CHAPTER VII.

EPHRAIM TAKES HOME THE BUNDLE.

The silence was broken by Madam Dalrymple’s dispatching Tipkins to pay the waiting hackman. But the additional fifty cents was not forthcoming. In its stead a dime was given Sophy and she was, also, dispatched with a crispness that forbade her accompanying Jessica upstairs, in search of a new frock, and that sent “her about her business” with the reminder that she was to trouble that house no more.

“I will have the matter of the accident investigated and proper restitution made. You can give Tipkins your address, Sophy Nestor, and need not wait for Jessica to come downstairs. Tipkins, show the small person out.”

Sophy stared but did not disobey, even though her soul longed for one more glimpse of the lovely girl who had crossed her pathway, for a moment, so to speak, and had vanished within the gloom of that forbidding mansion. She was an impudent street child, in ordinary, ready to “sass” anybody who interfered with her and all the more “touchy” because of her deformity and the curiosity it aroused. But she dared not sauce this wonderful old lady, who looked to her like some of the fashionably draped wax figures in modistes’ windows and whose voice was so icily quiet and stern.

She followed Tipkins’ wake with a meekness hitherto unknown, but a meekness that was external only.

“Huh! She owns the inside of this house, she does, but she don’t own the whole street, so there. And I’ll take my stand right out here in the Square, and here I’ll sell my flowers--or bust! Then I’ll see Jessica and if she can’t give it to me to-day, she’ll give me that frock some other day. I hope it won’t be like that riding one she had on, all tight and draggley, but--Goody! Them ten centses ’ll buy a real lot of daffies offen the market folks, when market’s done, to-morrow. I won’t ride in no street car, I won’t, but I’ll be right here in this Square early to-morrow morning, and Jessie and me can talk through that iron fence, same’s if we was close together. Them lions is only iron, too, and I’m not a bit scared of ’em.”

These reflections passed through the hunchback’s mind as she received the dime from Tipkins and had the door of the mansion closed in her face. Then she seated herself on a bench in the park till she remembered that in leaving the hack she had left the bundle of fresh work in it, which she was taking home to Granny. At that memory she sprang up dismayed and hurried homeward, fearing many things but most of all that she would have to go without food for many meals to come because of her forgetfulness. Granny wouldn’t punish her. She rarely did by word or blow; but Sophy’s worst punishment would be the fact that the bundle of goods was lost and that Granny would have to make it good. Poor Granny! So old and so discouraged! Yet so much nicer in every way, the loyal grandchild thought, than that rich old lady in the mansion she had left.

“Why, Cousin Margaret! Where has Sophy gone?” asked Jessica, hurrying back to the room where she had left her visitor, with her own prettiest frock on her arm; even that beloved one of white with scarlet trimmings which had been made for the happy _Navidad_.

“To where she belongs, I hope. Child, you must never, never do such a thing again.”

“But, Cousin Margaret, I didn’t do it. It was Buster, poor fellow, who was scared almost to death by those upstairs trains and the automobiles. Why, they scare me, too, they sound so like a flock of wild geese coming right down on your head. I hate them. I don’t see why people ride in them when there are so many horses.”

“For once I agree with you. I also detest them, the modern, disagreeable things. But that’s begging the question. I refer to your disobedience in visiting that tenement house.”

“Why--But, Cousin Margaret! I didn’t know--you hadn’t really forbidden; you’d only said I needn’t ever know anything about poor Avenue A and the folks live on it, and I wouldn’t have known only Buster made me. My mother says nothing happens by accident and that everything leads to something else. Like this, seems if: If Buster hadn’t thrown poor Sophy down, I’d never have know how poor she was and had the chance to be good to her. I’m going to write my mother soon as I can and tell her; and that’s the first time I ever was glad I was going to be an ‘heiress.’ Heiresses have lots of money and oh! dear! It will take all we can ever dig out of that copper mine to take care of all the poor folks in Avenue A. I shall ask my mother to have you, or Mr. Hale, or whoever ’tis that keeps the money, to give me some right away. I can’t bear to think of any nice old lady, like Granny Briggs, living in a tiny room with only a bed and two chairs and a weeny, tiny stove in the corner. She was so busy she couldn’t even stop to talk to me a minute. It made me feel real tired just to look at her. I’m going to spend my whole life helping poor Avenue A people, or others like them, and I’m going to begin with Sophy and her grandmother. I just can’t forget them, nor--nor the _poor smell_! I should hate that worse of all, that poor smell. Wouldn’t you?”

