CHAPTER VI.

JESSICA’S FIRST GIRL FRIEND.

The screams came from a girl of Jessica’s own age, whom Buster had ridden down and thrown to the pavement. But they were instantly taken up and repeated by a score of throats, while a crowd assembled on the spot, as if it had risen from the ground itself.

“Oh! have I killed her?” cried “Little Captain,” as swiftly realizing the accident, and almost as swiftly, leaping from her saddle to bend above the girl who now lay with closed eyes and white face, apparently unconscious.

“Now, that’s awful!” cried somebody. “It’s against the law for folks to ride that gait!”

“Arrest her, officer! Don’t let her get away!” advised another on-looker, as a policeman laid his hand on the broncho’s bridle and held the creature still, save for an exciting trembling through all its frame.

“I’m not going to ‘get away’! I want to take care of this poor girl!” retorted Jessica, lifting her head and discovering the officer. “O sir! I am so sorry. We didn’t see her, Buster nor I, and what can I do? Is there a hospital near? Is she--Do you think--she _can’t_ be dead, all in a little minute like that! Tell me, help me--help her--Please, please!”

At the mention of hospital the girl still lying on the pavement opened her eyes and tried to rise, and willing hands helped her to do so. She did gain her feet, quivering and terrified still, yet managing to protest with vigor:

“No, no, no! I won’t go! Not to a hospital--I won’t, I won’t! See? I ain’t hurted. I can walk--I shan’t--I shan’t!”

In truth she was not really injured save by the shock of falling, which had rendered her senseless for a little; until that word “hospital”--so dreaded by the very poor--pierced her consciousness. Buster had run against and knocked her down, but it was the blow upon the stones which had done the most mischief.

With tears of pity and regret dimming her own blue eyes, Jessica slipped a sustaining arm around the other’s waist and eagerly assured her:

“Nor shall you go if you’re not really hurt. You shall go home, right home, if you’ll tell me where and this policeman will get a carriage for us.”

The Californian was making prompt use of the knowledge she had already gained concerning this strange city. Policemen were the proper persons to direct, in time of trouble, and carriages might be had at any and all times and everywhere. Street-cars were confusingly abundant but of these she knew nothing and was afraid.

It was the officer who recalled her to the fact that hiring carriages costs money, and:

“Can you pay for it, miss? Your name and address, please. Whoa, there, you brute! Was there nobody with you? Don’t you know better than to ride like that, right here in the city?”

“No, I didn’t. My name is Jessica Trent. I’m just from California and I don’t know much about New York. My cousin, Mrs. Dalrymple, lives at Number ---- Washington Square, and I live with her. She has money, and will pay the carriage man. I haven’t any--not here. But I wasn’t alone, only that old hired horse wouldn’t travel and--Ah! here he comes! Ephraim, Ephraim!”

Though he had failed to keep her in sight, the despised hack-horse had had intelligence enough to follow the course his late companion, Buster, had taken, and now brought “Forty-niner” to his “Captain’s” side.

“Why, Lady Jess! Whatever’s this?” demanded the astonished ranchman, beholding his beloved child standing in the middle of the street, with her arm about the waist of a ragged, hunchbacked girl, and a tray full of flowers lying on the stones before them. The flowers were sadly trampled and bruised, and Buster had planted one restless hoof plump through the wicker tray.

“I--We run over, or knocked her down, this dear, poor little flower-girl, I guess she is. I want to get a carriage and take her home. Have you got any money? This policeman says I must have it first.”

Ephraim slowly dismounted and slipping his own horse’s bridle over one arm, coolly relieved the officer of Buster’s, much to the delight of that person in uniform. Then he demanded:

“What’s the taxes?”

“The--what?” asked the policeman, in turn.

“The taxes, the cost, the price of that there carriage?”

“Probably a dollar or two. Depends on where the girl lives and how long it takes. Say, Sis, I’ve seen you around here before. You’ve been careless more’n once and a cripple like you’d better take no chances.”

For reply the flower-seller made a saucy face and stooped to gather up her scattered posies, critically calculating the damage done to them and the consequent loss to her. She had recovered from her brief unconsciousness and as Jessica also began to collect the daffodils and tulips, exclaiming with delight over their beauty, her business instinct came to the fore.

“Five cents a bunch, miss. Only five cents!”

Yet it was almost mechanically she spoke, for all her hearing was strained to learn the outcome of that carriage-discussion; and regardless of further injury to her blossoms, she clapped her thin hands in delight, as Ephraim settled it by saying:

“Call it up, officer! I reckon we can stand that much. No, you needn’t worry about the broncho. I’ll lead him and follow the carriage. But you’ll have to give the orders--This old New York of yours sets a plainsman plumb crazy!”

The officer found no cause for delay. He had made a few entries in his note book. The hunchback was not injured, she didn’t need a carriage, but if these wild Westerners fancied that she did and were able to pay for it, that was their business.

