Part 1

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: "_STRAIGHT AWAY THE BIRD FLEW_" _See p._ 63]

Two Prisoners

By Thomas Nelson Page

Illustrated in Color

by

Virginia Keep

New York

R. H. Russell

MCMIII

_Copyright, 1898_

_By_ ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL

_Copyright, 1903_

_By_ HARPER & BROTHERS

_To the memory of_

ALFRED B. STAREY

_ACKNOWLEDGMENTS_

are made to Messrs. Harper & Brothers, in whose magazine, _Harper's Young People_, when under the management of the late Alfred B. Starey, some years ago, this story in a condensed form first appeared. The story has been rewritten and amplified.--_T.N.P._

Illustrations

"Straight Away the Bird Flew" . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

"Could See a Little Girl Walking About with her Nurse"

"Mildred Played Out-of-Doors all Day Long"

"'Are You a Princess?' Asked Molly"

"'Mother,' She Whispered"

Two Prisoners

Squeezed in between other old dingy houses down a dirty, narrow street paved with cobble-stones, and having, in place of sidewalks, gutters filled with gray slop-water, stood a house, older and dingier than the rest. It had a battered and knock-kneed look, and it leant on the houses on either side of it, as if it were unable to stand up alone. The door was just on a level with the street, and in rainy weather the water poured in and ran through the narrow little passage leaving a silt of mud in which the children played and made tracks. The windows were broken in many places, and were stuffed with old rags, or in some places had bits of oilcloth nailed over the holes. It looked black and disreputable even in that miserable quarter, and it was. Only the poorest and the most unfortunate would stay in such a rookery. It seemed to be in charge of or, at least, ruled over by a woman named Mrs. O'Meath, a short, red faced creature, who said she had once been "a wash lady," but who had long given up a profession which required such constant use of water, and who now, so far as could be seen, used no liquid in any way except whiskey or beer.

The dingiest room in this house was, perhaps, the little hall-cupboard at the head of the second flight of rickety stairs. It was small and dim. Its single window looked out over the tops of wretched little shingled houses in the bottom below to the backs of some huge warehouses beyond. The only break in the view of squalor was the blue sky over the top of the great branching elm shading the white back-portico of a large house up in the high part of the town several squares off. In this miserable cupboard, hardly fit to be called a room, unfurnished except with a bed and a broken chair, lived a person--a little girl--if one could be said to live who lies in bed all the time. You could hardly tell her age, for the thin face looked much older than the little crooked body. There were lines around the mouth and about the white face which might have been worn by years or only by suffering. The bed-ridden body was that of a child of ten or twelve. The arms and long hands looked as the face did--older--and as she lay in her narrow bed she might have been any moderate age. Her sandy hair was straight and faded; her dark eyes were large and sad. She was known to Mrs. O'Meath and the few people who knew her at all as "Molly." If she had any other name, it was not known. She had no father or mother, and was supposed by the lodgers to be some relative, perhaps a niece, of Mrs. O'Meath. She had never known her father. Her mother she remembered dimly, or thought she did; she was not sure. It was a dim memory of a great brightness in the shape of a young woman who was good to her and who seemed very beautiful, and it was all connected with green trees and grass, and blue skies, and birds flying about. The only other memory was of a parting, the lady covering her with kisses, and then of a great loneliness, when she did not come back, and then of a woman dropping her down the stairs--and ever since then she had been lying in bed. At least, that was her belief; she was not sure that the memory was not a dream. At least, all but the bed, that was real.

Ever since she knew anything she had been lying a prisoner in bed, in that room or some other. She did not know how she got there. She must belong in some way to Mrs. O'Meath, for Mrs. O'Meath looked after her and kept others away. It was not much "looking after," at best. Mrs. O'Meath used to bring her her food, such as it was--it was not very much--and attend to her wants, and bring her things to sew, and make her sew them. Molly suffered sometimes, for she could not walk; she had never walked--at least, unless that vague recollection was true. She had once or twice asked Mrs. O'Meath about her mother, but she had soon stopped it. It always made Mrs. O'Meath angry, and she generally got drunk after it and was cross with her.

