The Rosie World
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"Wisht he'd been sent up for ten years!" Rosie declared. "Mis' McFadden and Janet would be much better off without him!"
Dear, dear! Taken by and large this poor old world is pretty full of trouble! Rosie sighed deeply, wondering how she was going to bear the burden of it all.
She waited for Janet until afternoon, when it was time for her to go about her business as paper-carrier. She was sure now that something serious had happened to Janet. To the child of a man like Dave McFadden something serious might happen almost any time. On the first part of her route Rosie gave herself up to all sorts of horrible imaginings. Then, in the excitement of a long talk with Danny Agin on the subject of George Riley, she forgot Janet and did not think of her again until she reached home.
Janet was there on the porch awaiting her.
"Poor Janet's in trouble," Mrs. O'Brien began at once.
This was evident enough from the expression of Janet's face.
"What is it, Janet? What's happened?" Rosie put a sympathetic arm about Janet's shoulder and peered anxiously into her somber eyes.
"Her poor ma's been took sick," Mrs. O'Brien continued.
"Oh, Janet, I'm sorry! Is it serious?"
"Horspital," Mrs. O'Brien announced.
"Hospital!" Rosie repeated. Then it was serious! "When did it happen, Janet?"
"This morning." Janet spoke quietly in a tired colourless voice.
"Were you at home, Janet?"
"No. On the street."
"Did they send for an ambulance?"
"Yes."
"Did they take you to the hospital, too?"
"Yes."
"Well, Janet, what did the doctor say?"
"He said lots of things."
"Didn't he say your mother would be all right soon?"
"He said that depends."
"What does it depend on, Janet?"
Janet laughed, a weak pathetic little laugh that had no mirth in it. "He said she might get well again if she didn't have to work or worry any more. Huh! It's easy to say a thing like that to a poor woman that's got to work or starve, but it would be a good deal more sensible if they'd say right out: 'You better go drown yourself!'"
"Why, Janet!" Mrs. O'Brien's hands went up in shocked amazement.
"I mean it!" Janet insisted fiercely. "Do you suppose my mother works like she does because she wants to? I'd like to see that doctor married to a drunk and have some one say to him: 'Now don't work or worry and you'll be all right.'"
Mrs. O'Brien was much distressed. "Why, Janet dear, you surprise me to be talkin' so about that poor doctor."
"The doctor!" Janet turned on Mrs. O'Brien passionately. "I'm not talking about the doctor! I'm talking about my father!" She paused an instant, then flung out a terrible epithet which even in the mouth of a rough man would have been shocking.
Instinctively Rosie shrank and Mrs. O'Brien raised a startled, disapproving hand.
Janet tossed her head defiantly. "I don't care!" she insisted. "It's all his fault, the drunken brute, and if my mother dies tonight, it'll be him that's murdered her!" She ended with a sob and hid her face on Rosie's shoulder.
Mrs. O'Brien, still scandalised, opened her mouth to speak. But the right word which would express both reproof and commiseration was slow in coming, and at last she was forced to meet the difficulty by fleeing it. "I – I think I must be going in. I think I hear Geraldine. Sit still, Rosie dear." And then, her heart getting the better of her, she ended with: "Poor child! She's not herself today! Comfort her, Rosie!"
Rosie scarcely needed her mother's admonition. "There now, Janet dear, don't cry! Your mother's going to be all right – I know she is! She's been sick before and got over it."
Janet was not a person of tears. She swallowed her sobs now and slowly dried her eyes. "I'm sorry I used such strong language, Rosie, honest I am. And before your mother, too! You've got to excuse me. I know it wasn't ladylike."
"That's all right, Janet. You really didn't mean it."
"Yes, I did mean it," Janet declared truthfully. "If you only knew it, Rosie, there are lots of times I don't feel a bit ladylike! I often use cuss words inside to myself. Don't you?"
No, most emphatically, Rosie did not! She was saved, however, the necessity of having to acknowledge so embarrassing an evidence of feminine weakness by Janet's further pronouncement:
"I tell you what, Rosie, when you come to a place where you want to smash things up, a good big cuss word just helps an awful lot! Don't you think so?"
Rosie cleared her throat a little nervously. "Yes, Janet, I suppose it does."
"You bet it does! And what's more, women have got just as much right to use it as men, haven't they?"