When the summoned hack drew up to the curbstone, whither the two girls had retreated when the crowd dispersed, the flower-seller’s pale face really glowed almost as pink as Jessica’s own, and her ill-shod feet danced on the stones, as she cried:

“Oh! it’s true, it’s true! What’ll they say when they see me? Oh! my soul and body! Oh! my!”

“You’ll have to tell where you live,” said Jessica, following the other into the vehicle and smiling at her eagerness.

“Course. I know how. This is the way they do it, I’ve seen ’em, lots of times, waiting outside the theaters and such. The ladies they steps in, just like I did, and they speaks up at the coachy and they says: ‘Home’! Or maybe, ‘Waldorf ’Storia,’ or ‘Fifth Avenoo,’ or wherever ’tis. ‘Hark. Hear me! Driver, 221 Avenoo A. Back tenement, top floor.’”

It might have been that palatial Waldorf Astoria, to which she had referred, rather than one of the dingiest abodes on that street which was named by a letter, and that Madam Dalrymple had said was too humble for any Waldron to know about. Yet here was Jessica going to it, must go, or be guilty of a rudeness less “Waldrony” than even that knowledge of poor Avenue A; and it never entered her mind that she could send the hunchback home, unattended. Though, indeed, it is doubtful if she could, for the hackman would not, in that case, have felt at all sure of his fare.

Fortunately, Ephraim knew little and cared less for any street distinctions. He was simply and wholly disgusted by this whole outing. The horse he bestrode was never meant for a saddle; his groom’s livery was uncomfortable in the matter of fit--as well as pride; the restless Buster was extremely difficult to lead, where peril of the streets was constantly menacing, and only love for “Little Captain” prevented his turning about and making straight for Washington Square, even though he had to ask directions thither at every block.

“My name’s Sophy Nestor. What’s yours? Ain’t this jolly? I’m the gladdest ever was ’t that horse of yours knocked me down. My! But didn’t the cop want to hurry me off to the hospital! No, ’twasn’t him, though, ’twas your own plaguy self! Do you know what a hospital is? It’s a place where they take folks to cut off their legs and things. We poor folks is what keeps the hospitals goin’. Them doctors they catch us and cut us just to learn how the rich folkses’ insides are made. ’Cause that way, Granny says, we’re just as good as the rich ones, our insides are. But, maybe, you didn’t know. Else, you’d never ha’ said it. What’d you say it was? Oh! I’m so happy! I never, never was so happy in my life! Won’t the children in our court and all along the block just stare their eyes out when they see me come ridin’ home in a reg’lar carriage! I never thought I’d be inside one, never in all my life. What’d you say it was?”

“I hadn’t said, but it’s Jessica Trent. And is it possible that right here in this city full of all sorts of wagons that you’ve never ridden before?”

The carriage had now passed eastward through the city and even to the Westerner’s untrained sight the streets looked more crowded, the buildings poorer and dingier, and the passing throngs altogether different from those upon Fifth Avenue. But she observed less of the surroundings than of this chattering girl beside her. So misshapen, so wretchedly clothed, and so radiantly happy! She had longed for a playmate of her own age but she had not dreamed of one like this.

In a few moments they had exchanged the fullest confidences. Sophy had listened wide-eyed and, at first, unbelieving, to Jessica’s story of a home where one couldn’t even see another house, because it was so far away; but she had gradually accepted the fact and was lost in admiration of a girl who could live such a wonderful life yet be so friendly and nice to a mere flower-girl from “Avenoo A.”

When they reached that dilapidated block where Sophy lived, and with a great air that young person had ordered the driver to stop, she turned to Jessica and said:

“Now we’ll get out. Oh! my soul and body! It’s all clean over and done with! _It didn’t last._ Seems if it didn’t last a minute. Say, Jessica, if I should go back to that place some other day would you ride round and let your horse knock me down again, so’s I could come home in another carriage? Would you?”

“No, I would not! But--but if you care so much about it and will put on a whole frock and come to Washington Square I’ll ask my Cousin Margaret Dalrymple to take you with us in hers. But I guess I won’t get out. I--I’d rather not. She might not like it;” answered Jessie, more in answer to a warning nod from Ephraim who had now come up to them than from any reluctance of her own. It was, truly, a strange and most unlovely place. Lines of ragged clothing fluttered from every floor, children rolled in the gutters and fought each other savagely at the least provocation, street vendors yelled till the air was full of discord, and the whole surroundings told of that abject poverty which Jessica now beheld for the first time. Yet it interested her wonderfully, more because it was new than because she understood it. So, when Sophy insisted, she disregarded Ephraim’s warning and sprang to the sidewalk, smiling in spite of herself at the hunchback’s uptossed head and the remarkable strut she assumed for the benefit of onlookers.

“Yes, you _must_, Jessica Trent. Else Granny won’t believe it’s true and’ll nag me ’cause the basket’s broke. I’ll come to Washington Square all right, but I can’t--I can’t put on a whole frock. I haven’t got one. This way, right this.”