Mrs. Dalrymple had listened in silence while her small relative thus unburdened her soul, and now replied with considerable satisfaction:

“That’s the Waldron in you. I have tried, and once Gabriella did, faithfully, to do what is known as ‘slumming;’ but the ‘poor smell’ conquered us both. I trust it will you, and certainly you have made a good beginning, to detect it so instantly. Now, sit down and listen to me. You are _going_ to be a rich young woman but you _are_ not yet. You are but a very inexperienced child, who has just caught her first glimpse of the ‘seamy side’ of life. It isn’t a pleasant side, and to you it isn’t a necessary one. There are numberless organized charities to provide for the wants of the poor and I subscribe to many of them. I will have your name put down upon one or two lists and it must then content you to know that you are helping, through others, those who need. Personally, you can have nothing to do with the abjectly poor. It isn’t fitting and it cannot be. So the next time you are tempted to visit any such tenement as that of to-day please to remember that you are under my authority and I forbid.

“Now, that is a longer lecture than I often give and I shall not repeat it. You must remember and obey. Now go, ask Barnes to make a hot bath ready for you and send everything you have on to the laundry. Except your habit, which, of course, must go to a professional cleaner. I feel as if you had brought that ‘poor smell’ into this very house!”

“Oh! no, Cousin Margaret, it isn’t that. It’s just the ordinary smell-y kind of air is in here. I noticed it the moment I got here and Barnes never opens the windows like she ought. My mother says that the more outdoor air we get into the house the sweeter it is. Why, Cousin Margaret, we never close the windows at Sobrante, except in the rainy season and even then not many of them.

“And I’m sorry not to go right away as you want, but there’s something been forgot. We left the bundle of sewing in that carriage and I promised Sophy this frock. I couldn’t break my word, you know, so I will have to go just the once more and after I find the carriage. Is it in the street here, still?”

“Oh! you tiresome girl! What next? I did not for a moment suppose that in inviting you to my house I was going to have its peace so disturbed. Here have I been fretting away half the afternoon, about your disappearance, instead of enjoying my drive in the park as I should. Then when you do come home you do it bringing some probable infection with you. Those tenements are never free from some contagious disease, I’ve read, and I expect you’ll come down with scarlet fever, or diphtheria, or some other terrible thing. That would mean a health officer visiting and fumigation and other miserable annoyances.

“But, no. The hack has disappeared, the bundle of sewing with it--if such there was. But you’ll not go seek it. I will send Ephraim and with sufficient money in hand to pay for all possible injuries. Now, call him and let’s have done with this unpleasant Nestor-Briggs affair.”

Jessica obeyed, uttering no further protest. Indeed, if dear old “Forty-niner” were to take the matter in hand it would be promptly and well done. Fortunately, too, it happened that scenting a possible future customer, the hackman had early in their time of waiting given Mr. Marsh his carriage number and the address at which he might usually be found. Thither Ephraim departed, and shouldering the bundle himself, reappeared at 221 Avenue A, just as the old lady and her grandchild were sitting down to eat that last half-loaf, with gloomy faces and all too vigorous appetites.

When Ephraim tapped at the rickety door and Sophy opened it, to see him standing there with the lost bundle of blue denim on his shoulders, she screamed with delight and, catching his hand, dragged him within.

“Why, why hold on, there, Sissy! I just come to fetch this back, that was forgot, and to say in the name of Madam Dalrymple, my ‘Little Captain’s’ present guardeen, as how she’d be glad to make good for that accident of Buster’s and the succeeding troubles, and to fetch this here little dress of Miss Jessica’s that she promised Sissy, yonder. Mrs. Trent made it with her own hands and my ‘Captain’ wore it a Christmas Day.”

With considerable reluctance, Ephraim was unrolling the little parcel and displaying the charming contents. As he did so he could not refrain from one glance at poor Sophy’s misshapen back and his wonderment as to the garment’s fit. It actually grieved him to think of anything the beloved mistress of Sobrante had handled being bestowed in this dingy abode where even he could detect and shudder at the “poor smell.”

Nor was he at all prepared for the ready hospitality of the old grandmother, who, while her grandchild was rapturously fondling and examining the gift, all unconscious of the disparaging look the sharpshooter had given her, quietly pushed Sophy’s chair back to the bare table and said:

“We’re just eating our suppers, Mr.--”

“Marsh, ma’am, Ephraim Marsh, once of Californy, late of New York, and originally hailing from Concord, in the good old State of New Hampshire.”

He pronounced it “Cawnco’d,” and he gave to his r’s the peculiar pronunciation which appealed to Granny Briggs’s old heart as his offer of money had not done.

“_Marsh?_ Of _Concord_? Why, bless you, man, I was born there! I myself!”