Rosie wanted to cry out: "I don't think they want to! I know I don't!" but, under Janet's fiery glance, the words that actually spoke themselves were: "Yes, of – of course they have."
With the hearty agreement of every one present, there was no more to be said on that subject. Janet turned to another.
"Rosie, will you do something for me? Come and stay all night with me. I'll be so lonely I don't know what I'll do."
Rosie's heart sank. If she spent the night with Janet, she'd have no chance to talk to George Riley, for she'd be gone long before he got home. Besides, there was Dave McFadden, and the thought of sleeping near him was almost terrifying.
"But, Janet dear, how about your father?"
"Oh, I suppose he'll come in soused as usual. But you won't be bothered. I'll get him off to bed before you come and he'll be safe till morning. Please say you'll come, Rosie. I need you, honest I do."
That was true: Janet did need her. George Riley would have to wait.
"All right, Janet. I'll come."
"Thanks, Rosie. I knew you would." Janet paused. "And, Rosie, do you think you could lend me a quarter? I've got to have some money for breakfast. Mother had a dollar in her pocket but I forgot about it at the hospital."
"I haven't a cent, Janet, but I'll raise a quarter somewhere, from Terry or from dad, and I'll bring it with me tonight."
Janet stood up to go. "Come about eight o'clock, Rosie."
Rosie looked at her friend compassionately. "Why don't you stay here for supper?"
Janet shook her head. "I'd like to but I don't think I'd better. He probably won't come home, but he might come and I better be on hand."
Janet started off slowly and reluctantly. Twice she turned back a face so woebegone and desolate that it went to Rosie's heart and, after a few moments, sent her flying for comfort to her mother's ample bosom.
Mrs. O'Brien gathered her in as if were the most natural thing in the world. "What is it, Rosie darlint? What's troublin' you?"
"Ma," she sobbed, "you're well, aren't you?"
"Me, Rosie dear, am I well, do you say?" Mrs. O'Brien looked into Rosie's tearful eyes in astonishment.
"Yes, Ma, you! I want you to be well – always – all the time! You see, Ma, Janet's poor mother – "
"Ah, and is it that that's troublin' you?" Mrs. O'Brien crooned, rocking Rosie from side to side as though she were Geraldine. "Don't you be worryin' your little head about your poor ma. I'm fine and well, thank God, and your poor da is well, and Terry's well, and Jackie's well, and poor wee Geraldine is well, and dear Ellen's well, and we're all – "
"Ellen!" snorted Rosie, her tears abruptly ceasing to flow and her body drawing itself away from her mother's embrace.
"Dear Ellen's well, too," Mrs. O'Brien in all innocence repeated.
"Oh, I know she's well all right!" Rosie declared in tones which even her mother recognised as sarcastic.
"Why, Rosie," Mrs. O'Brien began, "I'm surprised – "
But Rosie, without waiting to hear the end of her mother's reproach, marched resolutely off with all the dignity of a high chin and a stiff military gait.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CASE OF DAVE McFADDEN
Promptly at eight o'clock Rosie reached the tenement where the McFaddens lived. Janet was on the front steps waiting for her.
"Shall we sit out here awhile?" Janet said, making place for Rosie beside herself.
Rosie hesitated a moment. "Is your father home?"
"Yes. He came in an hour ago. I got him off to bed as soon as I could. He's asleep now."
"Are – are you sure he won't wake up and make trouble?"
Janet laughed. "Yes, I'm sure. We won't hear anything from him till morning except snorts and groans. I guess I know."
On the steps of the neighbouring tenements there were groups of people laughing, talking, wrangling. The electric street lamps cast great patches of quivering jumping light and heavy masses of deep pulsating shadow. Janet and Rosie, seated alone, were near enough their neighbours not to feel cut off from the outside world and yet, in the seclusion of a dark shadow, far enough away to talk freely on the subject uppermost in their thoughts.
"You've never heard me say anything about my father before, Rosie, you know you haven't." Janet paused to sigh. "Mother never has, either. We've both always let on that he's all right and we've covered him up and lied about him and done everything we could to keep people from knowing how he really treats us. If this hadn't happened to mother, I wouldn't be talking yet. Say, Rosie, ain't women fools? That's the way they always act about their own men folks. They're willing to shoot any other man for nothing at all, but they let on that their own men are just angels. You know – the way I've always done about dad. But, since today, seems like I don't care any more. And I've made up my mind to one thing: he's going to hear the truth from me tomorrow morning if he kills me for it."
