Part 7

A shout from above next attracted Bird, and looking up she saw her uncle leaning out of the window and calling to them to come up for breakfast. Billy could hop downstairs quite easily, but in going up he was obliged to crawl, baby fashion, on his hands and knees, so Bird followed, slowly carrying his crutch.

Her uncle and cousins were already seated at the table when the pair came up, both rather out of breath. Of the two boys, Larry made no attempt to rise and shake hands, but stared hard at Bird's pale, clear-cut face and neatly brushed almost blue-black hair and lashes that made her violet-black eyes darker yet, then gave a quick nod in which recognition and approval were combined, and continued his meal; while Jack got up, came forward pleasantly, if with the very flourishy sort of manner that somehow always reminds one of the pigeon wings and squirrels in old fashioned writing-books, and waved her to a seat between himself and his father and began to collect the dishes about her plate.

"Go on with yer eatin'," said Mrs. O'More, rather sharply, as if resenting the attention. "Bird can wait on herself,--she's got all day to do it in and it's time you were off. Come round this side by Billy's chair so's you can spread his bread; he's always cuttin' himself," she added.

The food was plentiful enough, if rather coarse in quality,--a dish of oatmeal, slices of head-cheese and corn-beef on the same dish, potatoes sliced cold with pickled cabbage, a bowl of hard-boiled eggs, a huge plate of bread with a big pot of coffee, still further heating the close room from its perch on the gas range. But the table-cloth was soiled and tumbled, and Bird saw with horror that her uncle wiped his mouth on the edge of it, using it as a napkin, while the dishes seemed to have been thrown on without any sort of arrangement.

Not feeling hungry herself, she began to cut up some meat for Billy, who fed himself awkwardly using his knife instead of a fork; but Bird did not dare say anything, and in a few minutes his appetite failed and he sat picking holes in a piece of bread, while Bird looked at the heaped-up plate her uncle pushed toward her with dismay, yet forced herself to eat from inbred politeness.

Larry and Jack, having finished, pushed back their chairs, and hastily filling their lunch-boxes with bread, meat, and eggs, took their coats from the rack in the narrow hall and went out, Larry calling, "So long," as he went downstairs, but Jack turned back and said pleasantly to Bird, "Good-by till night, and don't get homesick, Ladybird!"

"Ladybird, indeed," snapped Mrs. O'More, "you needn't bother; she can't well sicken long over what she ain't got," at which unnecessarily cruel remark, that made Bird stoop lower over her plate and swallow some coffee so quickly that coughing hid her tears, O'More looked up and said: "What's wrong with yer to-day, Rosy? You've no call to hit out when nobody's touchin' yer."

"What's wrong? What's right, I'd like you to tell me?" she flashed; "me with a lot uv sewin' to do, and to get Billy up-town to the doctor's by ten."

"You don't do that tomfool dressmakin' with my leave and consent. I can keep my family and well, too, if you weren't so set on robbin' yerself fer Tom, who'll land himself in prison yet for all of you, if, please God, he doesn't drag the rest of us along with him."

"I can wash the dishes and dress Billy if I may," said Bird, timidly, feeling the tension of a bitter quarrel in the air.

"Well, you may try it for onct, but look to it you neither smash them nor make him cry; there's days he near takes fits at the sight of water. Here's his clean suit, and I'll just go and finish up that silk skirt," and Mrs. O'More pulled some clothes from a corner bureau and left Bird and Billy alone.

"Don't you worry with what she says," said O'More, in a gruff whisper, pressing Bird's shoulder with his kindly grasp. "Just you be good to the little feller and yer Uncle John 'll stand by yer, and maybe ye'll see some way to chirk things up a bit. I've been thinkin' some of puttin' a bit uv an awning out on the 'scape to keep the sun off him while he's takin' the air, only travellin' so much I've not got to it. I'd do it to-day, only I must go to the yards to unload a car o' horses. To-morrer, maybe, I'll stay around home."