“You don’t! well, gosh all hemlocks! If I ain’t gladder’n I would be to be struck by lightning and pretty much on the same order of things. A girl from Cawnco’d! Shake. Name, please, as it is and as it was.”

“Briggs now, Badger it was. My father was the village shoemaker and cobbler when the town was young and small,” cried the thin old lady, her voice vibrant with unexpected delight, and so joyously altered in appearance that Sophy ceased staring at her new frock and stared at her grandmother instead.

“Well, well, well! I haven’t a word to say; except that it’s just as my good mistress, Gabriella Trent says, _the Lord does lead_. To think of it! Just to think of the strangeness of it for one single minute! Your father was the shoemaker that my father, the tanner, sold his skins to! Well-tanned hides they were, too, _same as my own_! Tanned so well and so often that I got a little tired of the business and lit out ’fore I was more’n half grown. Sophia Badger! Well, then, I reckon I _will_ stay and take a bite with you, just for the sake of old times; only, I guess, by the look of things you haven’t been used to men-folk’s appetites, lately. I saw a real decent-looking grocery store as I came by. I’ll step down and pick up a few odds and ends, if you’ll let me. I’ve been doing the cooking myself, lately, for the oddest family I ever struck and ’twould be an agreeable change to eat somebody else’s truck for once. More’n that, there never was a New Hampshire woman that couldn’t cook to beat the world. How’s a rasher of bacon with eggs, potato chips, and a prime cup of coffee? If I fetch ’em will you cook them, Sophy Badger?”

“Will I not?” cried the now happy old woman, no whit ashamed to take charity from such as hailed from Concord--magic word! In a moment “Forty-niner” had disappeared, the bundle of work had been recklessly tossed into a corner, the oil-stove had been lighted, Sophy dispatched to a neighbor’s to borrow some needed dishes and frying pans, and the whole atmosphere changed to that of a sunny room in a well furnished home. Even the “poor smell” vanished when the sizzling bacon sent up its own appetizing odors and Granny set the window wide to let in the evening air. With that sunset breeze came, also, something which these two had long needed and sadly; and that was--happiness.

Blessed Buster! Whose careless speed had brought it all about! Such a supper as that Sophy Nestor could not remember. There was neither stint nor caution about it, and though her elders’ soon satisfied their own appetites, finding in their reminiscences a more delightful mental food, the girl ate on and on, and when she could do no more was not even bidden to take care of what was left against the morrow’s breakfast.

But at last the feast was over. “Forty-niner” resolutely rose and tore himself away. He had remembered with compunction that not only the older people in Washington Square would also need their supper but that Jessica would, too. So even this old friendship could not interfere with his love for his “Little Captain” whose history he had given, with all the tender embellishments his fond fancy pictured. Till even the world-soured old Granny began to think the girl whom Sophy had called an “angel” must be such, in truth; and left alone with her grandchild, clasping the twenty-five good dollars which Madam had sent, with the offer of more if this should not be satisfactory, the poor soul burst into tears and expressions of affection. This almost frightened Sophy, to whom such demonstrations were new, and she was glad when she was bidden:

“Go to bed now, child, and dream of the good luck has come to us this day! And to-morrow I’ll write my duty on a decent sheet of paper and you shall carry it to that old Madam with a nice bunch of daffies--not too stale nor faded. Go to bed, but--you may kiss me first.”

Back hurried Ephraim to that so different home in Washington Square; and for once regardless of the etiquette he now so faithfully tried to practice burst into Madam Dalrymple’s presence, exclaiming:

“That does beat all my first wife’s relations, as Aunt Sally Benton would say. That little hunchback’s grandmother is no real pauper as we thought. She’s just a bit down on her luck and as nice as lives. Why, woman alive, _she hails from Cawnco’d_! Think of that! We were both little tackers together in that blessed old town and my father used to sell her father shoe-leather! Hooray, ‘Little Captain!’ That was a lucky strike Buster made, when he hit Sophy Nestor!”

Even Jessica looked up disturbed at this unwonted behavior on her “man’s” part, knowing full well how greatly Cousin Margaret would disapprove, but the expression of that great dame’s countenance was worth a study.

After a moment of amused silence, said she:

“Indeed! How remarkable! But, Ephraim, if you please, spare us any more rhapsodies on the Avenue A residents. Jessica was bad enough but--Ephraim, I would like my dinner.”

Instantly, the old man saluted, wheeled with his accustomed military precision and vanished below stairs. But he felt as if he had been dashed with icy water, while Jessica in sympathy found tears spring to her eyes. But, Jessie, alas! did not as yet realize her full privilege in being a Waldron.