"Janet!" Rosie did not relish at all the thought of being present at a family conference of so private a nature.
"Yes, and you're going to hear it, too, Rosie. If we were alone, he might pay attention or he might not. But with an outsider hearing things he'll know quick enough that I mean business."
"Janet, I don't know how you can talk that way. He's your father, you know."
Janet nodded grimly. "Yes, he's my father all right. You know it and I know it, but he seems to have forgotten it. I'll remind him of it tomorrow."
Rosie reached out a little timidly. "I don't like to interfere, Janet, but it seems to me you're only making things harder for yourself. Don't you know it makes you kind o' sick inside to let yourself get so mad at any one?"
Janet sighed wearily. "Yes, I suppose it does, but I've been that way so long I don't know how it feels to be any other way."
Presently Rosie said: "Tell me, Janet, has he always boozed like this?"
Janet shook her head. "No, not always. I can remember when things were different. I was a pretty big kid, too. We had a little house like yours and good furniture. You know he's a fine machinist and makes good money. He used to make four dollars a day. He can always get work yet but he don't keep it like he used to."
"And didn't he booze then, Janet?"
"Yes, a little but not very much. Ma says he'd come home full maybe once a month and smash things around, but after that he'd sober up and be all right for a long time. Oh, we were comfortable then and ma and me had good clothes and if ma didn't feel very well she'd hire some one to do the washing. I remember I had a pretty jumping rope and a big ball. It wasn't more than five or six years ago. And look at us now!"
Rosie sighed sympathetically. "I wonder what it was that started him that way?"
Janet was able to tell. "You know, Rosie, that's a funny thing. Miss Harris from the Settlement was in here one day asking ma and I heard what ma said. Dad fell and broke a leg and was laid up for a long time. Then they found it hadn't been set right and they broke it over again. So that kept him out of work ever so many more weeks. They had always been spenders, both of them, and they hadn't so very much money put by, so, just to keep things together while dad was idle, ma began going out to work. She's a fine cleaner and laundress, so of course she could always get good places. Then, after dad got well, she kept on working because they were in debt and then – I don't know how it happened – the first thing ma knew dad was drinking up his money and she's been working ever since. He used to pay the rent but he don't even do that any more."
Janet talked on as she had never talked before. Not much of what she said was new to Rosie, for the private life of the poor is lived in public, and Mrs. Finnegan has no need to explain to the neighbours the little commotion that took place in her rooms the night before, since the neighbours have all along known as much about it as herself. What Rosie had not known before was Janet's real attitude toward her father. Janet's likes had always seemed to Rosie a little fearsome in their intensity; her hate, as Rosie saw it now, was appalling. Compared to Janet's feelings, Rosie's own appeared childish, almost babyish. If brought to trial, she would, no doubt, have fought for them, but like a kitten rather than a tiger. In Janet the tiger was already well grown.
Listening to Janet, Rosie shuddered. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Janet. It's kind of murderous!"
"Murderous?" Janet repeated. "What if it is? That's just how I feel sometimes. Right now when I think of ma lying there in the hospital, for two cents I'd go upstairs and choke him to death! What would it matter, anyway, if he never woke up? Just one less drunkard in the world – that's all. I guess there'd be plenty enough of them left."
Rosie held out imploring hands. "Janet, if you keep on talking like that I'll have to go home! I'll be too scared to sleep with you!"
Janet was contrite. "Aw, now, Rosie, don't say that. I'm only talking, and I won't even talk any more tonight. Anyhow, it's time for bed."
The McFadden home consisted of two rooms: a front living room and a small back bedroom. The living room was everything its name implied: it had in it sink, wash-tub, stove, eating table, and the bed where Janet and her mother slept. The little back room, lighted and ventilated from a shaft, was where Dave slept.
The sound of him and the smell of him filled both rooms and seemed to rush out into the hallway as Janet and Rosie pushed open the door.
"Ugh!" Rosie gasped, and Janet, who had struck a match and was reaching for a candle, paused to say, over her shoulder: "If you want me to, I'll shut his door."
Rosie would have liked nothing better but a humanitarian consideration restrained her. "Wouldn't he smother in there with the door shut?"
"Maybe he would."