"Don't you want any breakfast, Billy?" Bird asked, as her uncle clumped downstairs.

"No,--yes,--I'm hungry, but I'm tired more," he answered, laying his head on the table.

"Suppose I wash and dress you first, and then you can go out on the piazza and eat something and see if you can spy Tessie."

"Will you hurt Billy's bones when you wash him? Ma always does," he added, his lower lip beginning to quiver. He always called himself by name and often spoke in short sentences as very young children do.

"I'll try not to; and if I do, you must tell me and I'll stop right away."

Bird looked about the room to see what she could find without calling her aunt, whose very presence seemed to irritate Billy. There were two stationary wash-tubs beside the range; one of these being empty, she proceeded to fill it half full of water, making it comfortably warm by aid of the tea-kettle. Next she hunted up a piece of soap and found a towel with much difficulty, for the roller towel on the kitchen door was for general use.

"Come and play duck and go in swimming," she said to Billy, who had been watching her with interest as she overturned a pail and put it in the corner of the tub for a seat.

The idea struck the child's fancy so completely that he could hardly wait to slip out of his few clothes and be helped up on a chair and then into the tub, where he sat comfortably pouring the water over himself with a tea-cup, and chuckling in a way that would have warmed his father's heart.

Meanwhile, Bird gathered the dishes together in the sink, wiping off the plates with bits of bread,--as she had done ever since she could remember and had seen her mother do in the short "better days" when they had a pretty home and her mother had always herself washed the best china in the inside pantry,--and straightened the furniture and hung up various articles that littered the floor so that there was room to move about. By this time Billy was ready for drying, which Bird did so gently that he did not even wince, for she had ministered to her father, seen her father care for her mother, and God had given her the best gift that a girl, be she child or woman, can have,--the gift of loving touch, of doing the right thing almost unconsciously for the weak or helpless.

Billy, clean, refreshed, with his bright hair brushed into a wreath around his forehead, sitting in his little chair on the fire-escape, and being fed with bread and milk by Bird, who talked to him as he ate, was a different being from the crumpled little figure that had only a few moments before looked so pathetic sitting in his high-chair, head on table.

As Bird gave him the last morsel and wiped his mouth, he leaned backward to where she knelt behind him and, clasping his arms around her neck, pulled her head down to him, and, nestling there, whispered, "Billy loves Bird very much, and she must stay close by him forever 'n' ever, won't she?"

"See, that must be Tessie's window down there," she said, not trusting herself to answer and catching sight of a white rag hanging from the blind of a low building that stood in the rear of a shop that fronted on the next street. It was an old-fashioned, two-story, wooden house, with dormer windows in a roof that had been once shingled. There were a dozen such in Laurelville, and as Bird looked at it she wondered how it came to be there, built in on all sides, and if it didn't miss the garden that must have once surrounded it.

Then as she looked she saw the outline of a face inside the window. It was so far down and across that she could not distinguish the features, but she waved the towel she held, and Billy shook his hand. Presently something white waved back, and thus a telegraph of love and sympathy crossed the dreary waste of brick and clothes-lines, and put the three in touch, and the Bird, who had been taken from the country wilds and put in a city cage, and the two little cripples were no longer alone, for even at these back windows there was some one to wave to and respond.

Mrs. O'More was in a better mood when, an hour later, having finished the gown, she came back to the kitchen to find the dishes washed and set away, and Billy sitting contentedly in his chair throwing crumbs to try to coax some pigeons that lived in the stable next door from the roof to the fire-escape.

"I'll take him up to the doctor's now," she said to Bird, without vouchsafing any remarks upon the improved appearance of the kitchen, though she saw it all. "You can come along with me if you like, or you can stop here and look about and rest yourself a bit. There's plenty of passing to be seen from the front room."

Bird said she thought she would rather stay at home.

"Mind, now, and lock the inside hall door as soon as we've gone and don't let anybody in, for, in spite of the catch on the door below, there's always pedlers and one thing and another pushing up."

