Without a Home Part 19

"Come," cried Belle impatiently, as they made their way down Sixth Avenue, which was crowded at that hour; "why do you walk so slowly?

If my mother was as badly off as you say yours is, I'd fly to her."

"No, you wouldn't, if you had scarcely eaten anything for two days."

"What!" Belle exclaimed, stopping short and looking at her companion to see if she were in earnest. Something in her expression caused the impulsive child to seize her hand and drag her into a bakery near. Then s.n.a.t.c.hing out her little purse she thrust it into the girl's hands and said, "Here, take all I have and buy what you like best."

But instead of buying anything, the stranger looked wistfully into the excited and deeply sympathetic face, and said slowly, "I don't believe you're bad after all."

"Oh, I'm bad enough--bad as most girls of my age," said the innocent girl recklessly, "but I'm not bad enough to keep back a penny if I knew any one was hungry. Stop looking at me and buy what you like, or else let me do it. Take home some of this jelly-cake to your mother. That would tempt my appet.i.te if it ever needed any tempting.

I half believe you are shamming all this, you act so queer."

"Come with me," said the girl, for the people in the store were looking at them curiously. When in the street she continued, "You are not bad. What is your name?"

"Belle Jocelyn."

"My name is Clara Bute. I AM hungry. I'm faint for food, but may it choke me if I eat any before I take something home to mother!

Cake is not what either of us need, although it made me ravenous to see it. You haven't much money here, Belle, and small as the sum is, I don't know when I can repay it."

"Oh, stop that kind of talk," cried Belle; "you'll drive me wild.

Let us get what your mother DOES want and take it to her without another word."

They purchased bread and milk, a little tea, a bit of beef, a bundle of kindling-wood, and then Belle's slender funds gave out.

With these they turned into a side street and soon reached a tall tenement.

"Oh," sighed Clara, "how can I climb those dreadful stairs! We live at the top."

"Drink some of the milk," said Belle kindly, "and then let me carry everything."

"I guess I'll have to or I'll never get up at all." Slowly and painfully she mounted flight after flight, sitting down at last and resting after each ascent. "I didn't--realize--I was so weak,"

she panted.

"Tell me your room," said Belle, "and I'll come back and help you."

"It's the--last one--back--top floor. I've given out."

Belle left her sitting on the stairs and soon reached the door, which had been left slightly ajar for air, for the evening was sultry. She pushed it open with her foot, since her hands were so full, and with her eyes fixed on the articles she was carrying so as to drop nothing, she crossed the small room to a table and put them down before looking around.

"There's some--mistake," said a very low, hollow voice.

Belle was almost transfixed by eyes as black as her own, gleaming out of cavernous sockets and from the most emaciated face she had ever seen. It seemed as if the dead were speaking to her. At any rate, if the woman were not dead she soon would be, and the thought flashed through Belle's mind that she would be the cause of her death, since she had taken her daughter's place and robbed them of sustenance. She who had been ready to face a whole shopful of hostile people with undaunted eyes was seized with a remorseful panic, and ran sobbing down to Clara, crying, "Oh, do come--let me carry you"; and this she half did in her excitement. "Give your mother something to make her better right away. Let me help you--tell me what to do."

Clara went to her mother and kissed her tenderly, whispering, "Courage, momsy, I've got something nice for you." Then she turned and said, "You are too excited, Belle. I'll do everything, and make the little we have go a great way. You would waste things. I know just what to do, only give me time," and she soaked some of the bread in the milk and began feeding her mother, who swallowed with great difficulty.

"I'll take no more--till--I see you--eat something," gasped the poor woman. "Who gave you all this? Who's that?" pointing feebly at Belle.

"I'm the girl that took Clara's place," Belle began, with a fresh burst of sobs. "I didn't know I was doing it, and now I'll never forgive myself."

Clara looked at her wonderingly as she explained: "The foreman said you asked Mr. Schriven to make a place for you, but I don't believe you meant that he should 'sack' me to do it. Why, you are nothing but a great, warm-hearted child. The girls said you were 'knowing,' and could 'play as deep a game as the next one,' and that the foreman about the same as owned it to them. It's all his doing and his master's. They both care more for a yard of ribbon than for a girl, body and soul."

"Well," said Belle, with bitter emphasis, "I'll never work for them again--never, never."

"Don't say that," resumed Clara, after coaxing her mother to take a little more nourishment, and then sitting down to eat something herself. "If you are poor you must do the best you can. Now that I know you I'd rather you had my place than any one else, for"--she gave a swift glance at her mother's closed eyes, and then whispered in Belle's ear--"I couldn't keep it much longer. For the last two weeks it has seemed I'd drop on the floor where you stood to-day, and every night I've had harder work to climb these stairs. Oh, Lord!

I wish mother and I could both stay here now till we're carried down together feet foremost."

"Don't talk that way," pleaded Belle, beginning to cry again.

"We'll all do for you now, and you both will get better."

"Who's 'we all'? Would you mind telling me a little about who you are, and how you came to get my place?"

Belle's brief sketch of herself, her history, and how the recent events had come about, was very simple, but strong and original, and left no doubt in her listener's mind.

