Part 13

"Don't get homesick after your boys," and the lady's smile went to Dil's heart. "You'll feel less strange to-morrow. I want this outing to be of real benefit to you. I'm going down to the city now, and will see Mrs. Wilson. When I come again I'll bring you some word from the boys. I am sure everything will be done for your comfort."

"Yes'm," Dil answered meekly, but with an uplifted smile.

Several little girls ran and kissed her a rapturous good-by. When Dil saw her go out of the gate she felt strangely alone. She wanted to fly home to the boys, to get their supper, to listen to their merry jests and adventures, to see their bright eyes gleam, and hear the glad laughter. She felt so rested. Oh, if she had _not_ promised Patsey to stay a whole long week. And one day was not yet gone.

She espied a vacant hammock, and stole lightly out from her leafy covert to take possession. It was odd, but the little hump-backed girl seemed a centre of attraction. She said so many droll, amusing things. She was pert and audacious to be sure. She could talk broken Dutch and the broadest Irish, and sing all the street songs. The children were positively fascinated with her. A wonder came to Dil as to how it would feel to be so enthusiastically admired.

She lay there swinging to and fro until the supper bell rang long and loud. One of the attendants came and talked with her while the children were tripping in from the woods. Something in her appearance and gentle manner reminded Dil of the hospital nurse.

There was a good deal of singing in the evening, but they all went to bed early. How wonderfully quiet it was! No dogs barking, no marauding cats wauling dismally on back fences, no rattle and whiz of "L" cars, no clatter of heavy wagons. And oh, the wonderful sweetness in the air! If Dil had ever achieved Bible reading, she would have thought of "songs in the night" and a "holy solemnity," but she could feel the things unutterable.

The window was next to her bed. She sat up and watched the ships of fleece go drifting by. How the great golden stars twinkled! Were they worlds? and did people live in them? They made a mysterious melody; and though she had not heard of the stars singing for joy, she felt it in every pulse with a sweet, solemn thrill of rapture.

Was that heaven back of the shining stars? And oh! would she and Bess and John Travis be together there? For he would help her to call back Bess, as she came on Sunday. It was only a little while to wait now. She felt the assurance--for the poor ignorant little girl had translated St. Paul's sublime, "By faith."

The moon silvered the tree-tops, and presently sent one slant ray across the bed. Dil laid her hands in it with a trance of ecstasy. The delicious state of quietude seemed to make her a part of all lovely, heavenly things. It was the "land of pure delight" that John Travis sang about. A whole line came back to her,--

"And pleasures banish pain."

Dilsey Quinn had attained to the spiritual pleasures. Pain was not, could not be again.

She was not a bit sleepy. She watched the moon dropping down and down. All the insects had stopped. A soft darkness seemed spread over everything, and by dozens the stars went out. Ah, how wonderful it all was! If people could only have chances to know!

"My child," said Miss Mary at the breakfast table, "you are not eating anything! Don't you like porridge, and this nice milk?"

"Yes, it's so good," replied Dil gratefully. "An' the milk seems almost as if 'twas full of roses, it's so sweet. But I can't get hungry as I used, an' when I eat just a little I seem all filled up."

"Would you like bread better? And some nice creamed potatoes?"

"I don't want nothin' more." Dil looked up with a soft light in her eyes. "Mebbe by noon I'll be hungry--I most know I will."

"Yes, I hope so."

It was such a long morning to Dil, so hard to sit round and do nothing. If there had been a baby to tend, or a room to tidy. She would have been glad to go to the kitchen and help prepare the vegetables. She was so used to work that she could not feel at home in idleness.

She went over to the woods with the children to please Miss Mary, who suggested it so gently. But some feeling--the long disuse of childhood--held her aloof. She could not join in their plays, but it was a pleasure to watch them. And how wonderful the woods were! The soft grasses with feathery heads, the mosses, some of them with tiny red blossoms not as large as a pin's head. There were a few wild flowers left, and long trails of clematis wandering about; shining bitter-sweet, green chestnut burrs in clusters, the long, fringy blossoms in yellow brown still holding on to some of them. There were bunches of little fox grapes, too bitter and sour for even children to eat.