Sometimes when Mrs. O'Meath got drunk she did not come up-stairs at all during the day. She was always kinder to her next day, however, and explained, with much regret, that she had been sick--too sick to get a mouthful for herself even; but other people who lived in the house told Molly that she was "just drunk," and Molly soon got to know the signs. Mrs. O'Meath would be cross and ugly and made her sew hard. Sometimes she used to threaten her with the Poorhouse. Molly did not know what that was; she just knew it was something dreadful (like a prison, she thought). She could not complain, however, for she knew very well that what Mrs. O'Meath did was out of charity for her and because she had promised some one to look after her. The little sewing Molly was able to do for her was not anything, she knew. Mrs. O'Meath often told her so. And it made her back ache so to sit up.

The rest of the people in the house were so busy they did not have time to trouble themselves about the child, and Mrs. O'Meath was cross with them if they came "poking about," as she called it.

Molly's companions were two books, or parts of books--one a torn copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress," the other a copy of the "Arabian Night's Entertainment." Neither of them was complete, but what remained she knew by heart. She used to question the women in the house, when they would stop at the door, about things outside; but they knew only about their neighbors and their quarrels and misfortunes--who got drunk; who had a new sofa or frock; who had been arrested or threatened by the police, and who had been refused a drink at the bar. Molly's questions about the fairies and great ladies simply set her down with them as a half crazy thing. So Molly was left to her own thoughts. Her little bed was fortunately right by the window, and she could look out over the houses. The pigeons which circled about or walked upon the roofs, pluming themselves and coquetting, and the little brown sparrows which flew around and quarrelled and complained, were her chief companions, and she used to make up stories about them. She soon learned to know them individually, even at a distance, and knew where they belonged. She learned their habits and observed their life. She knew which of them were quiet, and which were blustering; which were shy, and which greedy--most of them were this--and she used to feed them with crumbs on the window-sill. She gave them names out of her books and made up stories about them to herself. They were fairies or genii, and lived under spells; they saw things hidden from the eyes of men, and heard strange music which the ears of men could not catch. One bird, however, interested her more than all the others. It was a bird in a cage, which used to hang outside of the back window of a house not far from hers, but on another street. This bird Molly watched more closely than all the rest, and had more feeling for it. Shut up within the wire bars, whilst all the other birds were flying so free and joyous, it reminded her of herself. It had not been there very long. It was a mocking-bird, and sometimes it used to sing so that she could hear its notes clear and ringing. She felt how miserable it must be, confined behind its bars, when there was the whole sky outside for it to spread its wings under. (It used to sing almost fiercely at times. Molly was sure that it was a prince or princess imprisoned in that form.) Shortly after it first came it sang a great deal, yet Molly knew it was not for joy, but only to the sky and the birds outside; for it used to flutter and look frightened and angry whenever the woman leaned out of the window; and sometimes the birds would go and look at it in a curious, half pitying way, and it would try to fly, and would strike against the cage and fall down, and then it would stop singing for awhile. Molly would have loved to pet it, and then have turned it loose and seen it flying away singing. She knew what joy would have filled its little heart to see again the woods and the green fields and pastures and streams, for she knew how she would have felt to see them. She had never seen them in all her life, unless she had not dreamed that dream. Maybe, if it were set free, it would come back sometimes and would sing for her and tell her about freedom and the green fields. Or, maybe, it might even go to Heaven and tell her mother about her.

