CHAPTER XVI

THE MYSTERY

The rectory hall was quiet, although it was well filled with people--shabby, the most of them, and sitting uneasily upright in their chairs. Damp snow clung to the coat of one woman who had just entered, and the smell of dirty and wet clothing was in the air.

Now and again the steam pounded in a low radiator below a window. There was a great deal of sniffing, and a hacking cough from a woman who bragged of a "weak chest." At last an old man who had been fingering the brim of his hat spoke in a hoarse whisper. "How _is_ he?" he croaked. His thumb pointed over his shoulder toward the stairs.

"Ain't no better," responded the woman who coughed. "_She_ come down a half hour ago an' sez 'He's the same.'" The woman coughed again, and afterward wiped her eyes.

"He gimme a pipe," said the old man, turning the hat in his hands. "It hez a real amber mouthpiece on. He sez, 'Here, Jake, you know a good pipe, now I don't. This here was gave to me, I want you should hev it,' he sez,--like that he sez----"

"I bet!" said a frightened looking little man, hitherto silent, "I bet he did! What he done fer me----!" The little man stopped, looked around, and cowered back in is chair, swallowed several times, then spoke in a high voice, evidently unnatural and the fruit of great effort. "I was in the penitentiary," he said, "an' when I come out no one would gimme a job. I was despert. I got my wife, an' her aunt, what's had a stroke, an' can't use her limbs no way. My wife took to coughin' an' couldn't work no more. Gawd, it was fierce! I was despert. I come to him. What he done fer me----! I sez 'What kin I do? I gotta feed them women. Hev I gotta steal again?' He sez no, an' he set me down an' gimme a meal. Talkin' to me while I et ... Gawd, I never kin fergit it.... That there meal was none of them cold potato hand-outs served up with a sneer. Human beings is awful rough with each other sometimes. When I got through I got up. I sez, 'I don't want no more. I guess I kin hunt my own job now, fer you've made me a man agin....' He sez, 'Well, well,' an' then he set me down, an' believe it or not, he gimme a c_ee_gar! A fie' center too! Then he come with me to my old woman, and Aunt Ellen, an' he seen that they was did for, an' the next week he got me a job at the cement plant." After he finished he cowered again. The world had shown him little forgiveness. His world was scorn, or a hidden shame.

The little man had, in telling of Father McGowan's goodness, voiced his crucifixion. The pain of telling it made him feel as if he were at last thanking the big priest adequately.... He blinked, and avoided his companions' eyes now. He knew what to expect.

"I'm glad he helped yuh," said the old man, "but he would. There ain't nothing he wouldn't do fer nobody."

Common sorrow, like common joy, had drawn these people together. The love of the man upstairs had filled their souls, and left no room for littleness. The little man of the penitentiary was one of them, not an outcast.

He sat up straight again, still blinking. "Yer right," he said; "he's helped a lot of us to believe there is a Gawd ... an' something beside hell, livin' or dead."

"Yep," answered the woman with the cough. She drew a shawl close about her and moved near the clanking radiator. "Ain't it cold?" she said. "I'm used to settin' near the stove. I wisht she'd come. That there woman in white, I mean, the one what nurses him."

"I wish too," said a fat soul who surveyed every one with suspicion. "I gotta get home an' pack my man's dinner pail. Night work he does. It ain't so nice. _I_ don't get no company. All day long he snores, an' at night I set home, or go alone. We used to go to pictures every Monday regular as clockwork."

"He helped me buy a parlour organ," said a thin woman a little apart from the group. "I come to him, and I sez, 'I'd go hungry to get a organ, what I could pick out tunes on, an' mebbe learn to play "Home, Sweet Home" on.' He sez, 'Well, well!' (yuh know his way) an' then I told him how I'd wanted one, an' saved up, and then had to use that there money to bury pop (his insurance havin' ran out) an' he helped me. I got it. I kin play three measures a 'Home, Sweet Home,' real good, except fer being slow in the bass.... There ain't nothing like music fer company. I don't get lonely no more of evenings. I use to get that down, an' tired a settin' alone after work, that I'd hate to hear the six a'clock whistles. It ain't no joke, settin' in one room with the wall paper all off. I wonder how he is?" she ended in another voice. No one answered. The woman near the radiator coughed, then wiped her eyes. The old man twirled his hat.

A girl with a sullen look slunk in, and settled near the door. There was quiet. Once in a while a chair was moved, and grated on the floor. The radiator clanked. There was the staccato tap of heels in the upper hall, then on the stairs.

"_You_ ask her," said one woman to another.

The old man spoke. "Mrs.," he said, "how _is_ he?"

"There ain't no change," said Mrs. Fry, "and there ain't no sense to your settin' here."

"We'll be quiet," said the old man wistfully, "and we'd kinda like to. We all love him."

Mrs. Fry covered her face with her handkerchief. "Set if yuh want to," she said in what was, for her, a softened tone, "but there ain't a bit a sense to it." Then she turned and went down the hall, blowing her nose loudly.

"There's three doctors," said a girl just out of childhood, and yet from her place in life old looking.

"I know that," replied the thin woman. "It looks bad fer him, but he _can't_ die! There ain't another!"

"He won't die!" said the old man. "Fer them that knowed him, he'll always live."

In the kitchen Mrs. Fry was sobbing in the roller towel. She heard Father McGowan's voice come, as it had, in gasps. "Now,--now! Mrs. Fry----" echoed in her heart, "don't feel badly--I'm tired,--and--I'm ready to go--to sleep----" And then he had smiled.

"Mrs. Fry," came in a voice from the doorway, "yer wanted!" She looked up to see an old man with the tears running down his face and following the wrinkles in criss-cross paths of salty moisture.

The nurse stood in the hall. She alone was calm. "You'd better go now," she said quietly to the little group. Several of them sobbed loudly. The door opened suddenly. "Where's Father McGowan?" called a little boy. "I got a new kitty what I want to show him. _Ain't_ he in?"

Cecilia was on her knees in the dark, by her bed.

"Father McGowan," she whispered, "oh, Father McGowan-_dear_, where are you?" He had not gone where childhood had had an Irish mother go. Growing had made the mystery--the vast uncertainty--the haunting question of the still, dark hours!

Cecilia lifted her face. Her eyes were dry. "Oh, God," she said aloud, "if you are, give us another life. There is no possible good-bye for little human hearts that love. Oh, God, let me see Father McGowan-dear again. Oh, let me! I will be good all my life, if I may meet him once again----"

She stopped, choked.

The mystery echoed.... "Father McGowan-dear," she whispered, "where _are_ you? Dearest, _where_ have you gone, and why?"