She sat down on a stone and almost held her breath. It was the real, every-day country, not Central Park. The birds sang at their own sweet will, and made swift dazzles in the sunshine as they flew from tree to tree. Could heaven be any better? But there was no pain nor sickness nor weariness in heaven. And she felt so strangely tired at some moments.

She used her utmost endeavors to eat some dinner. It had such an appetizing flavor. The little girl next to her, who had swallowed her supper so quickly last night, eyed it longingly.

"You can have the potato and the meat," Dil whispered softly. That travelled down red lane, and still seemed to leave a hollow behind. It was like the hungry boys at home, and she smiled.

She sat under the tree again, and Miss Mary tried to persuade her to go and play, but she was gently obstinate.

"Miss Lawrence asked me specially to look after her," she said to another of the attendants. "She looks like a little ghost; but whether she is really ill, or only dead tired out, I can't decide. It's so natural for children to want to play, but she doesn't seem to care to do anything but mope. Yet she speaks up so cheerful."

"Poor children! How hard some of their lives are," and her companion sighed.

Dil's supper tasted good; and she was so sorry she couldn't eat more, as she glanced up and caught Miss Mary's eye.

"I'm ever so much better," she said in her soft, bright manner. "I'm glad; for the boys wanted me to get well an' fat, an' have red cheeks. I'll try my best, you're all so good. An' it's such a beautiful place. I wonder what made--some one--think 'bout the little mothers? But the babies ought to be here too."

"That wouldn't give the little mothers much rest. Are there many babies in your family?"

"There ain't any, but--but some that come in. Other people's babies."

"And does your mother keep a nursery?"

"I ain't got any mother now. I took the babies 'cause I liked them."

"But where do you live?"

"With my brother an'--an' the boys. I keep house."

How unchildishly reticent she seemed. And most of the children were ready to tell everything.

The little household was called in for their evening singing.

XIV--VIRGINIA DEERING

Wednesday's visitor was a tall, slim girl with an abundance of soft, light hair, that fell in loose waves and dainty little curls. Her gown was so pretty, a sort of grayish-blue china silk with clusters of flowers scattered here and there. Her wide-brimmed, gray chip hat was just a garden of crushed roses, that looked as if they might shake off.

There was a charm about her, for the children who had seen her the week before ran to her with joyful exclamations. They kissed her white hands, they caught hold of her gown, and presently she dropped on the grass and they all huddled about her. She told them a story, very amusing it must have been, they laughed so. Sadie Carr, the little deformed girl, seemed to lay instant claim to her.

Dil had a strange, homesick yearning to-day. She longed so to see the boys. Her eyes overflowed with tears as she thought of them and their warm, vital love. She seemed almost to have lost Bess. Could she see her again at Cent'l Park she wondered? She would ask Patsey to take her there as soon as she went home.

A great hay wagon had come and taken a load of the children down to the meadows. Three were in disgrace for being naughty, and had to spend an hour sitting on the stoop. Some were reading. The German girl was crocheting.

Dil sat out under the old branching apple-tree, whose hard red apples would be delightful along in the autumn. She was counting up the days. To-night they would be half gone. Would they let her go on Saturday she wondered? She looked at her poor little hands--they hadn't grown any fat.

"Who is that little girl? and why does she keep apart from the others?" asked Miss Deering.

"I don't know. She seems strange and hard to get on with. But she looks so weakly that even sitting still may do her good. Go and see what you can make of her, Miss Virginia."

Miss Deering had several roses in her hand. She sauntered slowly down to Dil, and dropped the roses in her lap on the thin white hands.

"Oh, thank you!" Dil exclaimed gravely. She did not pick them up with the enthusiasm Miss Deering expected.

"Don't you care for flowers?" Miss Deering seated herself beside the quiet child, and studied the face turned a little from her.

"Yes, I like thim so much," glancing at them with a curiously absent air. Her manner was so formal and old-fashioned, and she roused a sense of elusiveness that puzzled the young lady.

"I think I must have seen you before. I can't just remember--"

Dil raised her soft brown eyes, lustrous still with the tears of longing that were in them a moment ago. The short curved upper lip, the tumbled hair, the gravely wondering expression--how curiously familiar it seemed.

