The Rosie World

CHAPTER I

THE CHIN-CHOPPER

Mrs. O'Brien raised helpless distracted hands. "Off wid yez to school!" she shouted. "All of yez! Make room for George!" What Mrs. O'Brien really called her boarder is best represented by spelling his name Jarge.

"Maybe I didn't have a dandy fight on my last trip down," George announced as he took off his coat and began washing his hands at the sink.

The young O'Briens clustered about him eagerly.

"Did you lick him, Jarge?" Terry asked.

"Tell us about it!" Rosie begged.

"Will yez be off to school!" Mrs. O'Brien again shouted.

No one heeded her in the least. George by this time was seated at the table and Rosie was hanging over his shoulder. Terence and small Jack stood facing him at the other side of the table and Miss Ellen O'Brien, with the baby in her arms, lingered near the door.

"Your cabbage'll be stone cold," Mrs. O'Brien scolded, "and they'll all be late for school if they don't be off wid 'em!"

"Was he drunk, Jarge?" Rosie asked.

"No, but he'd been taking too much." George spoke through a mouthful of corned beef and cabbage.

"Aw, go on," Terry pleaded, "tell us all about it."

"They ain't much to tell," George declared, with a complacency that belied his words. "He was nuthin' but a big stiff about nine feet high and built double across the shoulders." George sighed and cocked his eye as though bored at the necessity of recounting his adventure. Then, just to humour them, as it were, he continued: "I see trouble as soon as he got on. They was plenty of empty seats on one side, but the first thing I knew he was hanging on a strap on the crowded side insultin' a poor little lady. He wasn't sayin' nuthin' but he was just hangin' over her face, lookin' at her and grinnin' until she was ready to cry out for shame."

"The brute!" snapped Mrs. O'Brien as she slopped down a big cup of coffee.

"Did you throw him off?" Terence asked.

George took an exasperating time to swallow, then complained: "You mustn't hurry me so. 'Tain't healthy to hurry when you eat."

Ellen O'Brien tossed her head disdainfully. "If that's all you've got to say, Mr. Riley, I guess I'll be going."

Rosie turned on her big sister scornfully. "Aw, why don't you call him Jarge? Ain't he been boarding with us a whole week now?" To show the degree of intimacy she herself felt, Rosie slipped an arm about George's neck.

Ellen sniffed audibly.

George had not been looking at the elder Miss O'Brien but, from the haste with which now he finished his story, it was evident that he wished her to hear it.

"When I see he was looking for trouble, I went right up to him and says: 'If you can't sit down and act ladylike, just get off this car.' And then he looks down at me and grins like a jackass and says: 'Who do you think you are?' 'Who do I think I am?' I says; 'I'm the conductor of this car and my number's eight-twenty and, if I get any more jawin' from you, I'll throw you off.' He'd make two of me in size but I could see from the look of him he was nuthin' to be afraid of. So, when he grins down at the little lady again and then drops his strap to turn clean around to me and poke out his jaw, I up and gives him a good chin-chopper."

George stopped as if this were the end and his auditors grumbled in balked expectancy:

"Aw, go on, Jarge, tell us what you did."

"Well, if that's the end of your story, Mr. Riley, I'm going."

"The brute, insultin' a lady!"

It was Rosie who demanded in desperation: "But, Jarge, what is a chin-chopper?"

"Chin-chopper? Why, don't you know what a chin-chopper is?" George paused in his eating to explain. "A chin-chopper is when a big stiff pokes out his jaw at you and then, before he knows what you're doing, you up and push him one under the chin with the inside of your hand. It tips him over just like a ninepin."

"Oh, Jarge, do you mean you knocked him down on the floor of the car?" By this time Rosie was skipping and hopping in excitement.

"Sure that's what I mean."

"And then, Jarge, when you had him down, what did you do?"

"What did I do? Why, then I danced on him, of course."

George jumped up from his chair and, indicating a prostrate form on the kitchen floor, proceeded to execute a series of wild jig steps over limbs and chest.

Rosie clapped her hands. "Good, good, good, Jarge! And then what did you do?"

"What did I do? Why, then I snatches off the stiff's hat and throws it out the window. As luck went, it landed in a fine big mud-puddle. Then I pulls the bell and says to him, 'Now, you big bully, if you've had enough, get off this car and go home and tell your wife she wants you.'"

"And, Jarge, did he get off?"

"Did he? I wonder! He couldn't get off quick enough!"

