Part 4 (1/2)
”Whisper them, then, Aunt Win,” urged Dan, softly. ”Maybe I'll make them come true.”
”Ye couldn't,” said the old woman, her dim eyes s.h.i.+ning. ”Only G.o.d in heaven can do that. For I dream that I see you on His altar, the brightest place that mortal man can reach. I'll ne'er live to see that dream come true, Danny; but I believe it would make my old heart leap if I was under the sod itself.”
”O Aunt Win, Aunt Win!” Dan lifted the wrinkled hand to his lips. ”That is a great dream, sure enough. Sometimes, Aunt Win, I--I dream it myself.
But, then, a rough-and-tumble fellow like me, always getting into sc.r.a.pes, soon wakes up. But one thing is sure: you can't shake me, Aunt Win.
Dreaming or waking, I'll stick to you forever.”
”Ah, no, lad,--no!” said the old woman, tremulously. ”I'd not have ye bother with me. Sure it's the fine place I have here, with my warm room and nice bed, and the good Little Sisters to care for me, and the chapel close to hand. But I miss our own little place, sure, sometimes, Danny dear! I miss the pot of flowers on the window (it's against the rule to grow flowers here), and me own little blue teapot on the stove, and Tabby curled up on the mat before the fire.”
Aunt Winnie broke down and sobbed outright, while Danny was conscious of a lump in his throat that held him dumb.
”Poor Tabby!” continued Aunt Winnie. ”I hope the Mulligans are good to her, Dan. D'ye ever see her as ye pa.s.s their gate?”
”I do,” answered Dan. ”Molly Mulligan has tied a blue ribbon around her neck, and she is the pride of the house.”
”And she has forgotten me, of course!” sighed Aunt Winnie. ”But what could I expect of a cat!”
”Forgotten you? Not a bit! Molly says she steals into your room upstairs and cries for you every night.”
”Ah, it was the sore parting for us all, G.o.d help us!” said Aunt Winnie, brokenly. ”But as long as it brings you luck, lad, I'll never complain.
This is the holy place to die in, and what could a poor sick ould woman ask more?”
”A lot--a lot more!” burst forth Danny, pa.s.sionately. ”You should have a place to live and be happy in, Aunt Win. You should have your own fire and your own teapot, and your own cat in your own home; and I mean to get it back for you just as quick as I can.”
”Whisht! whisht!” said Aunt Win, nervously, as the old lady nearby roused up, startled from her nap.
”It's time ye were going, Danny; for ye're a long way from college, and I wouldn't keep ye against rules. I hope ye'll have a fine time at the seash.o.r.e, with the fis.h.i.+ng and boating and all the other sports. Good-bye and G.o.d bless ye, lad, until we meet again! Good-bye, Danny dear!” And, realizing from the wide-open eyes of the old lady near him that all confidential communications were over, Dan kissed Aunt Win's withered cheek, and, his heart swelling with feelings he could not speak, took his way back to Saint Andrew's, all his dreams, hopes, ambitions for the future strangely shaken.
Aunt Win,--gentle, loving, heartsick, homesick Aunt Win! Aunt Win, begging him to give her up lest she should hurt and hinder him in his opening way!
Aunt Win sighing for the little place she had called home, even while she was ready to give it up forever and die silent and lonely, that her boy might climb to heights of which she could only dream and never see! Dear, faithful, true-hearted, self-forgetting Aunt Win! Dan felt his own eyes blurring as he thought of all she had done, of all she was ready to sacrifice.
And--and--the other thought followed swiftly: he could give it all back to her,--the little attic rooms over Mulligans', the flowerpot in the window, the blue teapot on the stove, Tabby on the hearth-rug,--he could give it all back to Aunt Win and bring her home. It would be long, long years before the higher paths into which he had turned would yield even humble living; but the old ways were open to him still: the ”ditch-digging” with which Dud Fielding had taunted him, the meat wagon, the sausage shop, that he had been considering only a few hours ago. What right had he to leave the good old woman, who had mothered him, lonely and heartsick that he might climb beyond her reach? And yet--yet to give up Saint Andrew's, with all that it meant to him; to give up all his hopes, his dreams; to turn his back on those wide corridors and book-lined rooms for counter and cleaver; to give up,--to give up! Quite dizzy with his contending thoughts, Dan was striding on his way when a hearty voice hailed him:
”h.e.l.lo! That you, Dan? Jump in and I'll give you a lift.” And Pete Patterson's ruddy face looked out from the white-topped wagon at the curb.
”I was just thinking of you,” said Pete, as Dan willingly sprang up to the seat at his side; for Pete had been a friendly creditor in the days of the little attic home when credit was sometimes sorely needed. ”Are you in with the 'high brows' for good and all?”
”I--I don't know,” hesitated Dan.
”Because if you're not,” continued Pete--”and what tarnation use a st.u.r.dy chap like you will find in all that Latin and Greek stuff, I can't see,--if you're not in for it, I can give you a chance.”
V.--A ”CHANCE.”
”I can give you a chance,” repeated Pete, as he turned to Dan with his broad, ruddy face illuminated by a friendly smile. ”It's a chance I wouldn't hold out to everybody, but I know you for a wide-awake youngster, as honest as you are slick. Them two don't go together in general; but it's the combination I'm looking fur just now, and you seem to have it. I was thinking over it this very morning. 'Lord, Lord,' sez I to myself, 'if Dan Dolan hadn't gone and got that eddycation bug in his head, wouldn't this be the chance for him?”
”What is it?” asked Dan; but there was not much eagerness in his question.
Wide and springy as was the butcher's cart, it did not appeal to him as a chariot of fortune just now. A loin of beef dangled over his head, a dead calf was stretched out on the straw behind him. Pete's white ap.r.o.n was stained with blood. Dan was conscious of a dull, sick repulsion of body and soul.
”Well, it's this,” continued Pete, cheerfully. ”You see, I've made a little money over there at my corner, and I'm planning to spread out,--do things bigger and broader. There ain't no sort of use in holding back to hams and shoulders when ye can buy yer hogs on the hoof. That's what I'm in fur now,--hogs on the hoof; cut 'em, corn 'em, smoke 'em, salt 'em, souse 'em, grind 'em into sausage meat and headcheese and sc.r.a.pple, boil 'em into lard. Why, a hog is a regular gold mine when he is handled right.