"I hope you are happy here?" she said gently.

"I like it better home," Dil returned, but with no emphasis of ungraciousness. "I'm used to the boys, 'n' they're so good to me. But they wanted me to come an' get well. I wasn't reel sick only--Patsey don't like me to look like a skiliton, he says. Everybody here's so nice."

"And who is Patsey--your brother?"

She seemed to study Virginia Deering in her turn. It was a proud face, yet soft and tender, friendly. It touched the reticent little soul.

"No; Owen's my brother. There's some more boys, an' we keep house. Patsey is--Patsey's alwers been good to me an' Bess."

There was a touching inflection in her tone.

"Who is Bess?" with a persuasive entreaty that found its way to the lonely heart.

"Bess is--Bess was"--The voice trembled and died out. Virginia Deering slipped her arm about the small figure with a sympathetic nearness. Dil made another effort.

"Bess was my poor little hurted sister. I didn't ever have no other one."

"Don't you want to tell me about her? I should so like to hear. How did she get hurt?"

Virginia Deering had of late been taking lessons in divine as well as human sympathy. She was willing to begin at the foundation with the least of these.

Dil looked across the sunny field to the shaded, waving woods. There had never been any one to whom she could tell all of Bess's story. Mrs. Brian, tender and kindly, had not understood. A helpless feeling came over her.

"I wonder if she loved roses? Did she ever have any?" Miss Deering laid her finger on those in Dil's hand, then felt under and clasped the hand itself.

Dil was suddenly roused. The grave face seemed transfigured. Where had she seen it--under far different auspices?

"She had some wild roses wunst. Oh, do you know what wild roses is? I looked in the woods for some yest'day."

Wild roses! She had set herself to bear her lot, bruised and wrecked in an evil moment, with all the bravery of true repentance.

"Yes," in a soft, constrained tone. "I have always loved them. And last summer where I was staying there were hundreds of them."

"Oh," cried Dil eagerly, "that was jest what _he_ said. It was clear away to las' summer. Patsey was up to Grand Cent'l deepo'. He carried bags an' such. An' a beautiful young lady gev him a great bunch. Casey made a grab fer thim, but Patsey snatched, an' he's strongest, 'n' he gev it to Casey good till a cop come, 'n' then he run all the way to Barker's Court an' brought thim to Bess an' me."

"A great bunch of wild roses! Oh, then I know something about Patsey. It was one day in August. And--and I had the roses."

Dil's face was a rare study. Virginia Deering bent over and kissed it. Then the ice of strangeness was broken, and they were friends.

This was Patsey's "stunner." She was very sweet and lovely, with pink cheeks, and teeth like pearls. Dil looked into the large, serious eyes, and her heart warmed until she gave a soft, glad, trusting laugh.

"Patsey'll be so glad to have me find you! They were the beautifullest things, withered up some, but so sweet. Me an' Bess hadn't never seen any; an' I put them in a bowl of water, an' all the baby buds come out, an' they made Bess so glad she could a-danced if she'd been well, 'cause she used to 'fore she was hurted, when the hand-organs come. They was on the winder-sill by where she slept, an' every day we'd take out the poor dead ones. 'N' there was jes' a few Sat'day when we went up to the Square an' met the man. 'N' I allers had to wheel Bess, 'cause she couldn't walk."

"What hurt her?"

"Well--pappy did. He was dreadful that night along a-drinkin', an' he slammed her against the wall, an' her poor little hurted legs never grew any more. An' the man said jes' the same as you,--that he'd been stayin' where there was hundreds of thim, an' he made the beautifullest picture of Bess--she was pritty as an angel."

Miss Deering's eyes fell on the little trail of freckles across Dil's nose. They were very small, but quite distinct on the waxen, pale skin.

"And he painted a picture of you! He put you in that wild-rose dell. I know now. I thought I must have seen your face."

Dil looked almost stupidly amazed.

"Bess was so much prittier," she said simply. "_Do_ you know 'bout him? He went away ever so far, crost the 'Lantic Oshun. But he said he'd come back in the spring."

She lifted her grave, perplexed eyes to a face whose wavering tints were struggling with keen emotion.

