In Wild Rose Time

“And here is a blue belt ribbon for the little girl,” said the lady. “It’s been in the window, and has two faded places, but you can tie them in the bow.”

Dil had been struggling between economy and a belt ribbon. She raised her brown eyes so full of delight that words were hardly needed.

They packed up their goods and departed. Bess wore her cap, and held up her head like a real lady. I doubt if there were two happier children in the whole city.

Dusk was beginning to fall; but all the stores were in a glow, and now people were coming out again after supper. They seldom stayed this late, but to-night they were quite safe. And oh, how splendid it all was! the happiness of a lifetime.

Bess kept turning partly round and talking out her delight. Pain and weariness were forgotten. They laughed in sheer gladness. If John Travis could have seen them, he would have said he had never in his life made such an investment of five dollars.

“And we’ve only spent a little over two. Oh, what a lot of things you can buy when you have some money! An’, Dil, we’ll put away a good bit, so’s when there ain’t many babies mother won’t bang you. Oh, she’d kill us both dead an’ take the money if she knew, wouldn’t she?”

“She would that,” subjoined Dil grimly.

Poor Dil had been banged pretty severely in her short day. Last spring Mrs. Quinn had been complained of, as the “banging” had been so severe that Dil had fainted, and had to keep her bed several days.

“Oh, I wisht we wasn’t ever going home,” sighed Bess. “If I had two good legs we’d run away like that Mullin girl. An’ now that I’ve got some clo’es, I’m sorry we can’t go right off. Nex’ spring – how many months, Dil?”

August was almost ended. Seven long, weary months at the best.

“There’s Thanksgivin’ an’ Christmas, an’ – an’ St. Patrick’s; that’s in March, I know. An’ after that it gen’ally comes warm. Oh, it seems as if I couldn’t wait! But the man will come with Christiana, an’ then we’ll find how to go without gettin’ lost or makin’ a mistake. Ain’t it queer? I should think everybody’d want to go.”

The big eyes were full of wonder.

“Well, you see the people who have money an’ things an’ flowers an’ journeys an’ live in grand houses don’t need to be in a hurry. ’Tain’t of so much account to them. An’ I guess people haven’t got the straight of it, someway.”

Poor Dil! She wasn’t very straight in her own mind. If God could give people so much, why didn’t he do it now? Or if they had to go to heaven for it, why wasn’t it made plain, and you could be let to start whenever you desired?

Bess’s confidence gave her a curiously apprehensive feeling. Suppose there wasn’t any heaven? The mystery was incomprehensible.

It was late when they reached home. Oh, the sickening heat and smells! But at this hour on Saturday night the court was comparatively quiet. The revelry began later.

Dan sat on the stoop crying. He had been in a fight, and the under dog at that, and had one black eye, and his jacket torn to ribbons.

“An’ mother’ll wollop me for the jacket,” he whimpered.

“Come an’ have yer eye tied up with cold water. I did a bit of work this afternoon, an’ got some goodies, an’ you shall have some. Oh, it’s pritty bad, Dan. Take my penny an’ go buy an oyster, – that’ll help get the black out.”

Dan was mightily tempted to spend the penny otherwise, but the thought of the goodies restrained him. Dil took Bess and the “treasures” up-stairs, and laid her gently on the old lounge. She had everything put away when Dan returned, so she washed his face and bound up his eye.

He ceased sniffling, and cried, “O golly!” at the sight of two luscious bananas. “Dil, ye wor in luck! I didn’t even see a chance to snivy on an apple. Store folks is mighty s’picious, watchin’ out.”

“O Dan! It’s wicked to steal!”

“None o’ yer gals’ gaff!” said Dan with his mouth full. “Snivyin’ somethin’ ter eat ain’t no stealin’. An’ I’m hungry as an elefunt.”

Dil fixed him some supper, and he devoured it with the apparent capacity of the elephant. Then, as he was very tired and used up, he tumbled on his straw pallet in his mother’s room, and in five minutes was asleep.

Now the young conspirators had to consider about a hiding-place for their unaccustomed treasures.

“I’ll tell you,” and Bess laughed shrewdly, “we’ll make a bank under the cushion of the wagon.” At the risk of smothering Dan, they had shut his door. “Mother wouldn’t dast to tumble me out, and no one knows. An’ we’ll call it somethin’ else. We’ll never say m – ”

“Yes.” Dil put it in the paper bag, and then she made the night bed on top of it. What a fortune it was! They glanced furtively at each other, as if questioning their right to it.

“Mammy seldom does look round,” said Dil; “an’ I’ll clear the room up on Fridays, I sometimes do. An’ I’ll tell her I made the dress, if she spies it out. No, that would be a lie, an’ tellin’ lies roughs you up inside, though sometimes it’s better than bein’ banged. Bess, dear, I wish it was all true ’bout heaven.”

“It is true, I feel it all over me.”

Poor Dil sighed softly. She wasn’t so sure.

Then she bathed Bess, and threw away the ragged garments. Bess was tired, but bright and happy. They stowed away their purchases, and were all settled when Owen came in. No one would have guessed the rare holiday.

