Part 2 (1/2)

When at last the trying on was over, and the Tony generosity was sufficiently enlarged upon, the ladies, as is the way with the best of the s.e.x, fell into a mild gossip before separating. And while racy bits of Tenement shortcomings were being handed around, the small object of this gathering, too young, alas, to know the joys denied her because of her limited abilities to understand the nature of the conversation, slipped down from Mrs. O'Malligan's lap, and eluding Mary's absent hold, proceeded to journey about the room, until reaching the open door, she took her way, un.o.bserved, out of the O'Malligan first floor front and leaving its glories of red plush furniture and lace curtains behind her, forthwith made her way out the hall door into the street.

The hot, garbage-strewn pavements and sunbaked gutters swarmed with the sons and daughters of the Tenement. Directly opposite its five-storied front was the rear entrance to the Fourth Regiment Armory. And there, at that moment, a sad-eyed, swarthy Italian,--swinging his hand-organ down on the asphalt pavement in front of the Armory's open doors, was beginning to grind out his melodies. And with the first note, children came running, from doorstep and curb, from sidewalk and gutter, while, at the same moment, in the open door of the Armory appeared a small, chubby-cheeked boy, who had upon his head a soldier cap so much too large for him as to cover the tips of his ears entirely, and who, moreover, wore, buckled about his waist, a belt gay as to tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and glittering with silver finis.h.i.+ngs. If the Fourth Regiment boasted a Company of Lilliputian Guards here surely was a member.

The Angel, in the Tenement door, was enchanted. How different a world from that upstairs room under the roof! She kept step to the music and nodded her head to the fascinating little boy in the Armory door. And the sharp eyes of that young gentleman had no sooner espied the nodding little creature in the doorway opposite, than heels together, head erect, up went a quick hand to the military cap. The Angel was being saluted, and while her ignorance of the fact prevented her appreciating that honor, the friendliness of the little boy was alluring. Down the steps she came, her little feet tripping to the measure of the music, her skirts outheld, and flitting across the pavement and over the curb, she made for the group of children in the street. Cobblestones, however, being strange to the baby feet, up those dancing members tripped and down the Angel fell, just as a wagon came das.h.i.+ng around the corner of the streets.

Out rushed the small boy from the Armory door, and, scattering the crowd around the organ, caught the fallen Angel by the arm, and raised his hand with an air of authority, as, with a grin, the driver on the wagon drew up his horse and surveyed the group, and the sad-eyed Italian, recognizing the superior attraction, shouldered his organ and moved on.

”h.e.l.lo,” cried the man on the wagon seeing the child was not hurt, ”yer can soak me one if it ain't little Joe! Where'd yer git dem togs, kid?

What'r' yer goin' in fer anyhow, baby perlice?”

The region in the neighborhood of Joey's waist swelled with pride, and his chubby face bore a look of wounded dignity. ”There ain't no perlice about this yere, Bill, it's a sojer I be, see?”

Being pressed by Bill to explain himself, Joey unbent. ”Yer see, Bill, Dad ain't never showed up fer to git me--seen anything of Dad since he got out, Bill?”

Bill nodded.

”What's he up to now?” queried Joey.

”Shovin' the queer,” admitted Bill laconically, ”nabbed right off an' in the cooler waitin' his turn, yer won't be troubled by him fer quite a spell, I'll give yer dat fer a pointer, see?”

Joey saw, and for the s.p.a.ce of half a second seemed somewhat sobered by the intelligence. ”I guessed as much,” said he, ”yer see, after he got nabbed first, mammy she--yer didn't know as mammy took an' died, did yer, Bill?” and Joey faltered and let the Angel take possession of his cap and transfer it to her own curly head while the Tenement children applauded with jeering commendation, seeing there was a standing feud between Joey and the rest of the juvenile populace over its possession.

”No,” Bill allowed, he did not know it, but, seeing that she was always ailing, Bill was in no wise surprised.

”An'--an' since then, I'm stayin' over ter th' Arm'ry wid Old G. A. R.

Yer know him, Bill, Old G. A. R. what takes care of th' Arm'ry. He was there afore yer left th' grocery.”

Bill remembered the gentleman.

”I stays wid him an' he drills me an' makes me scrub, hully gee, how he do make me wash meself, Bill! An' there's one sojer-man, th' Cap'n, he give me these togs, he did, an' he tol' Old G. A. R. to lem'me eat along wid him over ter Dutchy's Res'traunt,” nodding toward a cheap eating-house at the corner, ”an' he'd stand fer it. They calls me major, all of 'em to th' Arm'ry, Bill, see?” and Joey was waxing voluble indeed, when he turned to see the mob of jeering children make off up the street, his cap in their midst, while the wailing Angel was being rescued from under the horse's very hoofs by Mary Carew.

Joey put his spirit of inquiry before even his cap. ”Is she er Angel, say?” he inquired of Miss Carew, turning his back on Bill without ceremony who with a grin and a nod to the group of Tenement ladies at the door, drove off, ”I heerd yer had er Angel over there, but I didn't know as it was straight, what they was givin' me, see?”

”That's what she is, the darling yonder,” declared Miss Bonkowski from the curbstone, nodding airily, ”you've got it straight this time, Joey.

And if what Peter O'Malligan says about your picking her up just now is so, you're welcome to come over some time and play with her.”

”Yes, it's true,” supplemented Mary Carew, trying to pacify the struggling Angel in her arms who, gazing after the children, showed a decided inclination to descend to human level and mingle with them of earth, ”it's true an' that's jus' what she is,--the Angel of this Tenement, an', as Norma says, you're free to come over and play with her, though there ain't many of you I'd say it to;” and with that the tall, gaunt Mary bearing the baby, followed Norma into the house and up the narrow, broken stairs, and along the dark halls past door after door closed upon its story of squalor and poverty, until, at last, panting with the child's weight, she reached their own abode under the roof.

”Which,” as Mary had been wont, in the past, to observe, ”was about as near Heaven as the poor need look to get.” But now, for some reason, these bitter speeches were growing less frequent on Mary Carew's lips since she opened her door to entertain an Angel.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ANGEL BECOMES A FAIRY.

July pa.s.sed, and in August, the heat in the room beneath the roof set the air to s.h.i.+mmering like a veil before the open window, and Mary Carew, gasping, found it harder and harder to make that extra pair of jean pantaloons a day. And, as though the manager at the Garden Opera House had divined that Miss Bonkowski had left another birthday behind her, like milestones along the way, that lady's salary received a cut on the first day of August.

At best, the united incomes of the two made but a meagre sum, and there was nothing for it now but to reduce expenses. The rent being one thing that was never cut, the result was a scantier allowance of food.