A Sunny Little Lass Part 14

"Oh! take me to him. Tell me, tell me where he is. I've looked so long and I don't know where and--please, please, please."

For a moment n.o.body spoke; not even Colonel Bonnicastle, for it was he, indeed, though he silently motioned to a trustworthy man who had drawn near to take the dogs away; and who, in obedience, whistling imperatively, gathered their chains in his hands and led them back to their kennel.

When the dogs had disappeared, the master of Broadacres sank into a near-by chair, wiping his brow and pityingly regarded the little girl who still knelt, imploringly. He was trying to comprehend what had happened, what she meant, and if he had ever seen her before. Captain Simon Beck! That was a familiar name, surely, but of that ungrateful seaman, who wouldn't be given a "Snug Harbor" whether or no, of him he had never heard nor even thought since his one memorable uncomfortable visit to Elbow Lane.

"Simon Beck--Simon Beck," he began, musingly. "Yes, I know a Simon Beck, worthy seaman, and would befriend him if I could. Is he your grandfather, child, and what has happened to him that you speak to me so--so--well, let us say--rudely?"

Then he added, in that commanding tone which few who knew him ever disobeyed:

"Get up at once, child. Your kneeling to me is absurd, nor do I know in what way I can help you, though you think I can do so--apparently. Why!

How strange--how like--"

He had stooped and raised Glory, gently forcing her to her feet, and as he did so, Bonny Angel turned her own face around from the girl's breast where she had buried it in her terror of the dogs.

Wasted and shorn of her beautiful hair, clothed in the discarded rags of a Fogarty twin, it would have taken keen eyes indeed to recognize in the little outcast the radiant "Guardian Angel" who had flashed upon Glory's amazed sight that day in Elbow Lane; yet something about it there was which made the near-sighted colonel grope hastily for his eyegla.s.ses and in his haste overlook them, so that he muttered angrily at his own awkwardness.

Into the blue eyes of the little one herself crept a puzzled wondering look, that fixed itself upon the perplexed gentleman with a slowly growing comprehension.

Just then, too, when forgetting her own anxiety, Glory looked from the baby to the man and back again, startled and wondering, a lady came to the doorway and exclaimed:

"Why, brother, whatever is the matter! Such an uproar----"

But her sentence was never finished. Bonny's gaze, distracted from the colonel to his sister, glued itself to the lady's face, while the perplexity in the blue eyes changed to delight. With a seraphic smile upon her dainty lips, a smile that would have made her recognizable anywhere, under any disguise, the little creature propelled herself from Glory's arms to the outstretched arms of Miss Laura, shrilling her familiar announcement:

"Bonny come! Bonny come!"

How can the scene be best explained, how best described? Maybe in words of honest Timothy Dowd himself; who, somewhat later, returning to the Queen Anne cottage, called the entire Fogarty family about him and announced to the a.s.sembled household:

"Well, sirs! Ye could knock me down with a feather!" after which he sank into profound silence.

"Huh! And is that what ye're wantin' of us, is it? Well, you never had sense," remarked Mary, turning away indignantly.

Thus roused, the railroader repeated:

"Sure, an' ye could. A feather'd do it, an' easy. But sit down, woman.

Sit down as I bid ye, an' hear the most wonderful, marvelous tale a body ever heard this side old Ireland. Faith, I wish my tongue was twicet as long, an' I knew better how to choose the beginnin' from the end of me story, or the middle from any one. But sit down, sit down, la.s.s, an' bid your seven onruly gossoons to keep the peace for onct, while I tell ye a story beats all the fairy ones ever dreamed. But--where to begin!"

"Huh! I'll give you a start," answered Mrs. Fogarty, impatiently. "You went from here: now go on with your tale."

"I went from here," began Timothy, obediently, and glad of even this small aid in his task. "I went from here an' I follyed the three of 'em, monkey an' man an' girl----"

"And the baby. That's four," corrected Dennis, junior, winking at a brother.

