Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road Part 10

that's not beyond a bit o' pleasure an' the sight o' my boy. It's such a time since I've seen the lad that I'm most afeared I'll not be knowin' me own son."

"Tut, tut! You don't think that. I'd know a McVeigh anywhere if I met him," the priest expostulated.

"I've been savin' me odd change these two or three years, an' I've plinty to pay me way comfortably. I'm wonderin', though, how the ould place would git on without me!" Nancy remarked, dubiously.

"Never suffer in the least," the priest affirmed.

"Ye may think so, but whin I've been here day in an' day out since me hair was as fair as Katie Duncan's, ye can understand it takes a deal o' courage fer me to trust to others," she retorted.

The priest nodded his head slowly in acquiescence.

Two weeks of laborious calculations and preparations preceded the day set for Nancy's departure, and during the interval her many friends discussed the journey so fully with her that her mind was a maze of conflicting doubts. But her contumacious nature did not permit a retreat from her decision, and to make it utterly impossible she went over to the new station and gave over forty-eight dollars for a ticket.

It seemed a reckless expenditure, but a peep every night at the photographs on the wall of her room drove the mercenary aspect of it from her and left her firmly resolved and intensely happy.

The fateful hour came at last, and quite a gathering of familiar faces was at the station to see her depart. Father Doyle, Mrs. Jim Bennet and family, Katie Duncan, Mrs. Conors, old Donald, Dr. Dodona and wife, the two Piper children and a host of others saw that she was comfortably established in the big car, much to the evident amus.e.m.e.nt of the loitering tourists. She must have kissed at least twenty people before the conductor came briskly on the scene and sent them pell-mell on to the platform. The whistle shrieked and the train glided slowly away. Nancy, a strange figure, with widow's bonnet, bright colored shawl and face wreathed in smiles, leaned far out of the window, waving an answer to the shouted farewells.

Mistress McVeigh spent a major portion of the evening in getting acquainted with her environments. Her previous ride in the cars had been her honeymoon, but that was so long ago that she had forgotten even the sensation. Its novelty now intruded on her peace of mind, and she enjoyed it, although it was tiring. She sat gazing about in silent contemplation until the lamps had been lighted and the negro porter was shouting his evening dinner call. His words reminded her that she had a basket of good things, so she took off her bonnet, spread her shawl on the adjacent seat and proceeded to lay out the contents. Most of the people in the coach were going forward to the diner, but such extravagance did not appeal to her. But she did notice that a very delicately featured lady, with a small baby and a boy of two or three, was endeavoring with patient though apparently ineffectual effort to satisfy the fretful wants of her little ones. The worried flush in the young mother's cheek, and the trembling of her lips, roused Nancy's compa.s.sionate nature, and, although she would not have confessed it, she was lonesome. To be amongst people unspoken to and unnoticed was a revelation that had never existed in her tiny world. She watched the struggling woman covertly for a short time, while she nibbled at her lunch, and then she could bear it no longer, so she stepped across the aisle.

"If ye please, ma'am, I'll take the baby fer a spell, while ye give the boy his supper," she volunteered.

The lady shot a grateful glance at the queer old body who had accosted her.

"If you don't mind the bother," she replied, sweetly.

"It's no bother, sure," Nancy declared, emphatically, and her eyes dwelt over-long on her new acquaintance. The lady reminded her of someone, then like a flash it came to her, and she looked again so persistently that the lady was embarra.s.sed. It was Jennie's mother she remembered, the night she came, sick and broken, into the tavern, with her baby in her arms.

"The poor wee thing's fair excited," she murmured, as she cuddled the tiny bundle against her breast.

"Won't you take tea with us?" the mother inquired, her face lighting up at the prospect.

"Ye must just help yerselves from my basket, then," Nancy protested, as she brought it over.

Mrs. Morris, for such was the lady's name, proved an excellent travelling companion. She was not only a splendid conversationalist, but also she knew how to procure warm tea from the porter. Soon she and Nancy were quite at ease with each other, Nancy contributing her share at the entertaining, with her homely gossip of the Monk Road and its people. The baby was her chief solace, however, and its mother only had it during the midnight hours, so constant a nurse was she.

And the atom itself was tractable beyond its own mother's belief.

The process of making up the beds in the sleeper gave Nancy an unpleasant half-hour. She did not admire the masculine performances of the porter.

"It's no work for an ignorant black man," she informed Mrs. Morris, in a deprecatory tone. Then she spoke directly to the negro: "Ye can just pull down the cover, an' I'll do me own fixin'."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ye can just pull down the cover, an' I'll do me own fixin'."]

"Yes, mum," he answered, grinning, but he did not desist from his duties.

"He's one of thim furriners, who don't know what ye're sayin', I suppose," she observed, resignedly.

When the conductor made his last round of the cars, before the lamps were extinguished, Nancy stopped him and questioned anxiously, "Ye'll be sure to waken me at Chicago?"

"Why, ma'am, we won't arrive there until tomorrow evening," he answered.

"So ye say, but I'm strange to the run o' trains, an' I don't want to be goin' miles past the place and niver know it," she objected.

"Never fear, missus, you'll be looked after properly," he said, consolingly.