Seizing Jessica’s hand so forcibly she could not withdraw it, Sophy hurriedly led the way through a sort of dark, damp alley, running between two houses, to another tall tenement facing a court in the rear. Here there were more clothes-lines, more fluttering garments, more crying babies, and more outrageous odors. Instinctively, the stranger pinched her nose to protect it against the stench, while Sophy consolingly remarked:

“The smell ain’t nothing when you get used to it. Granny used to mind it awful, when we first moved here from over Brooklyn way. That was ’fore I can remember an’ my father was killed. She don’t now. She don’t mind anything only having to _live_. She’s dreadful tired of that, Granny is, ’cause she don’t much like the folks in the houses. I like ’em all right. Mind the steps! That third one isn’t there, and there’s a hole in all of ’em. I’ve got so used I know just where to step, even in the dark. Now, one more and we’ll be to Granny’s door. How funny you breathe!”

“I can’t--I can’t hardly breathe at all! It’s so--so awful high--and--smelly.”

“Pinch it again. ’Tisn’t so bad in Granny’s room. She keeps the winder open all the time. Say, Granny, Granny Briggs! Here’s Jessica Trent, away from California, wherever that is, and her horse she was a-ridin’ on Thirty-fourth Street knocked me silly and broke the basket, and she brung me home in a carriage, _in a carriage_, Granny Briggs! And you needn’t say she didn’t, ’cause you can go right down into the Aveny and see it standin’ on the stones a-waitin’ to take her back again to where she come from. True’s I live. You can see her for yourself!”

Jessica made her best, most “Waldron-y” courtesy, and with a grace hardly to have been looked for in such a place, the aged mistress of the one room returned it. She was a comely old body, rather ragged than untidy, and she wore a broad frilled cap on her head, and a piece of a frayed shawl pinned about her shoulders. She had a great pile of men’s overalls before her, to which she was putting the finishing stitches, “by hand,” the only sort of sewing she could get to do, and for which she was paid a miserable price. But it, and Sophy’s flower-selling, was their only source of income, and she could afford to waste no time, even to talk with this astonishing young visitor who had come.

So she rose once, bobbed a returning courtesy to Jessica’s profound one, and settled back in her chair, having scarcely paused at all in her work. Then, still sewing as if her life depended on her speed--as indeed it did--she listened in silence to the story Sophy told, only opening her lips once to remark:

“Pity the pony didn’t finish you up while it was about it, my poor child. Life isn’t worth living for such as you. Or me either,” she added gloomily, and wondering why the Californian didn’t depart. She wished she would. Sophy would have to carry home part of these garments before the shop closed for the night and poor folks had no time for idling. She expressed her desire rather promptly:

“Well, if you’ve done talking, get the leather piece and wrap this work up. If you hurry you’ll get there in time and since you’ve wasted all them flowers you’d better step lively. There’s just one half-loaf in this cupboard and you’re amazing hungry--for such as you.”

“Yes’m. You help, Jessie, please,” cried Sophy; and then, as if inspired by some wonderful idea, raised herself from the floor where she was spreading the piece of carriage-cloth used to enwrap the heavy overalls on their journeys to and from “the shop,” and exclaimed: “Oh! let’s do it! Let’s ask that nice driver to carry us ’round by the factory on our way to Washington Square and carry the bundle with us. Won’t that be grand?”

Jessica hesitated. She feared she was already doing something her guardian would disapprove, yet otherwise felt no sense of guilt. But instantly her hesitation vanished, remembering that she had forewarned Mrs. Dalrymple that there might be times when she could not be obedient, when her own sense of what was right--for herself--interfered with Madam’s judgment. This was one of the times! She was sure of it.

Ephraim had nearly “lost his head” in his anxiety, tied to his waiting outside with the two horses which he could neither leave nor lose; and his patience entirely gave way when the two girls reappeared, tugging a mighty bundle between them, Jessica tripping in her unfamiliar skirt, but Sophy radiant in her rags and in the prospect of another ride.

What the driver felt was best expressed by the fierce glance he shot the sharpshooter, with whom he had had a most enjoyable talk during their long wait, and by his words:

“I look to you, sir, for payment for all this nonsense!”

The effect of this was to turn Ephraim’s wrath from his “Little Captain” upon the city jehu, and to make him retort, savagely:

“Plague take your cautious soul! You shall be paid and double paid and don’t you forget it.”

An hour later there entered the aristocratic but now most anxious presence of Madam Dalrymple, two brightly smiling girls, chattering in the friendliest manner, and one of them explaining:

“I’m sorry, Cousin Margaret, that Buster ran away, and yet I’m not sorry only for fear you didn’t like it. This is Sophy Nestor and she lives on Avenue A. I’ve been to see where she lives, after Buster knocked her down, and now she’s come to see us, and I’m going up to get one of my frocks to give her, ’cause she hasn’t any whole one. And please, will you give me five dollars to pay the hackman? And for fifty cents more he’d carry her back again.”

This explanation was received in ominous silence.