Part 21 (2/2)

”No,” said Sam shortly, ”she's too dirty. She'd put her fingers on de wall first thing--”

”But Sam, I think she ought to come. And she ought to come first. She's the one that helped me find you--”

Sam looked sharply at Michael and wondered if he suspected how long that same Aunt Sally had frustrated his efforts to find his friends.

”We could tell her not to touch things, perhaps--”

”Wal, you lemme tell her. Here! I'll go fix her up an' bring her now.” And Sam hurried out of the room.

Michael waited, and in a few minutes Sam returned with Aunt Sally. But it was a transformed Aunt Sally. Her face had been painfully scrubbed in a circle out as far as her ears, and her scraggy gray hair was twisted in a tight knot at the back of her neck. Her hands were several shades cleaner than Michael had ever seen them before, and her shoes were tied. She wore a small three-cornered plaid shawl over her shoulders and entered cautiously as if half afraid to come. Her hands were clasped high across her breast.

She had evidently been severely threatened against touching anything.

”The saints be praised!” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed warmly after she had looked around in silence for a moment ”To think I should ivver see the loikes uv this in de alley. It lukes loike a palace. Mikky, ye're a Nangel, me b'y! An'

a rale kurtin, to be shure! I ain't seen a kurtin in the alley since I c.u.mmed. An' will ye luke at the purty posy a blowin' as foine as ye plaze!

Me mither had the loike in her cottage window when I was a leetle gal! Aw, me pure auld mither!”

And suddenly to Michael's amazement, and the disgust of Sam, old Sal sat down on the one chair and wept aloud, with the tears streaming down her seamed and sin-scarred face.

Sam was for putting her out at once, but Michael soothed her with his cheery voice, making her tell of her old home in Ireland, and the kind mother whom she had loved, though it was long years since she had thought of her now.

With rare skill he drew from her the picture of the little Irish cottage with its thatched roof, its peat fire, and well-swept hearth; the table with the white cloth, the cat in the rocking chair, the curtain starched stiffly at the window, the bright posy on the deep window ledge; and, lastly, the little girl with clean pinafore and curly hair who kissed her mother every morning and trotted off to school. But that was before the father died, and the potatoes failed. The school days were soon over, and the little girl with her mother came to America. The mother died on the way over, and the child fell into evil hands. That was the story, and as it was told Michael's face grew tender and wistful. Would that he knew even so much of his own history as that!

But Sam stood by struck dumb and trying to fancy that this old woman had ever been the bright rosy child she told about. Sam was pa.s.sing through a sort of mental and moral earthquake.

”Perhaps some day we'll find another little house in the country where you can go and live,” said Michael, ”but meantime, suppose you go and see if you can't make your room look like this one. You scrub it all up and perhaps Sam and I will come over and put some pretty paper on the walls for you. Would you like that? How about it, Sam?”

”Sure!” said Sam rather grudgingly. He hadn't much faith in Aunt Sally and didn't see what Michael wanted with her anyway, but he was loyal to Michael.

Irish blessings mingled with tears and garnished with curses in the most extraordinary way were showered upon Michael and at last when he could stand no more, Sam said:

”Aw, cut it out, Sal. You go home an' scrub. Come on, now!” and he bundled her off in a hurry.

Late as it was, old Sal lit a fire, and by the light of a tallow candle got down on her stiff old knees and began to scrub. It seemed nothing short of a miracle that her room could ever look like that one she had just seen, but if scrubbing could do anything toward it, scrub she would. It was ten years since she had thought of scrubbing her room. She hadn't seemed to care; but to-night as she worked with her trembling old drink-shaken hands the memory of her childhood's home was before her vision, and she worked with all her might.

So the leaven of the little white room in the dark alley began to work.

”The Angel's quarters” it was named, and to be called to go within its charmed walls was an honor that all coveted as time went on. And that was how Michael began the salvation of his native alley.

CHAPTER XIV

Michael had been three months with the new law firm and was beginning to get accustomed to the violent contrast between the day spent in the atmosphere of low-voiced, quiet-stepping, earnest men who moved about in their environment of polished floors, oriental rugs, leather chairs and walls lined with leather-covered law books; and the evening down in the alley where his bare, little, white and gold room made the only tolerable spot in the neighborhood.

He was still occupying the fourth floor back at his original boarding house, and had seen Mr. Endicott briefly three or four times, but nothing had been said about his lodgings.

One morning he came to the desk set apart for him in the law office, and found a letter lying there for him.

”Son:” it said, ”your board is paid at the address given below, up to the day you are twenty-one. If you don't get the benefit it will go to waste.

Mrs. Semple will make you quite comfortable and I desire you to move to her house at once. If you feel any obligation toward me this is the way to discharge it. Hope you are well, Tours, Delevan Endicott.'”

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