"My gracious!" Clara cried, as the room darkened, "your folks'll be wild about you. I've nothing to offer you but your own, and I've kept you talking when you must have been tired and hungry, but you are so full of life that you put a bit of life in me. It's ages since I felt as you do, and I'll never feel so again. Now run home with your mind at rest. You have done us more good than you have harm, and you never meant us any harm at all."

"Indeed I did not," cried Belle, "but I'm not through with you yet. I'll bring Millie back with me and a lot of things," and she darted away.

The inmates of the two rooms at the Old Mansion were, indeed, anxious over Belle's prolonged absence. Her father had gone to the shop; Mrs. Wheaton, with her ap.r.o.n thrown over her head, was on the sidewalk with Mildred, peering up and down through the dusk, when the half-breathless girl appeared.

Her story was soon told, and Mrs. Wheaton was taken into their confidence. From trembling apprehension on Belle's behalf, kind Mrs. Jocelyn was soon deep in sympathy for the poor woman and her daughter, and offered to go herself and look after them, but Mildred and Mrs. Wheaton took the matter into their own hands, and Belle, after gulping down a hasty supper, was eager to return as guide.

Mr. Jocelyn, who had returned from the closed store on a run, had so far recovered from his panic concerning his child that he said he would bring a physician from the dispensary, and, taking the number, went to do his part for those who had become "neighbors unto them." A woman on the same floor offered to look after Mrs.

Wheaton's children for an hour or two, and the two sisters and the stout English woman, carrying everything they could think of to make the poor creatures comfortable, and much that they could ill spare, started on their errand of mercy. It never occurred to them that they were engaged in a charity or doing a good deed. They were simply following the impulses of their hearts to help those of whose sore need they had just learned. Mildred panted a little under her load before she reached the top of those long, dark stairs.

"I could never get to heaven this way," muttered Belle, upon whom the day of fatigue and excitement was beginning to tell. "It's up, up, up, till you feel like pitching the man who built these steps head first down 'em all. It's Belle, Clara," she said, after a brief knock at the door; then entering, she added, "I told you I'd come back soon with help for you."

"I'm sorry I've nothing to make a light with," Clara answered; "the moon has been so bright of late that we did without light, and then I got all out of money. We either had to pay the rent or go into the street, unless some one took us in. Besides, mother was too sick to be moved."

"I've brought two candles," said Mrs. Wheaton. "They're heasier managed hon a 'ot night," and she soon had one burning on the table and another on the mantel. "I vant to see vat's to be done," she continued, "because I must give yer a 'arty lift him a jiffy and be back to my children hagain." Then going to the sick woman she took her hand and felt her pulse. "'Ow do yer find yerself, mum?"

she asked.

"Oh, I'm much--better--I shall--get well now," the poor soul gasped, under the strange hallucination of that disease which, although incurable, ever promises speedy health to its victims.

"That's a splendid; that's the way to talk," cried Belle, who had been oppressed with the fear that the woman would die, and that she in some sense would be to blame. "Clara, this is sister Millie that I told you about," and that was all the introduction the two girls ever had.

"Vy didn't you send yer mother to a 'ospital?" Mrs. Wheaton asked, joining the girls at the table.

"Don't say 'hospital' so mother can hear you. The very word would kill her now, for there's nothing on earth she dreads more than that they'll separate us and send her to a hospital. I've sometimes thought it would have been best, and then it seemed it would kill her at once, she was so opposed to it. That we might keep together and to buy her delicacies I've parted with nearly everything in the room, as you see," and it was bare indeed. A bed from which the element of comfort had long since departed, two rickety chairs, a pine table, a rusty stove, and a few dishes and cooking utensils were about all there was left. With eyes slowly dilating Mildred took in the bleak truth, but said only a few gentle words and was very busy. She lifted Mrs. Bute's head, while Clara gave her a little bread soaked in wine, and then aided Mrs. Wheaton in making the room and bed a little more like what they should be by means of the articles they had brought. Clara wonderingly saw that her little closet was stocked with supplies for days to come. Her mother's preternaturally brilliant eyes followed every movement, also, with a dumb but eager questioning. Tired Belle in the meantime had drawn a chair to the table, and with her head resting on her arms had dropped asleep in a moment.

"Why should your sister work in a store if you're not poor?" Clara asked Mildred. "You can't be poor and spare all these things."

"Yes, we're poor, but not so poor as you are," said Mildred simply.

"Belle touched our hearts in your behalf, and we see you need a little neighborly help."

"Well, I was never so mistaken in any one in my life," Clara exclaimed, looking at the sleeping girl, with a remorseful gush of tears. "There isn't a bad streak in her."

At this moment the door opened, and two girls, who had been Clara's companions at the shop, appeared with a few meagre parcels. Before asking them in she pulled them back in the hall and there were a few moments of eager whispering. Then they all came in and looked at Belle, and Clara stooped down and kissed her lightly, at which the girl smiled and murmured, "Dear little mother--always brooding over her chicks."

"She thinks she's home," explained Mildred, with moist eyes.

"This is her sister," said Clara, "and this lady is a friend of theirs. I know they've robbed themselves, they've brought so much."