Part 8 (1/2)

Hetterman was engaged as cook for the boarding-school, and we all rejoiced in the change. I went down to the kitchen to see her, one afternoon, and found her a buxom Englishwoman who dropped her _h_'s, but was always neat and civil. She was delighted when she found that I knew the names of her children. ”It was a little boy who used to live in your court who told me about them,” I said, ”and who introduced us to your good fish b.a.l.l.s.”

”Oh yes, Miss, I mind; it was little Jim 'Alsey; 'e's the prince of fine fellers, 'e is.”

Jim Halsey the prince! My head fairly reeled, and yet this explained many things which had seemed mysterious. Winnie's agency in the matter was still not entirely clear to me. I did not connect her remorseful remarks about another sc.r.a.pe, with Jim, and I believed that by some remarkable coincidence he was really Miss Prillwitz's little prince incognito. I wondered whether Mrs. Hetterman knew anything of his real history, but she preferred to talk at present about her own family. She was very happy in the prospect of introducing her oldest daughter, Jennie, into the house as a waitress. ”It will be so much better for Jennie,” she said, ”than the feather factory. The hair there is not good for 'er lungs.”

I did not understand, at first, what Mrs. Hetterman meant by the _hair_, but when she explained that it was ”the hatmosphere,” her meaning dawned upon me.

”It will make it a bit lonelier for Mary and the little ones,” she admitted, ”but I go down every night, after the work's over, to tidy them up and to see that hall's right. The court is not a fit place for the children. If I could find decent lodgings for them, such as Mrs.

'Alsey 'as got for her Jim! I think I could pay as much, if the place was only found; I'm 'oping something will turn hup, Miss.”

”I hope so,” I replied; and I asked Winnie that afternoon if she thought the person who was boarding Jim Halsey would take the Hettermans, but she utterly discouraged the idea.

We saw a good deal of the little prince. Miss Prillwitz called him Giacomo, and was deeply attached to him. He did her credit too, for he was docile and bright. His mother was right in saying that he inherited his father's facility for mathematics, but with this faculty he possessed also a love for mechanics and for machinery of every sort.

”He will make one good engineer some day,” said Miss Prillwitz, in speaking of him to us.

”That is a strange career for a prince,” said Adelaide.

”My tear, it may be many year before he ees call to his princedom, and in ze meanstime he muss make his way. Zen, too, ze sons of ze royal houses make such study, and it is one good thing for ze country whose prince interest himself in ze science.”

”I wonder how he would like to study surveying by and by,” Adelaide said. ”I know that father could employ him in the West.”

”Zat is one excellent idea,” said Miss Prillwitz. ”We will see, when ze time s'all arrive.”

We were all fond of the little prince. After all, Miss Prillwitz had decided to let him attend the botany lessons on Sat.u.r.days. ”If he s'all be one surveyor in ze West,” she said, ”he s'all have opportunity to discover ze new species of flower; he must learn all ze natural science.”

The prince attended the public school during the week, and held his place at the head of his cla.s.s with ease. It was not hard to do so, now that he could sleep all night. Emma Jane, who had had her spasms of doubt in regard to him, and had even gone so far at first as to say that Miss Prillwitz was a crank, and she had no faith in the boy's n.o.bility, had been won over by the boy himself, and remarked one afternoon that the internal evidence was convincing; Giacomo was not like common children; he was evidently cast in a finer mold; he would do honor to any position; birth would tell, after all. It was all that dear Milly could do not to betray the secret to the little prince. He was very fond of Milly, but deferential and unpresuming, as became his apparent position. ”Some day our places may be reversed. You may live in a beautiful home and have hosts of friends,” Milly said to him. ”Will you remember me then, Giacomo?”

”How can that ever be?” the boy asked. ”You will grow up and be a fine rich lady; I will be a poor young man whom you will have quite forgotten.”

”Not necessarily poor,” Milly hastened to reply. ”If you go West you may, by working hard, become rich and famous. Will you forget your old friends then?”

And Jim promised that he would never, never forget. Then a shade came across his face. ”Maybe I will, after all,” he said, ”for I have forgotten Mary Hetterman for more than a week. I did not think I could be so mean.”

Adelaide and I had a conference in regard to the prince. It seemed that she had recognized him as Jim Halsey from the first. ”I have been wondering,” she said, ”whether it was not a case like that of Little Lord Fauntleroy, and whether Mrs. Halsey could not be proved to be the wife of a prince, but I see that cannot be the explanation of the matter; and I have concluded that Jim is her adopted child. She must have taken him, when she was in better circ.u.mstances, from the people who brought him to this country when he was a very little fellow, and so he has no recollection of any other home.”

”She always spoke of him as her very own,” I said, ”and seemed fonder of him than a foster-mother could be. It will be very hard for her to part with him, if his real relatives claim him.”

”Not if he goes to high rank and great estates,” said Adelaide. ”She probably had no idea of his n.o.ble birth when she adopted him; and it just proves that bread cast upon the waters returns, for he will probably care for her right royally, when he comes into his own, and she will find that adopting that boy was the best investment she ever made in her life.”

Winnie came in while we were talking.

”Why didn't you tell us, Winnie,” I asked, ”that Jim Halsey was the little prince?”

”It did not seem necessary,” Winnie replied, looking unnecessarily alarmed, as it seemed to me.

”You pay his board directly to Miss Prillwitz, I suppose?” Adelaide said.

”No, I give it to his mother, and she sends it by mail.”

”Well, I don't see any harm in letting Miss Prillwitz know that we know his mother, and are helping in his support.”