Part 7 (1/2)
He picked up three withered buds-had some hands very dear to him held them?
”Good-by. I shall find Barker's Court and you, never fear.” Then he plunged into the crowd, not daring to look back. What a week it had been, beginning with sorrow and loss, and-had he found the Master? Had these strange, brave little heathens, who knew not G.o.d, opened his eyes and his heart to that better way?
IV-THE DELIGHTS OF WEALTH
The children sat there in a maze of bewilderment. They knew nothing of fairy G.o.dmothers, or Santa Claus, or the dainty myths of childhood. Four years Bess had been in prison, twice four years Dilsey Quinn had been a bound slave. Not that Mrs. Quinn had been hard above all mothers. In the next house there were two little girls who sat and sewed from daylight to dark, and had no Sat.u.r.day even, the age of Owen and Bess. Barker's Court was an industrious place for children, at least. If they could have played when the men were sleeping off orgies, or the women gossiping, they would have had many a respite from toil.
This wonderful thing that had befallen Bess and Dil was so beyond any event that had ever happened before, and their imaginations were so limited, they could never have dreamed such a romance. John Travis had disappeared in the throng. But there was the bag of fruit, and the sweet knowledge that nothing could take away.
The roar of vehicles had grown less. Pedestrians were thinning out, for supper-time was drawing nigh. The shadows were lengthening; the wind had a certain grateful coolness. Still they sat as in a trance. The ”cop”
had received a ”tip” to keep a kindly watch over them, but he would have done it without any reward.
”Dil!” The soft voice broke the hush, for it was as if they two were alone in the crowd.
The little fingers closed over the firm brown ones. They looked at each other for some moments with grave, wondering eyes. Then Dil rose soberly, settled Bess anew, and pushed the wagon along. The paper bag lay in plain sight, but no one molested it.
Dil began to come back to her narrow, practical world. Heaven, as John Travis had put it, was something for Bess rather than herself. It was too great a feast to sit down to all at once. And Dil was not much used to feasting, even playing at it with bits of broken crockery and make-believes, as so many children do. They left the enchanted country behind them, and returned to more familiar sights and sounds. Still, the delicious fragrance of the pears, the flavor of the peaches, the sweetness of the candy, was so much beyond the treats over on the East Side.
”Bess,” she said, stopping at a show window on the avenue, ”jes' look at the caps an' things. Do you s'pose it's real money in the bag? For it's yours, an' you do need a new cap. That old one'll hardly hold together.
If some one doesn't give mammy a pile of things pritty soon, you'll have to go naked.”
They both laughed. ”O Dil! wasn't it splendid?” and Bess turned her head around, as if she might still see their beneficent friend.
”Let me feel in my bank,” she said.
Dil handed her the bag, full of fruity fragrance. She drew out a bill with a fearful little gesture.
”They're good, all of 'em,” she said rea.s.suringly. ”He wouldn't give us bad money to get us into trouble. An' we never have any real money to spend.”
Still Dil eyed the bill doubtfully.
”An' flannils, an' O Dil, couldn't you buy _one_ new dress? I'd like to have a spandy new one for onct.”
”I s'pose mother wouldn't know when onct it was washed. An' I might crumple down the bows on the cap. O Bess, you'd look so sweet! I wisht you'd had a new cap to-day. He said 'twas your money. An' I was most afear'd it was like thim things Patsey told about, when you raised the han'kercher they wasn't there!”
”But they're here.” She laughed with soft exultation. ”Le's go in, Dil.
I never went shoppin' in my life! You could hide the things away from mammy. There'd be no use givin' it to her. She's got enough for gin an'
to go to Cunny Island an' MacBride's. But jinky! wouldn't she crack our skulls if she _did_ know it. O Dil, let's never, _never_ tell.”
”She couldn't make me tell if she killed me.”
”Le's go in. Can you carry me?”
She drew the wagon up by the corner of the show-window, and, taking Bess in her arms, entered the store and seated her on a stool, standing so she could brace the weak little back. Of the few dreams that had found lodgment in Dil's prosaic brain, was this of indulging her motherly, womanly instinct, shopping for Bess. She felt dazed to have it come true. Her face flushed, her breath came irregularly, her heart beat with a delicious, half-guilty pleasure.
There was no one else in the store. A pale, tired, but kindly-looking woman came to wait on her. Dil tried on caps with laces and ribbons, and Bess looked so angelic it broke her heart to take them off. But the plain ones were less likely to betray them. Then they looked at dresses and the coveted ”flannils,” and one nice soft petticoat, and oh, some new stockings.
A shrewd little shopper was Dil. She counted up every purchase, and laid aside the sum, really surprised at her bargains and the amount she had left. The attendant was very sympathetic, and inquired what had befallen Bess. Dil said she had been hurted by a bad fall, that her mother was 'most always out to work, and that they hadn't any father. She was afraid her mother might be was.h.i.+ng somewhere, and hear the story, if she was too explicit.