After Mrs. O'More had left, Bird went through into the sitting room. Seating herself by the window with her arms on the sill, she looked down into the street. It was an intensely hot day in spite of a breeze that blew from the East River; down by the pavement the mercury was climbing up into the nineties--summer had come with a jump. Could it be only a week ago that she had been picking long-stemmed, purple violets by the brook beyond the wood lot at Laurelville? Was it only day before yesterday that Lammy had brought her the red peonies, and they had walked up the hill road together?

She had stayed by the window for some time, perhaps half an hour, watching the horses that were led out from the stable to be cooled by spray from the hose attached to the hydrant in front, when a slight noise in the kitchen caused her to turn. The light from the window opening on the fire-escape was darkened, and a man's figure showed for a second in outline against the sky and then swung noiselessly into the kitchen.

Bird's first impulse was to scream, but, checking it, she shrank trembling behind a tall rocking-chair and watched. The man glanced about the kitchen and came directly through to the room where her uncle and aunt slept. It did not seem to occur to him that there was anybody at home, though Bird did not think of this until afterward.

Pausing before the bureau, he opened the upper drawer, and, after passing his hand rapidly through the clothing it contained, drew out a long wallet, which Bird recognized as the one from which her aunt had taken some money before going to the doctor's. Without thinking of the result or counting the cost, she rushed forward and caught the wallet tight in both hands, crying, "You mustn't take it, you shan't; for it's the money to pay for mending poor Billy's leg."

The man, taken utterly by surprise, fell back, but only for a moment, and, muttering a string of such words as Bird had never before heard, seized her by the shoulder with one hand while he tried to wrench the pocket-book from her with the other; but, strong as he was, this took several minutes, for Bird hung on desperately, clinging to his arm after he had secured the wallet, until finally he picked her up bodily and threw her on to the bed, and before she could recover herself, locked the door into the sitting room, and, taking out the key, did the same to the door into the boys' room, through which he retreated, leaving her a prisoner, for the window into the air-shaft was high out of reach.

As Bird sat on the edge of the bed sobbing with fright and the thought of what the loss of the money might mean to Billy, noise of a scuffle reached her ears from the kitchen and the locked door burst open suddenly as it had closed, pushed by a strong shoulder, but it was the face of a perspiring policeman that peered through the crack.

"Catch him, oh, do catch him!" she implored; "he's got the money from Aunt Rose's drawer that's to pay for mending Billy's leg!"

"He's caught safe enough, my girl,--me mate has him in the kitchen and the money, too, though he did try to throw it over the yards when we grappled him. You see there's been a slew of these daylight thieves around these parts lately, sneaking over roofs and down escapes when folks are at work. We spotted this one goin' through the saloon on the corner and in among the skylights, and we followed but lost track, for he has another wallet lifted besides this one, and if he'd slid out a minute sooner, we'd have lost him."

"Then holding on did some good, after all," Bird gasped, still standing with tightly clasped hands as if she were holding the precious money in them.

"An' did yer grab him, now? Look at that fer pluck,--it's a wonder he didn't smash yer entirely. Come out and take a look at him; maybe ye can tell did ye see him before."

Bird looked, but the young man was a stranger to her. He did not appear to be more than twenty, and, as they led him away, handcuffed to an officer, he pulled his hat so low over his face that the crowd that gathered and followed as soon as the street was reached could not see his features, or if he was old or young.

Bird gave the officer her uncle's name, and he said: "When he comes in, tell him to come round to the station-house and he'll get his money all right. I've got to take it in as evidence." The street was hardly clear again of the curious crowd when the twelve-o'clock whistle sounded and workmen appeared from all quarters, either with pails to eat their dinners in the shade of the house fronts, or on the way to their various homes.

Mrs. O'More and her husband--for he had been watching for their car--came up the street together, little Billy between them, and it was strange that they did not meet the policemen with their prisoner. Bird was watching eagerly for them, and, after hearing their news,--that the doctor said it was possible to help the lame leg, only that Billy must grow stronger before it could be done,--told them hers.