George glanced timidly toward Ellen in hopes, apparently, that his prowess would meet the same favour from her as from the others.

Ellen caught his look and instantly tightened her lips in disgust. "I think it's perfectly disgraceful to get in fights!"

Under the scorn of her words George withered into silence. Terence rallied instantly to his defence. He turned on his older sister angrily. "Aw, go dry up, you old school-teacher!"

"I'm not an old school-teacher!" Ellen cried. "And you just stop calling me names! Ma, Terence is calling me an old school-teacher and you don't say a thing!"

Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, I'm surprised at you callin' your poor sister Ellen a thing like that! You know as well as I that she's not an old school-teacher."

"Well, anyway," Terence growled, "she talks like one."

Rosie's wild spirits, meantime, had vanished. She sighed heavily. "Say, Jarge, wisht I was a boy."

George looked at her kindly. "What makes you say that, Rosie?"

"Oh, nuthin'. Only I know some stiffs I'd like to try a chin-chopper on."

George eyed her a little uneasily. "Aw, now, Rosie, you oughtn't to talk that way. You're a girl and 'tain't ladylike for girls to fight."

"I know, Jarge. That's why I say I wisht I was a boy."

George grew thoughtful. "Of course, though, Rosie, I wouldn't have blamed the little lady in the car if she had poked her hatpin into that fellow. It's all right for a lady to do anything in self-defence."

In Rosie's face a sudden interest gathered. "Ain't it unladylike, Jarge, if it's in self-defence?"

George answered emphatically: "Of course not – not if it's in self-defence."

He would have said more but Terence interrupted: "What's the matter, Rosie? Any one been teasing you?"

Rosie answered quickly, almost too quickly: "Oh, no, no! I was just a-talkin' to Jarge – "

"Well, just stop yir talkin' and be off wid yez to school! Do ye hear me now, all o' yez!" Mrs. O'Brien opened the kitchen door and, raising her apron aloft, drove them out with a "Shoo!" as though they were so many chickens.

CHAPTER II

THE SCHNITZER

"Tell me now, Rosie, are you having any trouble with your papers?" Terence asked this as he and Rosie and little Jack started off for school.

Terence had a regular newspaper business which kept him busy every day from the close of school until dark. His route had grown so large that recently he had been forced to engage the services of one or two subordinates. Rosie had begged to be given a job as paper-carrier, to deliver the papers in their own immediate neighbourhood, and Terence was at last allowing her a week's trial. If she could be a newsgirl without attracting undue attention, he would be as willing to pay her twenty cents a week as to pay any ordinary small boy a quarter.

Twenty cents seemed a princely wage to one handicapped by the limitation of sex, and Rosie was determined to make good. So, when Terence inquired whether she were having any trouble, she declared at once:

"No, Terry, honest I'm not. Every one's just as nice and kind to me as they can be. Those two nice Miss Grey ladies always give me a cookie, and nice old Danny Agin nearly always has an apple for me."

"Well," said Terence, severely – besides being Rosie's brother, fourteen years old and nearly two years her senior, he was her employer and so simply had to be severe – "Well, just see that you don't eat too many apples!"

Terence and Jack turned into the boys' school-yard and Rosie pursued her way down to the girls' gate. Just before she reached it, a boy, biggish and overgrown, with a large flat face and loosely hung joints, ran up behind her and shouted:

"Oh, look at the paper-girl, paper-girl, paper-girl! Rosie O'Brien, O'Brien, O'Brien!"

He seemed to think there was something funny in the name O'Brien, and his own name, mind you, was Schnitzer!

Rosie marched on with unhearing ears, unseeing eyes. Other people, however, heard, for in a moment, one of the little girls clustered about the school-yard gate rushed over to her, jerking her head about like an indignant little hen.

"Don't you care what that old Schnitzer says, Rosie! Just treat him like he's beneath your contemp'!"

Whereupon she herself turned upon the Schnitzer and, with most withering sarcasm, called out: "Dutch!"

Rosie's friend's name was McFadden, Janet McFadden.

Why don't you just tell Terry on him?" Janet said, when they were safe within the crowded school-yard and able to discuss at length the cowardice of the attack. "It wouldn't take Terry two minutes to punch his face into pie-crust!"

"I know, Janet, but don't you see if I was to tell Terry, then he'd think I was getting bothered on my paper route and take it away from me. He's not quite sure, anyhow, whether girls ought to carry papers."