Barker’s Court was beginning its weekly orgy – singing, swearing, dancing, fighting, and fortunate if there was not an arrest or two. But Dil was so tired that she slept through it all, forgetting about the money, and not even haunted by dreams.

It was past midnight when Mrs. Quinn returned, to find everything still within. She tumbled across her bed, and slept the sleep of a drunken woman until Sunday noon.

Dil looked after the breakfast. Dan’s eye was much improved. Out of an old bundle she found a jacket a size or two beyond him, but the children of the slums are not critical. The boys went out to roam the streets. Patsey sidled in with a knowing wink towards Mrs. Quinn’s chamber door. It was nearly always safe on Sunday morning. He had a handful of flowers.

They gave him his “hankercher.” But somehow they couldn’t tell him of their adventure.

“But yous oughtn’t ’er spend yer tin on me,” he said with awkward gratefulness. “Yous don’t have much look fer scrapin’ it up.”

“But you’re alwers so good to us,” returned Bess, in her sweet, plaintive tone.

“An’ when yous want a nickel or two, let me know,” he said with manly tenderness.

Dil made her mother a cup of strong coffee, and brushed out her long black hair, still handsome enough for a woman of fashion to envy. She had made a big Irish stew for dinner, and when the house was cleared up, she had leave to take Bess out. But they did not go to the square to-day. They rambled up and down some of the nicer streets, where the houses were closed and the people away, and speculated about the journey to heaven in the spring. Alas! There were hundreds more who did not even know there was a heaven, or for what the church bells rang, or why Sunday came.

The week was melting hot. One of the babies had a very sick day, and died that night. Several others in the court died, but the summer was always hard on babies. Mrs. Quinn had a day off, and went up to Glen Island. Children and babies were taken away for a day or a week; but Dil was too busy, and it would have been no pleasure for Bess to go without her. But some way they were overlooked.

The heat kept up well in September. People came home from the country, and Mrs. Quinn’s business was brisk enough. The boys were sent to school; but Owen often played “hookey,” and was getting quite unmanageable, in fact, a neighborhood terror.

It seemed strange indeed that Bess could live under such circumstances. But Dil’s love and care were marvellous. She kept the child exquisitely clean; she even indulged in a bottle of refreshing cologne, and some luxuries, for which they blessed John Travis. Three times they had been over to the square. They counted up the weeks; they believed with all possible faith at first, then Dil weakened unconsciously. She used to get so tired herself in these days. Her mother was very captious, and the babies fell off. Some days Dil put in two nickels out of her precious fund. Bess insisted upon it.

Dilsey Quinn ran out of an errand now and then. She was too busy ever to loiter, and every moment away from Bess was torture. So, although they lived in a crowd, they might as well have been on a desert island, as far as companionship went.

And now they saw less of Patsey, to their sorrow. He had saved up a little money, and borrowed some from a good friend, and bought a chair, and set himself up in business. Not a mere common little “kit,” mind you. But it was way down town, and he had new lodgings to be “handy.”

The last of September the weather, that had been lovely, changed. There was a long, cold storm, and blustering winds that would have done credit to March. The “flannils,” that had been such a luxury, were too thin, and Dil spent almost her last penny for some others. No one had ever found out.

How often they looked wistfully at each other, and asked a wordless question. But John Travis had not found them, had not come. Six weeks since that blissful Saturday!

It had been a very hard day for Dil; and heaven seemed far off, as it does to many of us in times of trouble. The morning was lowering and chilly. Dil had overslept, and her mother’s morning cup of coffee was not to her taste. She had given her a box on the ear, I was about to say; but her mother’s hand covered the whole side of her head, and filled it with a rush as of many waters, blinding her eyes so that all looked dark about her. Then Mrs. Kenny’s little Mamie cried for her mother, and would not be pacified. Mrs. Kenny was a young and deserted wife who worked in a coat-shop, and Mamie was a Saturday boarder as well. Dil made the boys’ breakfast with the baby in her arms, and managed to get Bess’s bread and milk, but had hardly a moment to devote to her. Only one more baby came in.

Mrs. Quinn suddenly reappeared. Mrs. Watson had been called away by the illness of her mother, and the washing was to go over to the next week.

“An’ she’ll want two days’ work done in one, an’ no more pay. An’ they don’t mind about your lost day! How’s a woman to live with a great raft of young ones to support, I’d like to know? An’ it’s hard times we hear about a’ready. Goodness knows what I’ll do. An’ you lazy trollop! you haven’t your dishes washed yet! An’ only two babies! Yer’ not worth yer salt!”

“Mamie has cried all the time – ”

“Shet yer head! Not a word of impidence out of you, or I’ll crack yer skull! An’ I know – yer’ve been foolin’ over that wretched little brat in there! I’m a fool fer not sindin’ her up to th’ Island hospital. Fine work they’d have with her! She’d get nussed.”

Dil uttered a cry of terror.

Her mother caught her by the shoulder, and banged her head sharp against the wall, until no telescope was needed for her to see stars, even in the day time. They swirled around like balls of fire, and Dil staggered to a chair, looking so ghastly that her mother was startled.