The night and day journey to Chicago was so full of pleasant happenings that Nancy could scarcely realize it was almost over. With the Morris baby asleep in her arms, she would gaze from the window at the panorama of country drifting past, interested in its strangeness only in a superficial sort of way, while her inmost thoughts pictured the great city to which she was going, and wherein she expected her son to be the most predominant figure. Each hour seemed to be bringing him closer to her, and a mild yearning centred about her heart. Occasionally a twinge of apprehension would mar her tranquillity. She wondered if he would know her, and if he had received the postcard which she had written with so much care a week previous. She was too conscious of her happiness to let such thoughts disturb her for long, and then Mrs.

Morris lived in Chicago and had promised to watch over her welfare until she was safe in Corney's keeping.

The gradual increase in houses cl.u.s.tered into villages along the way warned her of the near approach to her destination.

"I hope I may see more of ye," she observed to Mrs. Morris, after a long silence of reflection.

"It's a big city, and you will be very busy," the little lady explained. "But I shall never forget your kindness to me. I should have been very lonely and tired if you hadn't made friends," she continued.

"It's been a G.o.d's blessin', the knowin' o' ye an' the kiddies," Nancy a.s.sured her.

This simple-minded old body had made a deep inroad into the city mother's affections, and her joy at the early prospect of meeting her husband was tempered with a sincere sadness at the parting which it would entail.

The evening was growing quickly into darkness as they sped along, and an unusual bustle amongst the other pa.s.sengers had commenced. Now that the hugeness of the outlying districts of Chicago were being unfolded to Nancy with the long lines of lighted street, and starry streaks of electric cars flas.h.i.+ng by like meteors in a southern sky, she became aware of a keen sense of fear. It was all so different from anything in her past experience. It seemed as if she had broken ties with everything familiar except the sweet face of her companion and the two sleeping children. The roar of the city had now enveloped the train, and presently it began to slacken speed, as it had done a score of times before in the last hour. The conductor came into the car, calling out, "Chicago!" and Nancy's heart beat so that it almost choked her. The bright glare of the station came down into their window from the roofs of adjacent trains, and then, before she rightly understood what was happening, she was out on to the platform with her arms full of her own and Mrs. Morris' bundles. A short man detached himself from a crowd that waited without the gates far in front, and came das.h.i.+ng towards them.

"It is my husband," Mrs. Morris whispered, breathlessly. Next moment she was locked in his arms. Nancy gazed furtively about, peering at the faces, and hoping that one might be her son. After a long scrutiny, she turned a despairing, helpless face to her late travelling companion. Mrs. Morris understood, and came to her rescue quickly.

"You are a stranger in this big city, so you had better come home with us for to-night," she suggested.

"I wrote him to be waitin' fer me, but he must have forgotten," Nancy returned, brokenly.

"Yes, you must come, Mrs.--" Mr. Morris began, then hesitated.

"Mrs. McVeigh, from the Monk Road," his wife told him, with a happy smile.

"The Monk Road, where is that, pray?" Mr. Morris asked, in puzzled tones.

"D'ye not know that?" Nancy exclaimed, incredulously.

The man shook his head.

She considered awhile, then made a gesture of utter helplessness. She knew no adequate description of the geographical position of her home.

It was just the Monk Road, running from an indefinite somewhere to an equally mysterious ending, and anyone who did not know that was lacking in their education. They threaded their way through the press of people to the narrow street, and entered a cab. Then, while the husband and wife talked in subdued tones, Nancy listened to the babel of clanging gongs and footsteps of many people on the pavements over which they were pa.s.sing. She suddenly bethought herself of questioning Mr. Morris as to his knowledge of her son Cornelius. His answer was as perplexing as everything else she had encountered in that strange new world. He had never heard of him. Fortunately she had a business card of her son's firm, and after much cogitation Mr. Morris decided that he could find the establishment in the morning.

Nancy secured a much-needed night's rest at the home of the Morris family, and was up and had the kettle boiling on the range before the appearance of the household.

"I'd no enjoy the day at all if I wasn't doin' somethin' o' the sort!

An' ye're tired," she responded to Mr. Morris' surprised e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

She had to curb her anxiety to be off until after the noon hour, and then, with a promise to return, if her plans miscarried, she was piloted aboard the Overhead by Mr. Morris.

"I'll drop you off in front of the block in which your son's offices are situated," he informed her by the way. The run through the city was perhaps a distance of four miles, and while Nancy gazed in open-mouthed wonder, the little man pointed out to her the places of note along the route.

"It's all just wonderful," was the text of her replies.

They drew up at a little station, and from it descended to the pavement, and at a great door in a block that made her neck ache to see its top, he left her, with a list of directions that only served to shatter the remnant of location which her mind contained. She looked uncertainly about her until her eyes rested on the sign, "Beware of Pickpockets!" then she clutched her old leathern wallet, and with frightened glances hurried inside. But here a second labyrinth opened to her. A gla.s.s door led into a very s.p.a.cious apartment, where a number of men were counting money in little iron cages. She boldly marched in and asked the nearest one, "Please, sir, is this Cornelius McVeigh's office?" The man addressed stopped his counting and scowled at her, but something in her wrinkled, serious face caused him to relent of his churlishness.