"He couldn't come back in the spring. He went abroad with a cousin who loved him very much, who was ill, and hoped to get well; but he grew worse and weaker, and died only a little while ago. And Mr. Travis came in on Monday, I think."

Her voice trembled a little.

"Oh, I knew he would come!" The glad cry was electrifying.

And she, this little being, one among the waifs of a big city, had looked for him, had a right to look for him.

"He ain't the kind to tell what he don't mean. Bess was so sure. An' I want to ast him so many things I can't get straight by myself. I ain't smart like Bess was, an' we was goin' to heaven when he come back; he said he'd go with us. An' now Bess is dead."

"My dear little girl," Virginia held her close, and kissed the cool, waxen cheek, the pale lips, "will you tell me all the story, and about going to heaven?"

It was an easy confidence now. She told the plans so simply, with that wonderful directness one rarely finds outside of Bible narratives. Her own share in the small series of tragedies was related with no consciousness that it had been heroic. Virginia could see the Square on the Saturday afternoon, and Bess in her wagon, when she "ast Mr. Travis to go to heaven with them." And the other time--the singing. Ah, she well knew the beauty and pathos of the voice. How they had hoped and planned--and that last sad night, with its remembrance of wild roses. Dil's voice broke now and then, and she made little heart-touching pauses; but Virginia was crying softly, moved from the depths of her soul. And Dil's wonderful faith that she could have brought Bess back to life bordered on the sublime.

"Oh, my dear," and Virginia's voice trembled with tenderness, "you need never doubt. Bess _is_ in heaven."

"No," returned Dil, with a curious certainty in her tone, "she ain't quite gone, 'cause I've seen her. We all went up to Cent'l Park, Sunday week ago. I was all alone, the boys goin' off walkin', an' me bein' tired. I wanted her so much, I called to her; an' she come, all beautiful an' well, like _his_ picture of her. I c'n talk to her, but she can't answer. There's a little ketch in it I can't get straight, not bein' smart like to understand. But she's jes' waitin' somewheres, 'n' he kin tell me how it is. You see, Bess wouldn't go to heaven 'thout me, an' he would know just where she is. For she couldn't get crost the river 'n' up the pallis steps 'les I had hold of her hand. For she never had any one to love her so, 'n' she wouldn't go back on me for a whole world."

Miss Deering could readily believe that. But, oh, what should she say to this wonderful faith? Had it puzzled John Travis as well?

"And who sent you here?" she asked, to break the tense strain.

Dil told of the fainting spell, and Mrs. Wilson and Miss Lawrence, who had been so good.

"But now he's come, you see, I must get well an' go down. He'll be there waitin'. I'd like to stay with the boys, but somethin' draws me to Bess. I feel most tore in two. An' ther's a chokin' in my throat, an' my head goes round, an' I can't hardly wait, I want to see her so. When I tell Patsey and Owny all about it, I'm most sure they'll want me to go, for they know how I loved Bess. An' when _he_ comes, he'll know what's jes' right."

They were silent a long while. The bees crooned about, now and then a bird lilted in the gladness of his heart. Virginia Deering was asking herself if she had ever loved like this, and what she had suffered patiently for her love. For her self-will and self-love there had been many a pang. But she let her soul go down now to the divinest humiliation. Whatever _he_ did henceforth, even to the dealing out of sorest punishment, must be right evermore in her eyes.

The children were coming back from their ride, joyous, noisy, exuberant; their eyes sparkling, their cheeks beginning to color a little with the vivifying air and pleasurable excitement. Dil glanced at them with a soft little smile.

"I think they want you," she said. "They like you so. An' I like you too, but I've had you all this time."

"You are a generous little girl." Virginia was struck by the simple self-abnegation. "I will come back again presently."

She did not let the noisy group miss anything in her demeanor. And yet she was thinking of that summer day, and the poor roses she had taken so unwillingly. How she had shrunk from them all through the journey! How she had tossed them out, poor things, to be fought over by street arabs. They had come back to her with healing on their wings. And that John Travis should have seen them, and the two little waifs of unkind fortune. Ah, how could _she_ have been so fatally blind and cruel that day among the roses? And all for such a very little thing.