Janet clucked her tongue in sympathy and understanding. "Does that Schnitzer bother you every afternoon, Rosie?"

"Yes, and he's getting worse. Yesterday he tried to grab my papers and he tore one of them. I'm just scared to death when I get near his house, honest, I am."

Janet clenched her hands and drew a long shivering breath. "Do you know, Rosie, boys like him – they just make me so mad that I almost – I almost bust!"

Black care sat behind Rosie O'Brien's desk that afternoon. It was her fifth day as paper-carrier and, but for Otto Schnitzer, she knew that she would be able to complete satisfactorily her week of probation. Was he to cause her failure? Her heart was heavy with fear but, after school, when she met Terry, she smiled as she took her papers and marched off with so brave a show of confidence that Terry, she felt sure, suspected nothing.

As usual, she had no trouble whatever on the first part of her route. At sight of her papers a few people smiled but they all greeted her pleasantly enough, so that was all right. One boy called out, "How's business, old gal?" but his tone was so jolly that Rosie was able to sing back, "Fine and dandy, old hoss!" So that was all right, too.

The Schnitzer place was toward the end of her route, a few doors before she reached Danny Agin's cottage. As she passed it, no Otto was in sight, and she wondered if for once she was to be allowed to go her way unmolested. A sudden yell from the Schnitzers' garden disclosed Otto's whereabouts and also his disappointment not to be on the sidewalk to meet her. He came pounding out in all haste but she was able to make Danny Agin's gate in safety.

Rosie always delivered Danny's paper in the kitchen.

"Come in!" said Danny's voice in answer to her knock.

Rosie opened the door and Danny received her with a friendly, "Ah now, and is it yourself, Rosie? I've been waiting for you this half-hour."

He was a little apple-cheeked old man who wheezed with asthma and was half-crippled with rheumatism. "Mary!" he called to some one in another room. "It's Rosie O'Brien. Have you something for Rosie?"

A voice, as serious in tone as Danny's was gay, came back in answer: "Tell Rosie to look on the second shelf of the panthry."

Rosie went to the pantry – it was a little game they had been playing every afternoon – and on the second shelf found a shiny red apple.

"Thanks, Danny. I do love apples."

Danny shook his head lugubriously. "I'm afeared there won't be many more, Rosie. We're gettin' to the bottom of the barrel and summer's comin'. But can't you sit down for a minute and talk to a body?"

Rosie sat down. As she had only two more papers to deliver, she had plenty of time. But she had nothing to say.

Danny, watching her, drew a long face. "What's the matter, Rosie dear? Somebody dead?"

Rosie shook her head and sighed. "That old Otto Schnitzer's waiting for me outside."

Danny exploded angrily. "The Schnitzer, indeed! I'd like to give that lad a crack wid me stick!"

"Danny," Rosie said solemnly, "do you know what I'd do if I was a boy?"

"What?"

"I'd try a chin-chopper on Otto Schnitzer. That'd fix him!"

"It would that!" said Danny, heartily. He paused and meditated. "But what's a chin-chopper, darlint?"

Rosie explained. "And Jarge says," she concluded, "they tumble right over like ninepins."

"Who's Jarge?"

"Jarge Riley, our boarder. He's little but he's a dandy scrapper. Terry says so, too."

Danny wagged his head. "Jarge is right. I've turned the same thrick meself in me younger days, many's the time."

"It would just serve that Otto Schnitzer right, don't you think so, Danny?"

"I do!" Danny declared. He looked at Rosie with a sudden light in his little blue eyes. "Say, Rosie, why don't you try it on him? He's nuthin' but a bag o' wind anyhow. One good blow and he'll bust."

Rosie cried out in protest: "But, Danny, he's so big and I'm so scared! I don't want to fight! I'm glad it's not ladylike to fight, it scares me so!"

"Whisht, darlint!" Danny raised a quieting hand. "Mind now what I'm sayin': Almost everybody's got to fight sometime. I don't mean to pick a fight but to fight in plain self-protiction. Now it's me own opinion that young hound of a lad'll never let up on ye, Rosie, till ye larn him a good lesson. I could give him a crack wid me stick if ever he'd come nigh enough, but he'd be at you just the same the next time I wasn't around. Now, Rosie, if you ask me, I'd advise you to farce yirself to give that young bully a good chin-chopper once and for all. And, what's more, I'll take me oath ye'll never be feared of him again… Come here and I'll show you how to go at him. Palm up now with yir fingers bent making a little cup of the inside of your hand. Do ye see? Now the thrick is here: Run at him hard and catch his chin in the little cup. One good blow and you'll push him over. Oh, you can't miss it, Rosie."