Both listened eagerly. Her uncle said, "Yer pluck does credit to the O'Mores, but did ye mind the villain's face what it was like?"

"Oh, yes," Bird answered excitedly, "it was smooth and fair, and he had very blue eyes with a long scar over one, and his hair was quite red." Glancing at her aunt, she saw that she had turned deadly pale, and a certain resemblance struck her for the first time.

"God help us,--it's Tom come back to rob his own mother," gasped poor John O'More.

"But you'll not appear against him, John," cried his wife, throwing her arms around him as he seized his hat and turned to go out.

"I can't, woman, I can't; but maybe it'll do no good. I must go round to the station and get the wallet and see to this, anyway."

And Bird, after laying Billy on the lounge for a nap, sat by her aunt,--who, while waiting to hear the outcome, had collapsed and was crying noisily,--and tried to take off her tight waist and bathe her face, and she realized that there were even worse griefs than leaving one's home and father, for surely dear Terry was safe beyond all harm now.

VII

SUMMER IN NEW YORK

The arrest of Tom O'More threw the matter of little Billy's leg into the background for a time. When the father had gone to the court where his son was arraigned, he found that not only was there another charge against him, but that all unknown to his family he had committed petty thefts in other places, and had already what the police call "a record," so that he had to go to the penitentiary for a year, and John O'More, feeling his disgrace keenly, for though he was a rough man and coarse in many ways he was as honest as the day, turned doubly to little Billy, and could not bear to have him out of his sight when he was at home.

The doctor's orders concerning Billy had been short and clear, but it was fully a week after the visit before his mother could pull herself together or even think of carrying them out, and then when O'More took a day at home and had leisure to ask for details, she began by saying that what the doctor had ordered to get the child in condition for treatment was nonsense, and only to be had by rich folks.

"Well, well, woman, let's hear and get to the core o' the matter," said John O'More, tired of the continual word warfare.

"He's to have a real bed and no shake-down, so's he can stretch out and roll about, and it's to be in a room opening to the light where he can lie quieter by himself an hour or so every day. Then he's to get a full bath every morning and a light meal, and fresh meat at noon, and a bite and sup between that at supper, and the between times filled in with air and a bottle o' tonic, and the saints knows what else.

"'Do yer think I keep a 'ospital to do all them things,' sez I to the doctor.

"'No,' he answers quick like, 'and for that reason I think it will pay you best to send him to the 'ospital to get him built up.'

"'His father will not hear to it,' I said.

"'Very well, then,' said he, 'you know what _I_ think; go home and talk it over.'"

So John O'More sat and thought and blinked at the ground, and thought some more, but it was Bird who first spoke, though very hesitatingly, for her aunt resented almost everything she said, and in her ignorance and prejudice seemed to owe poor Bird a grudge as being partially responsible for Tom's arrest, rather than showing any gratitude toward her for trying to prevent the theft of the money.

"Couldn't Billy have a bed in the little room that was--that is shut up?" she asked finally. "The door is close to the kitchen window, and a good deal of air would come in."

"It's packed solid full, and besides the room is off from me, so's I couldn't hear the child to tend him in the night if needs," objected Mrs. O'More, somewhat hotly.

"Couldn't the things be put in the attic or somewhere?" persisted Bird, seeing a flash of approval cross her uncle's face, "and then there would be room for two beds, and I could stay with Billy and give him his bath every morning."

"Attic! do you hear her?" mocked the aunt, "and a fine slop there'd be in me kitchen, and a nice place for folks to eat breakfast, with the bath."

"If the things were taken out of the bath-tub we could use that," continued Bird, waxing bold at the prospects, "and I'm sure, Aunt Rose, it would be much nicer for you to have the parlour to yourself, and not have to make me a bed there every night."

