The Foreigner Part 20

Tell your mother what I say."

Again the little girl translated, and again the mother made emphatic reply.

"What does she say?"

"She say she not let them go. She fix them herself. Fix them all right."

"Perhaps we better wait, Doctor," interposed Mrs. French. "I'll talk to her and we'll try another day."

"No," said the doctor, catching up a shawl and wrapping it around the little girl, "she's going with me now. There will be a sc.r.a.p, and you will have to get in. I'll back you up."

As the doctor caught up the little child, the mother shouted, "No, no! Not go!"

"I say yes," said the doctor; "I'll get a policeman and put you all in prison. Tell her."

The threat made no impression upon the mother. On the contrary, as the doctor moved toward the door she seized a large carving-knife and threw herself before him. For a moment or two they stood facing each other, the doctor uncertain what his next move should be, but determined that his plan should not fail this time. It was Mrs.

French who interposed. With a smile she laid her hand upon the mother's arm.

"Tell her," she said to the little girl, "that I will go with the children, and I promise that no hurt shall come to them. And I will bring them back again safe. Your mother can come and see them to-morrow--to-day. The hospital is a lovely place. They will have nice toys, dolls, and nice things to eat, and we'll make them better."

Rapidly, almost breathlessly, and with an eager smile on her sweet face, Mrs. French went on to describe the advantages and attractions of the hospital, pausing only to allow the little girl to translate.

At length the mother relented, her face softened. She stepped from the door, laying down her knife upon the table, moved not by the glowing picture of Mrs. French's words, but by the touch upon her arm and the face that smiled into hers. Once more the mother spoke.

"Will you go too?" interpreted the little girl.

"Yes, surely. I go too," she replied.

This brought the mother's final surrender. She seized Mrs. French's hand, and bursting into loud weeping, kissed it again and again.

Mrs. French put her arms around the weeping woman, and unshrinking, kissed the tear-stained, dirty face. Dr. Wright looked on in admiring silence.

"You are a dead sport," he said. "I can't play up to that; but you excite my ambition. Get a shawl around the other kiddie and come along, or I'll find myself kissing the bunch."

Once more he started toward the door, but the mother was before him, talking and gesticulating.

"What's the row now?" said the doctor, turning to the little interpreter.

"She says she must dress them, make them clean."

"It's a big order," said the doctor, "but I submit."

With great energy Mrs. Blazowski proceeded to prepare her children for their momentous venture into the world. The was.h.i.+ng process was simple enough. From the dish-pan which stood upon the hearth half full of dirty water and some of the breakfast dishes, she took a greasy dish-cloth, wrung it out carefully, and with it proceeded to wash, not untenderly, the festering heads, faces and fingers of her children, resorting from time to time to the dish-pan for a fresh supply of water.

This done, she carefully dried the parts thus diligently washed with the handkerchief which she usually wore about her head. Then pinning shawls about their heads, she had her children ready for their departure, and gave them into Mrs. French's charge, sobbing aloud as if she might never see them more.

"Well," said the doctor, as he drove rapidly away, "we're well out of that. I was just figuring what sort of hold would be most fatal to the old lady when you interposed."

"Poor thing!" said Mrs. French. "They're very fond of their children, these Galicians, and they're so suspicious of us.

They don't know any better."

As they pa.s.sed Paulina's house, the little girl Irma ran out from the door.

"My mother want you very bad," she said to Mrs. French.

"Tell her I'll come in this afternoon," said Mrs. French.

"She want you now," replied Irma, with such a look of anxiety upon her face that Mrs. French was constrained to say, "Wait one moment, Doctor. I'll see what it is. I shall not keep you."

She ran into the house, followed by the little girl. The room was full of men who stood about in stolid but not unsympathetic silence, gazing upon Paulina, who appeared to be prostrated with grief. Beside her stood the lad Kalman, the picture of desolation.

"What is it?" cried Mrs. French, running to her. "Tell me what is the matter."

Irma told the story. Early that morning they had gone to the jail, but after waiting for hours they were refused admission by the guard.

"A very cross man send us away," said the girl. "He say he put us in jail too. We can see our fadder no more."

Her words were followed by a new outburst of grief on the part of Paulina and the two children.

"But the Judge said you were to see him," said Mrs. French in surprise. "Wait for me," she added.

She ran out and told the doctor in indignant words what had taken place, a red spot glowing in each white cheek.

"Isn't it a shame?" she cried when she had finished her story.

"Oh, it's something about prison rules and regulations, I guess,"

said the doctor.

"Prison rules!" exclaimed Mrs. French with wrath rare in her.

"I'll go straight to the Judge myself."

"Get in," said the doctor, taking up the lines.

"Where are you going? We can't leave these poor things in this way,"

the tears gathering in her eyes and her voice beginning to break.

"Not much," said the doctor briskly; "we are evidently in for another sc.r.a.p. I don't know where you will land me finally, but I'm game to follow your lead. We'll go to the jail."

Mrs. French considered a moment. "Let us first take these children to the hospital and then we shall meet Paulina at the jail."

"All right," said the doctor, "tell them so. I am at your service."

"You are awfully good, Doctor," said the little lady, her sweet smile once more finding its way to her pale face.

"Ain't I, though?" said the doctor. "If the spring were a little further advanced you'd see my wings sprouting. I enjoy this.

I haven't had such fun since my last football match. I see the finish of that jail guard. Come on."

Within an hour the doctor and Mrs. French drove up to the jail.

There, at the bleak north door, swept by the chill March wind, and away from the genial light of the s.h.i.+ning sun, they found Paulina and her children, a s.h.i.+vering, timid, shrinking group, looking pathetically strange and forlorn in their quaint Galician garb.

The pathos of the picture appeared to strike both the doctor and his friend at the same time.