Rosie's breath was coming fast and her hand was cold and shaky. "But I don't want to do it, Danny, honest I don't! I can't tell you how scared I am!"

Danny wagged his head. "Of course you don't want to do it, Rosie. Because why? Because ye're a little lady. But I know one thing: ye'll make yirself do it! And them that makes theirselves do it, not because they want to do it but because it's the right thing to do, I tell ye, Rosie, them's the best fighters! Come, come, I'll crawl out to the gate wid ye and hold yir apple for you while ye do the business."

Fixing his bright little eyes upon her, Danny waited until Rosie had, perforce, to consent. Then, with her help, he stood up and slowly hobbled to the door.

"We won't mintion the matther to the ould woman," he whispered with a wink. "She mightn't understand."

Rosie almost hoped that old Mary would catch them and haul Danny back, but she could not, of course, give the alarm.

As she had expected, the Schnitzer was there waiting for her. At sight of Danny he moved off a little.

"Now then, Rosie dear," Danny whispered, after Rosie had propped him securely against the gate-post; "at him and may luck be wid ye! It's high time that young cock crowed his last!"

As Danny spoke, the Schnitzer's taunting cry rang out: "Look at the paper-girl, paper-girl, paper-girl!"

Rosie started up the street and the Schnitzer cavorted and pranced some little distance in the front of her, making playful pounces at her papers, threatening to clutch her hair, her arms, her dress. Then, suddenly, he stood still, stretching himself across the middle of the walk to bar her passage.

Rosie's heart pounded so hard she could scarcely breathe. She wanted to dodge to the side and run, she wanted to turn back, she wanted to do anything rather than go straight on. But she felt Danny's presence behind her, she heard the click-clack he was making with his stick to encourage her, and she pushed herself forward.

Then her mood changed. What had she ever done to this great lout of a boy that he should be annoying her thus? He was not only terrorizing her daily with no provocation whatever but, in addition, he was doing his best to beat her out of her job. Yes, if she lost this well-paying job tomorrow, it would be his fault, for he was the one thing on the route that caused her trouble… Oh, for the fist of a Jarge to give him the chin-chopper he deserved!

She was close on to him now, looking him full in the eye. "Otto Schnitzer, you let me go by!" The words came so naturally that she was not conscious of speaking. "I guess I got as much right to this sidewalk as you have!"

"You have, have you? Well, who do you think you are, anyway?" The Schnitzer pushed out his jaw at her and grinned mockingly.

Who do you think you are? Where had Rosie heard those insulting words before? Ah, she remembered and, as she remembered, all fear seemed instantly to leave her heart and she cried out in ringing tones:

"Who do I think I am? I'm the conductor of this car and if you – "

Rosie made for the Schnitzer and, with all her strength, sent the cup of her hand straight at his chin. You have seen a ninepin wobble uncertainly for a moment, then go down. The comparison is inevitable. A yell of rage and fright from the sidewalk at her feet brought Rosie to her senses. Glory be, she had chin-choppered him good and proper!

But what to do next? What next? In her mind's eye Rosie saw the interior of a street-car with George Riley dancing a jig on the prostrate form of a giant. Thereupon Danny Agin and Mary, his wife, who by this time had joined him, and the woman next door, with a baby in her arms, saw Rosie O'Brien perform a similar jig over the squirming members of the Schnitzer.

That trampled creature was sending forth a terrific bellow of, "Murder! Murder! Mommer! Help! I'm gettin' killed!"

"And just good for him, too!" the woman with the baby shouted over to Mary and Danny. "I've been watching the way he's been teasing the life out of that little girl!"

"Good wur-r-rk, Rosie, good wur-r-rk!" old Danny kept wheezing as he pounded his stick in enthusiastic applause.

As the jig ended, Rosie stooped and snatched off the Schnitzer's cap. For a moment she hesitated, for there was no mud-puddle on the street into which to throw it. Then she noticed a tree. Good! That would give him some trouble. She twisted the cap in her hand and tossed it up into a high branch where it lodged securely.

Then she leaned over the Schnitzer for the last time. He was moaning and groaning and whimpering with no least little spark of fight left in him. And was this the thing she used to be afraid of? Danny was right: never again would she fear him. She gazed at him long and scornfully. Then she gave him one last stir with her foot and brought the episode to a close.