"Hist, boy! Childer should speak when they're spoke to," returned Timothy, severely, then continued, at length: "I went from here. And I follyed----"

Here he became so lost in retrospection that Mary tapped him on the shoulder, when he resumed as if no break had occurred:

"Them four to the gate. But havin' no business of me own on the place, I stayed behind, a listenin'. An', purty soon up pipes the beautiful music; an' right atop o' that comes--bedlam! All the dogs a barkin', the women servants screeching, the old gentleman commandin', and me colleen huggin' the Angel tight an' saying never a say, though the poor Dago Eyetalian was trembling himself into his grave, till all a sudden like, up flies Glory, heedin' dogs nor no dogs, an' flings herself at Broadacres' feet, demanding her grandpa! Fact, 'twas the same old gentleman she'd been blamin' for spiritin' away the blind man; and now comes true he knows no more the sailor's whereabouts than them two twinses yon. But I've me cart afore me horse, as usual. For all along o'

this, out comes from that elegant mansion another old person, the lady, Miss Laura Bonnicastle, by your leave. An' she looks at the Angel in me colleen's arms an' the Angel looks at her; an', whisht! afore you could wink, out flies the knowin' baby from the one to the other! An' then, bless us! The time there was! An' you could hear a pin drop, an' in a minute you couldn't, along of them questions an' answers, firing around, from one person to another, hit-or-miss-like, an' all talkin' to onct, or sayin' never a word, any one. An' so this is the trouble, Mary Fogarty, that Dennis wouldn't mention. The Angel is their own child, and Dennis Fogarty's the clever chap suspicioned it himself."

"Huh! Now you're fairy-talein', indeed. 'Tis old bachelor and old maid the pair of them is. I know that much if I don't know more," returned the house-mistress, reprovingly.

Timothy was undisturbed and ignored her reproof, as he went on with his story:

"Their child was left for them to care for. The only child of their nevvy an' niece, who's over seas at the minute, a takin' a vacation, with hearts broke because of word comin' the baby was lost. Lost she was the very day them Bonnicastles set for leaving the city house an' comin'

to Broadacres; an' intrustin' the little creatur' by the care of a nursemaid--bad luck to her--to be took across the big bridge, over to that Brooklyn where did reside a friend of the whole family with whom the baby would be safe till called for; meanin' such time as them Bonnicastles had done with the movin' business an' could take care of it theirselves, proper. Little dreamin' they, poor souls, how that that same nursemaid would stop to chatter with a friend of her own, right at the bridge-end and leave the child out of her arms just for the minute, who, set on the ground by herself, runs off in high glee an' no more to that story, till she finds herself in the 'littlest house,' where me colleen lived; an' what come after ye know. But ye don't know how the nursemaid went near daft with the fear, and wasted good days a searchin'

an' searchin' on her own account; the Bonnicastles' friend-lady over in Brooklyn not expecting no such visit an' not knowin' aught; 'cause the maid carried the note sayin' so in her own pocket. All them rich folks bein' so intimate-like, preparin' 'em wasn't needful. And then, when the truth out, all the police in the city set to the hunt, and word sent across the ocean to the ravin'-distracted young parents, an'--now, all's right! Such joy, such thanksgivin', such cryin' an' laughin'--bless us!

I couldn't mention it."

"But that poor little Glory! Hard on her to find the Angel's folks an'

not her own!" said Mary, gently.

"Not hard a bit! She's that onselfish like, 'twould have done you proud to see her clappin' her hands an' smilin', though the tears yet in her eyes, 'cause she an' Bonny must part. And 'How's that?' asks Miss Laura, catching the girl to her heart and kissin' her ill-cropped head, 'do you think we will not stand by you in your search and help you with money and time and every service, you who have been so faithful to our darlin'?' And then the pair o' them huggin' each other, like they'd loved each other sence the day they was born."

Here, for sheer want of breath, Timothy's narrative ended, but Mary having a vivid imagination, allowed it full play then and prophesied, sagely and happily:

"Well, then, all of ye listen, till I tell ye how 'twill be. That old man was run over in the street was Captain Simon Beck; and though he was hurted bad, he wasn't killed; and though them clever little newsboys couldn't find him, the folks Colonel Bonnicastle sets searchin' will.

An' when he's found, he'll be nigh well; an' he'll be brought out here an' kep' in a little cottage somewhere on Broadacres property, with Glory to tend him an' to live happy ever afterward. An' that'll be the only 'Snug Harbor' any one'll ever need. An' we shan't have lost our Glory but got her for good."

"But them Billy b.u.t.ton and Nick Parson boys, what of them?" demanded Dennis, junior, his own sympathy running toward the clever gamins.

"They'll come too, if they want to. They'll come, all the same, now and again, just for vari'ty like," comfortably a.s.sented his mother. "An'

your father'll get well, an' we'll move into that other house down yon, further from the big one; an' them Bonnicastles'll fix this up prime an'

Glory'll live here."

"So it ought to be, an' that we all should live happy forever an' a day!" cried Timothy, enjoying her finish of his tale more than he had his own part in it.

And so, in truth it all happened, and Mary's cheerful prophecy was fulfilled in due time.