Both babies set up a howl.

“Drat the brats!” she cried, shaking her fist at them. “If there can’t be more than two, you’ll march off to a shop, Dilsey Quinn; an’ if you don’t earn your bread, you won’t get it, that’s all! As fer you, ye little weasened-face, broken-backed thing, cumberin’ the ground – ”

Bess seemed to shrink into nothing. Mrs. Quinn had taken her glass of gin too early in the day. What would have happened next – but a rap on the door averted it.

“O Mrs. Quinn!” cried Mrs. Malone, “I saw ye comin’ back, an’ have ye no work the day?”

“My folks went off. If I’d known last night” – Mrs. Quinn picked up one baby to hush it.

“Well, now, Ann come in a moment ago to hunt up a la’ndress. The big folks where she lives have been lift in the lurch with ivry blissid thing sprinkled down. An’ can ye go an’ iron fer ’em? It’s a foine place. Two days in a week, an’ good pay. But the la’ndress has grown that sassy they had a reg’lar shindy this mornin’. If ye’ll jist go for wanst, they’ll all be moighty glad, for it’s a fine ironer ye are, Mrs. Quinn.”

“I’ll go back wid Ann.” Mrs. Quinn dropped the baby, and resumed her hood and shawl.

Bess shivered, and stretched out her arms to Dil as soon as the door closed.

“Oh, what should we have done if she had stayed at home! She looked at me so dreadful. And she would have shaked the very life out of me if she had taken hold of me. O Dil, don’t let her send me away!”

“If she should – if she did – I’d – I’d kill her!” and a fierce, desperate look came in the brown eyes. “O Bess dear, don’t cry so, don’t cry.”

“O Dil,” sobbed the child, “then you’d be jugged like daddy, but you wouldn’t kill her – you couldn’t, she’s so much bigger an’ stronger.”

“But I’d fight awful! And I wouldn’t stay. I’d run away, if I had to drown myself.”

“They cut people up in hospitals” – and there was an awesome sound in the frightened voice.

“Don’t, dear, don’t;” and the pleading was that of agony. She held Bess close – all her life was centred in this poor, maimed body. The babies might cry, the world might cease to be, but nothing should part them.

“She’ll be cross because there ain’t more babies. And to-day she knows. But the bank’s most all out. O Dil, s’pose something happened to – to him!”

They looked at each other in a pathetic fashion through their tears, each bearing the other’s sorrow, though they knew nothing of the divine injunction. Dil had fought silent battles with herself for faith in John Travis, but Bess had never wavered until now.

“It was so beautiful – that afternoon, an’ the talkin’. I’ve thought so often ’bout his Lord Jesus, who could make my poor little legs well, an’, Dil, somehow they keep shrinken’ away. An’ the lovely fruit an’ things! An’ all that money! O Dil, we know now how rich folks feel, only they’re rich all their lives, and we was rich jest that little while. But it was splendid! Rich folks oughter be happy every minnit, an’ – an’ good. ’Twould be so easy when you lived in a big, beautiful house, an’ had flowers an’ nice things to eat an’ to wear, an’ a kerrige to ride in – ”

She stopped exhausted, but her eyes glowed with the vision, and a rapture illumined her wan face. Ah, Bess, one poor, forlorn creature, born in the brain of the finest genius of his time, made the same pathetic outcry in her pitiful plight, brought about by her own ill-doing. And you both touched the boundary of a broad truth.

Dil gave a long, quivering breath, and it seemed as if her arms could never unclose again, so tight and fast did they hold their treasure.

“I’m most sure he’ll come.” Bess made a strenuous effort to keep the doubt out of her tone. “He was ter bring the book, you know, and the picture; an’ he didn’t look ’s though he was one of the forgettin’ kind. There’s somethin’ – I can’t quite make it out; but Dil, when things is all still, most towards mornin’, seems if I could hear him talk. Only – it’s so long to spring. I’m most sorry we didn’t start that day. Why, we might have been to heaven before real cold weather. I’m so tired. Dil, dear, lay me down on the lounge, won’t you? It’ll rest me a bit.”

She put her down softly, and tucked the faded quilt about her. Mamie had fallen asleep on the floor, and she laid her on her own little pallet. The other baby had found a dropped-out knot in the floor, and was trying to put his crust of bread down through it.

Dil washed her dishes and tidied up the house. The clothes from the floor above swung on the pulley-line, and helped to shut out even the chilly gray light. Then there was dinner to get for the boys, who went to school quite steadily. Dan wasn’t so bad, though; and Owen had been threatened with the reform-school, “where you had to sweep floors and sew on a machine like a gal!” That did not look so inviting as liberty.

What would happen to-night when her mother came home? Would she, could she, send Bess away?

“’Tain’t no use to pray,” she thought despairingly within her much-tried soul. “I uster pray about Bess’s poor little legs, an’ they never mended any. An’ mebbe he thought we’d be a bother, an’ he’d rather go to heaven alone.”

What had become of John Travis?