Part 43 (1/2)

She paused over the cutlets and the chicken pie, which she had been helping with an amazing attention to personal preference. The young Costellos chafed at the delay, but their mother's fine eyes saw them not.

'Kelley & Moffat ought to let me have materials at half price,' she reflected aloud. 'My bill's six or seven hundred a month!'

'You always say you're not going to do a thing, and then get in and make more than any other booth!' said Dan proudly.

'Oh, not this year, I won't,' his mother a.s.sured him. But in her heart she knew she would.

'Aren't you glad it's fancy-work?' said Teresa. 'It doesn't get all sloppy and mussy like ice-cream, does it, mother?'

'Gee, don't you love fairs!' burst out Leo rapturously.

'Sliding up and down the floor before the dance begins, Dan, to work in the wax?' suggested Jimmy, in pleasant antic.i.p.ation. 'We go every day and every night, don't we, mother?'

'Ask your father,' said Mrs. Costello discreetly.

But the mayor's attention just then was taken by Alanna, who had left her chair to go and whisper in his ear.

'Why, here's Alanna's heart broken!' said he cheerfully, encircling her little figure with a big arm.

Alanna shrank back suddenly against him, and put her wet cheek on his shoulder.

'Now, whatever is it, darlin'?' wondered her mother, sympathetically but without concern. 'You've not got a pain, have you, dear?'

'She wants to help the Children of Mary!' said her father tenderly. 'She wants to do as much as Tessie does!'

'Oh, but, dad, she _can't_!' fretted Teresa. 'She's not a Child of Mary!

She oughtn't to want to tag that way. Now all the other girls' sisters will tag!'

'They haven't got sisters!' said Alanna, red-cheeked of a sudden.

'Why, Mary Alanna Costello, they have too! Jean has, and Stella has, and Grace has her little cousins!' protested Teresa triumphantly.

'Never mind, baby,' said Mrs. Costello hurriedly. 'Mother'll find you something to do. There now! How'd you like to have a raffle-book on something--a chair or a piller? And you could get all the names yourself, and keep the money in a little bag--'

'Oh, my! I wish I could!' said Jim artfully. 'Think of the last night, when the drawing comes! You'll have the fun of looking up the winning number in your book and calling it out in the hall.'

'Would I, dad?' said Alanna softly, but with dawning interest.

'And then, from the pulpit, when the returns are all in,' contributed Dan warmly, 'Father Crowley will read out your name,--”With Mrs. Frank Costello's booth--raffle of sofa cus.h.i.+on, by Miss Alanna Costello, twenty-six dollars and thirty-five cents!”

'Oo--would he, dad?' said Alanna, won to smiles and dimples by this charming prospect.

'Of course he would!' said her father. 'Now go back to your seat, machree, and eat your dinner. When mommer takes you and Tess to the matinee to-morrow, ask her to bring you in to me first, and you and I'll step over to Paul's, and pick out a table or a couch, or something. Eh, mommie?'

'And what do you say?' said that lady to Alanna, as the radiant little girl went back to her chair.

Whereupon Alanna breathed a bashful 'Thank you, dad,' into the ruffled yoke of her frock, and the matter was settled.

The next day she trotted beside her father to Paul's big furniture store, and after long hesitation selected a little desk of s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s and dull oak.