a bit of sponge, to give the neglected little heads a most salutary dressing.
Sat.u.r.day grew into bath-day; soap-suds suggested bubbles; and the ducking and the bubbling were a frolic altogether.
Then Hazel wished they could be put into clean clothes each time; wouldn't it do, somehow?
But that would cost. Luclarion had come to the limit of her purse; Hazel had no purse, and Desire's was small.
”But you see they've _got_ to have it,” said Hazel; and so she went to her mother, and from her straight to Uncle Oldways.
They counted up,--she and Desire, and Diana; two little common suits, of stockings, underclothes, and calico gowns, apiece; somebody to do a was.h.i.+ng once a week, ready for the change; and then--”those horrid shoes!”
”I don't see how you can do it,” said Mrs. Ripwinkley. ”The things will be taken away from them, and sold. You would have to keep doing, over and over, to no purpose, I am afraid.”
”I'll see to that,” said Luclarion, facing her ”stump.” ”We'll do for them we can do for; if it ain't ones, it will be tothers. Those that don't keep their things, can't have 'em; and if they're taken away, I won't sell bread to the women they belong to, till they're brought back. Besides, the _was.h.i.+ng_ kind of sorts 'em out, beforehand. 'Taint the worst ones that are willing to come, or to send, for that. You always have to work in at an edge, in anything, and make your way as you go along. It'll regulate. I'm _living_ there right amongst 'em; I've got a clew, and a hold; I can follow things up; I shall have a 'circle;' there's circles everywhere. And in all the wheels there's a moving _spirit_; you ain't got to depend just on yourself. Things work; the Lord sees to it; it's _His_ business as much as yours.”
Hazel told Uncle t.i.tus that there were shoes and stockings and gowns wanted down in Neighbor Street; things for ten children; they must have subscriptions. And so she had come to him.