"Now then, you big bully, if you've had enough, get off this car – I mean, sidewalk, and go home and tell your – your mother, I mean, that she wants you!"

And, as Rosie said that evening in relating the adventure to George Riley: "And, oh, Jarge, you just ought ha' seen how that stiff got up and went!"

CHAPTER III

THE PAPER-GIRL

On Saturday night as soon as supper was cleared away, Terence was accustomed to make out his weekly accounts. He had a small account-book with crisscross rulings and two fascinating little canvas money-bags, one for coppers, the other for nickels and silver. After his book accounts were finished, he would gravely open his money-bags and, with banker-like precision, pile up together coins of the same denomination – pennies by themselves, nickels by themselves, dimes, and so on.

Though oft repeated, it was an impressive performance and one that Rosie and little Jack surveyed with untiring gravity and respect. With a frown between his eyes and his lips working silently, Terence would estimate the totals of the various piles, then the sum total. He would very deliberately compare this with the amount his book showed and then – it always happened just this way – with a sigh of relief, he would murmur to himself: "All right this time!"

On this particular night, instead of sweeping the money piles back into their little bags at once, Terence paused and looked at Rosie with a questioning: "Well?"

"Well." Rosie used the same word with a different intonation.

"I suppose I owe you twenty cents."

"Yes, Terry, you do."

"Are you having any trouble?"

With a truthfulness that made her own heart glow with happiness, Rosie was able to answer: "No, I'm not having a bit of trouble, honest I'm not. You're going to let me have it now regular, aren't you?"

Before Terence could answer, Ellen O'Brien, who was seated on the far side of the table, presumably studying the pothooks of stenography, called out suddenly: "Ma! Ma! Come here! Quick!"

Mrs. O'Brien appeared at once. She was still nursing the baby to sleep, but no matter. Whenever her oldest child called, Mrs. O'Brien came.

"Say, Ma, I think it's disgraceful the way Terry's letting Rosie sell papers. If I was you I just wouldn't allow it! It's awful for a girl to sell papers!"

Rosie's heart sank. Was this comfortable income of twenty cents a week now, at the last moment, to be snatched from her?

"Aw now, Mama," she began; "it's only right around here where every one knows me, honest it is! This is the end of Terry's route and he gets here so late that if I don't help him he'll lose his customers, won't you, Terry?"

Rosie appealed to Terence, but Terence was busy scowling at his older sister. "Say, Ellen O'Brien, what do you think you are? You mind your own business or I'll give that pompadour of yours a frizzle!"

Ellen concentrated on her mother: "I don't care, Ma! You just mustn't let her! How do you think I'd feel going into a swell office some day, hunting a job, and have the man say, no, he didn't want any common newsgirls around!"

For a moment every one was silent, overcome by the splendour of that imagined office. Then Terence broke into a jeer:

"Aw, forget it! If Rosie was to make her living selling papers, who'd know about it downtown? And if some one from downtown did see her, how would they know she was your sister? Say, Sis, it's time for you to go shine your nails!"

"Now, Ma, just listen to that! I wish you'd make Terry stop always making fun of me! Haven't I got to keep my hands nice if ever I'm going to be a stenog?"

Mrs. O'Brien tried hard to restore a general peace: "Terry lad, you mustn't be talkin' that way to your sister. P'rhaps what Ellen says is right. I dunno. We'll see what himself says when he comes in."

The young O'Briens were used to having their mother refer to their father as one to decide all sorts of vexed questions. When he was out of the house he seemed the person to appeal to. When, however, Jamie O'Brien was at home, no one ever heeded him in the least. He would come in tired and silent from his run and, after sitting about in shirtsleeves and socks long enough to smoke a pipe, would slip quietly off to bed. So no one was deceived by Mrs. O'Brien's manœuver of begging them to await their father's judgment in the matter. Rosie and Terence would have been willing to let it mark the close of the discussion, but not Ellen.

"I tell you, Ma," she insisted, "it's a perfect disgrace if you don't stop it right now!"

Terry regarded his sister grimly. "Listen here, Ellen O'Brien, I've got something to say to you: Who's been paying your carfare and your lunch money, too, ever since you been going to this fool business college?"

Mrs. O'Brien feebly interposed: "Ah now, Terry lad, Ellen's just borrowin' the money from you. She'll pay you back as soon as she gets a job, won't you, Ellen dear?"