What could she say to this simple, trustful child? If her faith and her beliefs had gone outside of orthodox lines, for lack of the training all people are supposed to get in this Christian land, was there any way in which she could amend it? No, she could not even disturb it. John Travis should gather in the harvest he had planted; for, like Dil, she believed him in sincere earnest. She "almost knew that he meant to set out on the journey to heaven," if not in the literal way poor, trusting little Dil took it. And she honored him as she never had before.

She came back to Dil for a few moments.

"Don't you want to hear about the picture?" she asked. "It quite went out of my mind. Mr. Travis exhibited it in London, and a friend bought it and brought it home. I saw it a fortnight ago. So you brought him a great deal of good fortune and money."

"I'm so glad," her eyes shone with a soul radiance; "for he gev us some money--it was for Bess, an' we buyed such lots of things. We had such a splendid time! Five dollars--twicet--an' Mrs. Bolan, an' she was so glad 'bout the singin'. But I wisht it had been Bess. He couldn't make no such beautiful picture out'n me. Bess looked jes' 's if she could talk."

"He put you in that beautiful thicket of roses." Ah, how well he had remembered it! "I do not think any one would have you changed, but you were not so thin then."

"No;" Dil gave the soft little laugh so different from the other children. "I was quite a little chunk, mammy alwers said, an' I don't mind, only Patsey wants me to get fatter. Mebbe they make people look beautifuller in pictures," and she gave a serious little sigh.

Then the supper-bell rang. Dil held tightly to the slim hand.

"They're all so good," she said earnestly. "But folks is diff'rent. Some come clost to you," and she made an appealing movement of nearness. "Then they couldn't understand 'bout me an' Bess--that she's jes' waitin' somewheres till I kin find out how to go to her, an' then he'll tell us which way to start for heaven. I'm so glad you know _him_."

Dil tried again to eat, but did not accomplish much. She was brimful of joy. Her eyes shone, and a happy smile kept fluttering about her face, flushing it delicately.

"You have made a new child of her," said Miss Mary delightedly. "I thought her a dull and unattractive little thing, but such lives as theirs wear out the charms and graces of childhood before they have time to bloom. We used to think the poor had many compensations, and amongst them health, that richer people went envying. Would any mother in comfortable circumstances change her child's physique for these stunted frames and half-vitalized brains?"

Virginia Deering made some new resolves. It was not enough to merely feed and clothe. She thought of Dilsey Quinn's love and devotion; of Patsey Muldoon's brave endeavor to rescue Owen, and keep him from going to the bad, and his generosity in providing a home for Dil, to save her from her brutalized mother. Ah, yes; charity was a grander thing,--a love for humanity.

Dil came to say good-night. Virginia was startled by the unearthly beauty, the heavenly content, in her eyes that transfigured her.

"You breathe too short and fast," she said. "You are too much excited."

"I d'n' know--I think it's 'cause _he's_ comin'. 'N' I've waited so, 'n' now it's all light 'n' beautiful, 'n' I don't feel worried no more."

"You must go to sleep and get rested, and--get well." Yes, she _must_ get well, and have the different kind of life Virginia began to plan for her.

A soft rain set in. There was such a tender patter on the leaves that Dil almost laughed in sympathetic joy. Such delightful fragrance everywhere! For a moment she loathed the city, and it seemed as if she could not go back to the crowded rooms and close air. But only for a little while. John Travis would set her on the road to heaven.

It was curious how bits of the hymn came back to her. She could not have repeated the words consecutively--it was like the strain of remembered melody one follows in one's brain, and yet cannot give it voice. She seemed actually to _see_ it.

"O'er all those wide extended plains, Shines one eternal day."

Eternal day! and no night. Forever to be walking about with Bess, when the Lord Jesus had taken her in his arms and made her like other children. Oh, did Sadie Carr know that in heaven she would be straight and nice and beautiful? She must ask Miss Deering to tell her. Then her heart went out with trembling, yearning tenderness toward her mother. Couldn't the Lord Jesus do something to keep her from drinking gin and going up to the Island? Was little Dan in a happy home like this, with plenty to eat?--boys were always hungry. She used to be before Bess went away, but it seemed as if she should never be hungry again.