Janet spoke so indifferently that Rosie felt that she herself must bear the whole burden of responsibility.
"Guess you had better leave it as it is, Janet. I suppose I'll be able to stand it once I get used to it."
Rosie said this, but in her own mind she was perfectly sure she could never sleep in such an atmosphere. She repeated this to herself many times and very emphatically, while she was undressing and afterwards when she was in bed.
"If you're careful," Janet instructed her, "and lie over just a little bit near the edge, you won't hit the broken spring. Now good-night, dear, and sleep tight."
Sleep tight, indeed, with that brute in there snorting like an engine and one's back nearly broken in two stretching over sharp peaks and yawning precipices! My! what would Rosie not have given to be at home in her own bed! Not that her own bed was any marvel of comfort. It was not. But it was her own – that was the great thing. People like their own things – their own beds, their own homes, their own families. How Rosie loved hers! There was her father for whom her heart overflowed in a sudden gush of tenderness. Jamie O'Brien was so quiet and unobtrusive that Rosie often forgot him. It needed the contrast of a Dave McFadden to awaken in her a realization of his gentle worth. And, if you only knew it, there wasn't a more generous-hearted soul on earth than Maggie O'Brien. And where was there a prettier or a sweeter baby than Geraldine? And Jackie was a nice kid, too. He was! And Terry – Terry's nobility of character could only be expressed orally with a sigh, graphically with a dash… Of course there was Ellen… I suppose every family has to have at least one disagreeable member… Wouldn't it be a great idea if all families just bunched together their disagreeable members and sent 'em off somewhere alone where they wouldn't be of any further nuisance? To the Great American Desert, for instance! To such a scheme Rosie would gladly contribute Ellen and Janet might contribute her father. The longer Rosie considered the plan, the more sensible it seemed to her. She was surprised she hadn't thought of it sooner. She would discuss it with Janet in the morning… Yes, morning – morning. Then dream and waking flowed together and she felt Janet patting her arm and she heard Janet's voice saying, "Morning! It's morning, Rosie! Wake up!"
Rosie opened her eyes with a pop. "Why, I've been asleep, haven't I?"
"I should think you had!" Janet told her. "You've been laughing and talking to yourself to beat the band. It's time to get up now. I want you to go to the grocery and, while you're out, I'll get him up."
CHAPTER XXX
JANET TO HER OWN FATHER
When Rosie got back from the grocery, Dave McFadden was washing his face at the sink. He paid no attention to Rosie and, in fact, seemed not to see her until he sat down to breakfast. Then he looked at her in surprise.
"Why, hello, Rosie! Where did you come from?"
He was a large powerfully built man, dark, with sombre cavernous eyes and a gaunt face. His voice was not unkind nor was his glance.
Rosie spoke to him politely: "Good-morning, Mr. McFadden."
"Rosie's been here all night," Janet announced.
"All night!" Dave looked around a little startled. "Where's your mother?"
"My mother?" Janet spoke indifferently. "Oh, she's at the hospital. She's been there since yesterday morning. I tried to tell you about her last night."
Dave put down his coffee cup heavily. "What's the matter with her?"
"The doctor said it was overwork and worry."
"Overwork and worry! What are you talking about? They don't put people in the hospital for overwork and worry!" Dave spoke with a rising irritation. "Can't you tell me something that's got some sense to it?"
Janet answered casually as though relating an adventure that in no way touched herself. "I can tell you the whole thing if you want to hear it. We were on the street going to Mrs. Lamont's for the washing when suddenly ma jumped and her hands went up and she shook, and I looked where she was looking because I thought there must be a snake or something on the sidewalk. Then, before I knew what was happening, she screamed and fell and her eyes began rolling and she bit with her mouth until her lips were all bloody and her head jerked around and – and – it was awful!" With a sob in which there was left no pretence of indifference, Janet put her hands before her face to shut out the horror of the scene.
The details were as new to Rosie as to Dave. Janet had not even hinted that it was this which had happened to her mother.
Dave McFadden breathed heavily. "Then what?"
Janet took her hands from her face and, with a fresh assumption of indifference, continued: "Oh, a crowd gathered, of course, and after while a policeman came, and then the ambulance. And while we were in the ambulance she – had another. And when we got to the hospital – another. It was awful!" Janet dropped her head on the table and sobbed.
"Well?" demanded Dave gruffly.
