The Rosie World Part 26

"Here it is, Jackie dear."

Jack pulled off the string, tore open the box, and gaped in wide-eyed delight. "Oh, Rosie, thanks! thanks! It's a beaut!" For one moment mere possession was enough, on the next came an overpowering desire to exhibit his treasure before an admiring and envious world.

"Say, Rosie, I got to run down and see Joe Slattery. I'll be back in a minute."

Mrs. O'Brien put out a detaining hand. "No, you won't be going down to see any Joe Slattery! Dinner's ready and you'll be comin' in with the rest of the family this minute. Come along, Rosie dear."

Rosie paused. "Can't we keep Janet, Ma? Is there enough?"

Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head emphatically. "Sure there's enough and, if there ain't, we'll make it enough."

"Thanks, Mis' O'Brien, but I don't believe I better stay." Janet spoke regretfully. "You know my mother ain't very well these days and I don't like to leave her alone too long."

"Why, Janet!" Rosie looked at her friend in sudden concern. "Is your mother sick?"

Janet shook her head. "I don't know what's the matter with her. It seems like the hot weather and the work and the worry have been too much for her. But I'll be back, Rosie, at three o'clock for our papers. I got two new customers, didn't I, Terry? And, Rosie, what do you think? Terry gave me an extra nickel for each of them."

Janet started off and Mrs. O'Brien exclaimed: "Now, then, for dinner!

All of yez!"

"See you later, Rosie," George Riley remarked, opening the door of his own room.

Mrs. O'Brien called after him excitedly: "Why, Jarge lad, where's this you're going? Aren't you sitting down with the rest of us?"

"I ain't more than had my breakfast," George explained; "and I think I better get in a little nap before I start out on my next run." He nodded to Rosie, smiled, and shut his door.

"Poor Jarge!" Mrs. O'Brien threw sympathetic eyes to heaven and sighed.

Rosie looked at her mother quickly. "Is there anything the matter with Jarge?"

"Poor fella!" Mrs. O'Brien went on in the same lugubrious tone. "He's as honest as the day and I'm sure I wish him every blessing under heaven.

Never in me life have I liked a boarder as much as I like Jarge. He's no trouble at all, at all, and it was mighty kind of his mother inviting you and Geraldine to the country. No, no, Rosie, you must never make the mistake of supposing I'm not fond of Jarge!"

"Ma," Rosie begged; "tell me what's the matter!" She stopped suddenly and two little points of steel came into her blue eyes. "Is it Ellen?

Has she been doing something to him again?"

Mrs. O'Brien looked grieved. "Why, Rosie, I'm surprised at you--I am that, to hear you talk that way about your poor sister Ellen. And such a bit of news as I've got about Ellen, too! Sit down now and, when I serve you, I'll tell you."

There was no hurrying Mrs. O'Brien and Rosie, knowing this, said no more. At heart she gave a little sigh. It was as if a shadow were overcasting the bright joy of her home-coming. She had arrived so full of her own happiness that she had failed to see any evidence of the care and worry which, she realized now, had plainly stamped the faces of her two dearest friends. Poor Janet McFadden! For one reason or another it had always been poor Janet. And now, apparently, it was to be poor George Riley as well.

CHAPTER XXIV

GEORGE TURNS

"Now!" Everything was on the table and there was no further excuse for Mrs. O'Brien's not seating herself. She dropped into a chair and beamed upon Rosie triumphantly. "And just to think, Rosie dear, that you don't yet know about Ellen! Ellen's got a job! She's starting in on eight dollars a week and she's to go to ten in a couple of weeks if she's satisfactory. And you know yourself that twenty dollars is nothing for a fine stenographer to be getting nowadays. And twenty a week means eighty a month and eighty a month means close on to a thousand a year! Now I do say that a thousand a year is a pretty big lump of money for a girl like Ellen to be making!"

Mrs. O'Brien's enthusiasm was genuine but scarcely infectious. Terence jerked his head toward Rosie with a dry aside: "She started work yesterday on a week's trial."

Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, how you talk! On trial, indeed! As if a trial ain't a sure thing with a girl that's got the fine looks and the fine education that Ellen's got!"

"Fine education--rats! I bet she knows as much about stenography as a bunny!"

His mother gazed on him offended and hurt. "Since you're such a wise young man, Mister Terence O'Brien, perhaps you'll be telling us how much you know about it, yourself."

Terry's answer was prompt: "Not a blamed thing! But I tell you what I do know: I know Ellen, and you can take it from me she's a frost."

Rosie sighed plaintively. "But where does Jarge come in? What's the matter with Jarge."

Terence answered her shortly: "Oh, nuthin'. Ellen only played him one of her little tricks last week and he's mad."

"And I must say," Mrs. O'Brien supplemented, "Jarge does surprise me the way he keeps it up. After all, Ellen's only a young girl and he ought to remember that every young girl makes a mistake now and then."

"What mistake did she make this time?" Rosie spoke as quietly as she could.

"It's a long story," her mother said. "Since you've been gone she met a fella named Finn, Larry Finn, and we all thought him very nice, he was that polite with his hair always brushed and s.h.i.+ny and smooth. He had a good job downtown----"

"You know his kind, Rosie," Terry interposed; "a five dollar a week book-keep--silk socks but no unders.h.i.+rt. Oh, he was a great sport! Ellen was crazy about him."

"Terence O'Brien, have ye no manners to be takin' the words out of yir own mother's mouth! Now hold yir tongue while I explain to Rosie."

Terence subsided and Mrs. O'Brien started in afresh: "Well, as I was saying, this Finn fella took a great fancy to Ellen and was coming around every night to see her. He took her to the movies and gave her ice-cream sodas and they were getting on fine. Then last week he was going to take her to the Twirler Club's Annual Ball."

"The Twirlers' Ball!" Rosie looked at her mother questioningly.

That lady waved a rea.s.suring hand. "Oh, the ball was all right this year--perfectly nice and decent. Ellen found out about it beforehand.

Not like last year! No drunks was to be allowed on the floor and none of them disgraceful dances. Oh, if it had been like last year, I'd never have consented to Ellen's going! You know that, Rosie!"

"Huh!" grunted Terry.

His mother paid no heed to him. "As I was saying, Rosie, the night before the ball, Larry had to come excusing himself because they had just told him he would have to stay working till all hours the next night. So there was poor Ellen, who might have had her pick a week or two earlier, left high and dry at the last moment. I tell you, Rosie, it would have wrung your heart to see the poor girl's disappointment. A girl of less spirit would have given up, but not Ellen. Ellen was going to that ball and you know how firm Ellen is once she makes up her mind.

So she just asked Jarge Riley to take her."

"Ma! Do you mean to say she had the cheek to ask poor Jarge after the way she's been treating him all these months!"

"Ah, ah, don't look at me that way, Rosie! Of course I mean it. Why shouldn't she ask him? He's a nice fella and, besides that, he's a friend of the family."

"Say, Terry, what do you know about that?" Rosie appealed to her brother sure that he, at least, would understand the humiliation she felt both at Ellen's manoeuvre and at their mother's calm acceptance of it.

Terry did understand and gave her the sympathy of a quick nod and a short laugh. "What do you expect? You know Ellen."

"Well, all I got to say is: it's a shame!" Tears of indignation stood in Rosie's eyes. "She treats him like a dog and then, when it suits her, she makes use of him. It's an outrage--that's what it is! I suppose he went, of course. Poor Jarge is so easy."

Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head. "Sure he went. He didn't want to at first because he didn't like Ellen mixing up with the Twirlers. When she insisted, he said, all right, he'd go."

"Is that all?" Rosie asked.