"That last is true; I've been greatly put out these days when company called," the company being the slipshod factory girls for whom she did sewing, but, as often happened, Bird had unconsciously said the one thing that could have appeased her aunt, for only when something was suggested that would benefit herself was she willing to have others considered.

"The tub is full of holes, and the agent he won't mend it, saying that I made them with the ice-pick, when for convenience I used that same tub for an ice-box, me own givin' out."

"If that's all, a bit o' solder is cheap," said O'More, springing to his feet, and preparing to take action.

"I've the day on me hands, and a few extry dollars in me pocket, and if something can't be worked out o' this, 'twon't be my fault; and while I recommember it, I think you'd be the better of a new hat, Rosie, and while yer out buyin' it, jest step in the store, round on Third Avenue and get two o' them light-lookin', white iron beds; they're cheap, for I saw yesterday when passin' that they be havin' a bargain sale of them," and John, with the quick-witted diplomacy of his race, handed his wife some money which she took, and, half mollified, at once prepared to go out, instructing Bird to "do up the rooms" while she was gone.

The door had not fairly closed when O'More gave a shout that almost frightened Bird, and said: "Now we'll do some hustlin'; there's no attic, me girl, but there's the coal-closet in the cellar which is empty, now that we use gas in the range. Half the stuff is but fit for the ashman, and the rest I'll bundle down there quick as I get a man from the stable to help. Now watch sharp whilst I put the truck out and see if there's aught yer can use."

When the room was finally cleared, a mirror, a chair, and a small chest of drawers were the only useful assets, and these Bird pulled into the kitchen, while she dusted and wiped away at them until they looked clean, even if somewhat shabby.

Returning from the cellar O'More (in his youth a handy man in a stable) attacked the dust in the little room with broom, mop, and finally a scrubbing-brush to such good purpose that in an hour it was quite another place, for the walls fortunately had been painted a light cream and were in fairly good condition.

If John O'More had been asked to go down on his knees and scrub a room, he would have resented the work as an insult to his manhood, but love had set the task. Little Billy, sitting there in his chair, his face all eagerness, needed the room, and so he did the work as nonchalantly as he would have stepped into the stable and curried a horse in a hurry time. It was only when Bird clapped her hands in admiration and said, "Why, uncle, how nice and quick you did that; Dinah Lucky would have taken a whole day," that he became embarrassed, and, giving her an apologetic wink, said with lowered voice, "It's a job well done, but whist! 'tis not for the good of my health to be repeated," and Bird understood and wondered, as she did a hundred times during that long summer, why she always understood her uncle and he her, while life with her aunt seemed one long misunderstanding.

A plumber, living in the flat below, came up in the noon hour and soldered the holes in the tub, which O'More declared to be too black even for a pig's trough, so he sped out around one of those many "corners," of which at first Bird thought the city must be made, for a quart of boat paint and a brush.

"Yer aunt must be havin' a hard time with her tradin'," he remarked on his return, seeing that his wife had not come back to prepare dinner. But just as Bird had spread the table with various articles of cold food, whose abiding-places she very well knew, and was making Billy some little sandwiches to coax him to eat meat for which he had a distaste, Mrs. O'More came in, talkative and almost pleasant as the result of her morning's bargaining.

Before night two narrow beds were carefully fitted into opposite sides of the little room, with the chest of drawers set between, in front of the now-closed door that led to the boys' room, with the looking-glass hung above it. It was only a bit of a place and still very close and stuffy, but Billy and Bird had at least beds of their very own, if only in a niche apart, and Bird's heart took fresh courage.

The next step was to coax her uncle to fill some long boxes with earth and set them inside the outer railing of the fire-escape. There is a law against filling up these little balconies with boxes or furniture of any kind, but Bird knew nothing about it, and her uncle regarded it as a sort of tyranny that he, a free-born citizen, should disregard. All Bird thought of was that she might plant morning-glory seeds in the earth so they would climb up the strings she fastened to the next story, and later on there was, in truth, a little bower blooming above that arid waste of bricks and ashes.