Janet stifled her sobs. "They undressed her and put her to bed and gave her something and she went to sleep. Then the doctor took me into another room and wrote down what he said was a history of ma's case and he asked me questions about everything."
Dave McFadden's sombre gaze wandered off unhappily about the room. "What did you tell him?"
Janet's answer came a little slowly: "I told him everything."
Dave looked at her sharply. "Tell me what you told him!"
"All right. I'll tell you." There was a hint of unsteadiness in Janet's voice but no sign of wavering in her manner. Her eyes stared across at her father as sombre almost as his own. "He said from the looks of her he thought ma was all run down from overwork and worry. I told him she was. Then he asked me why and I told him why… I told him my father made good money but boozed every cent. I told him my mother had to support herself and me and even had to feed my father. I told him that when my father was sober he was cross and grouchy but he didn't hurt us and that, when he came home drunk, he'd kick us or beat us or do anything he could to hurt us."
With a roar like the roar of an angry animal, Dave McFadden reached across the table and clutched Janet roughly by the shoulder. "You told him that, you – you little skunk!"
His fury, instead of cowing Janet, roused her to like fury.
"Yes!" she shouted shrilly. "That's exactly what I told him and it's exactly what I'm going to tell everybody! I'm never going to tell another lie about you, Dave McFadden! Do you hear me? Never!"
At the unexpectedness of her attack, Dave's anger and strength seemed to flow from him like water. His clutch relaxed; he fell back weakly into his chair. For a moment confusion covered him utterly. Then he tried to speak and at last succeeded in voicing that ancient reproach with which unworthy parenthood has ever sought to beguile the just reproof of outraged offspring: "And is this the way you talk to your own father? Your – own – father!" Had he been a little drunk, he would have wept. As it was, even to himself, his words seemed not to ring very true.
Janet regarded him scornfully. "Yes, that's exactly the way I talk to my own father!" She paused and her eyes blazed anew. "And there's one thing, Dave McFadden, that I want to tell you." She stood up from the table and walked around to her father's place. "When you come in sober, as cross as a bear and without a word in your mouth for any one, ma and me hustle about to make you comfortable and don't even talk to each other for fear of riling you. Yes, we're so thankful you're not drunk that we crawl around like two little dogs just waiting to lick your hand and tell you how good you are. Then, when you come home drunk, wanting to kill some one, we do our best to coax you in here to keep you from getting mixed up with the neighbours. We're terribly careful to save the neighbours, and why? So's you won't get arrested. But do we ever save ourselves? There's never a time when I'm not black and blue all over with the bruises you give me – kicking me and pinching me and knocking me down."
In his senses Dave McFadden was not an unkind man, but most of the time he was not in his senses. Janet's tirade now seemed to be affecting him much as cheap whiskey did. He staggered to his feet and raised threatening hands.
"You little slut! If you don't shut up, I – I'll choke you!"
But Janet was far past any intimidation. She stood her ground calmly. "All right! Go ahead and choke! The thing I've made up my mind to tell you, Dave McFadden, is this: I'll never again lick your boots when you're sober nor run from you when you're drunk. Kill me now if you want to! Go on! You've probably killed ma and if she's lying there in the hospital dead this minute, I wish you would kill me! Then you could go drown yourself and that would be the end of all of us!"
Dave McFadden groaned. "For God's sake," he implored, "can't you let up on me?"
Janet looked at him steadily. "Have you ever let up on us?"
He stared about helplessly and asked, with the querulousness, almost, of a child: "What is it you want me to do? Do you want me to go to the hospital to see her?"
Janet laughed drearily. "They wouldn't let you in. I asked the doctor did he want you to come and he said, no, the sight of you would probably give her another attack."
Dave shuffled uneasily. "Then I suppose I might as well go to work."
"Yes," Janet agreed, "you might as well go to work. But before you go, will you please give me a quarter? I borrowed a quarter from Rosie to buy your breakfast."
Dave put his hand in his pocket and found a quarter. He flipped it across the table. "Here's your money, Rosie."
"And if you want me to get any supper for you," Janet went on, "you'll have to give me some money, too."
Dave hesitated. He was not accustomed to paying the household expenses. Before he realized what he was saying, he asked: "Hasn't your mother any money?" Under the instant fire of Janet's scorn, he saw his mistake and reddened with shame.