The bird had not always been in a cage; it had been born in a lilac bush in a great garden, with other lilac bushes and tall hollyhocks of every hue, and rose bushes all around it; and it had been brought up there, and had found its mate in an orchard near by, where there were apple trees white with bloom and a little stream bordered with willows, which sometimes looked almost white, too, when the wind blew fresh and lifted the leaves. It had often sung all night long in the moonlight to its mate; and one day, when it was getting a breakfast for the young in its nest in the lilacs, it had been caught in a trap with slats to it; and a man had come and had carried it somewhere in a close basket, and had put it into a thing with bars all around it like a jail, and with a dirty floor; and a woman had bought it and had kept it shut up ever since in a cage. It had come near starving to death for a while, for at first it could not eat the seed and stuff which covered the bottom of its cage, they were so stale; but at last it had to eat, it was so hungry. It grew sick, though, not being used to being shut up in such a close, hot place, with people always moving about. Though its owner was kind to it, and talked to it, and was gentle with it, it could not forget its garden and freedom, and it hoped it would die. The woman used to hang it outside of her window, and after she went away it used to sing, hoping that its mate might hear, and, even if it could not release it, at least might come near enough to sing to it and tell it of its love and loneliness, and of the garden and the lilacs and the orchard and the dew. Then, again, when she did not come, it would grow melancholy, and sometimes would try desperately to break out of its prison. Sometimes at night it would dream of the lilacs and would sing. How Molly watched it and listened to it, and how she pitied it and hoped it knew she was there, too!

One other thing that interested Molly greatly was the great gray house over beyond the other houses. She supposed it was a palace. There she could see a little girl walking about in the long upper gallery--sometimes alone and sometimes with a colored woman, her nurse. Molly had very keen eyes and could see clearly a long distance; but she could not, of course, see the features of the little girl. She could only tell that she had long brown hair, and wore beautiful dresses, sometimes white, sometimes blue, sometimes pink. She knew she must be beautiful, and wondered if she were a princess. She always pictured her so, and she was always on the watch for her. At times she came out with something in her arms, which Molly knew was a doll, and Molly used to fancy how the doll looked; it must have golden ringlets, and blue eyes, and pink cheeks, and look like a princess. Molly felt sure that the little girl must be a princess. The doll would be dressed in silk and embroidery. She set to work, and with her scraps, left from the pieces Mrs. O'Meath brought her, made a dress and a whole suit of clothes for it, such as she thought it ought to have. The dress was nothing but a little piece of shiny cambric, trimmed with her silk bits, and the underclothes were only cotton; but she flounced the dress with ends of colored thread and embroidered it beautifully, and folded it up in a piece of paper and stuck it away under the mattress where she kept her treasures.

One day she saw the little girl on the gallery playing with something that was not a doll; it ran around after her and hung on to her skirt. At first Molly could not see it well; but presently the little girl lifted it up in her arms, and Molly saw that it was a little dog, a fat, grayish-yellow puppy. For several days it used to come out and play with its little mistress, or she would play with it, lifting it, carrying it, feeding it, hugging and kissing it. Molly sighed. Oh, how she would have liked to have a little dog like that! Her little room looked darker and gloomier than ever. She turned over and tried to sleep, but could not. She was so lonely. She had nothing; she had never had anything. She could not ever hope to have a doll, but, oh, if she had a puppy! Next day she thought of it more than ever, and every day afterwards she thought of it.

She even dreamed about it at night: a beautiful, fat, yellow puppy came and got up by her on the bed and cuddled up against her and went to sleep. She felt its breathing. She actually saved some of her dinner, her bones, next day, and hid them, to feel that she had some food for it, though she was hungry herself. No puppy came, however, and she had to give it up and content herself with looking out for the puppy on the white gallery under the elm beyond the housetops.

II.

The big house, the back of which, with its double porticos and great white pillars, Molly could see away up on the hill across the intervening squares, was almost as different from the rickety tenement in which the little cripple lay as daylight is from darkness. It was on one of the highest points in the best part of the city, and was set back in grounds laid off with flower beds and surrounded by a high iron fence. In front it looked out on a handsome park, where fountains played, and at the back, while it looked over a very poor part of the town, filled with small, wretched looking houses, they were so far beneath it that they were almost as much separated from it as though they had been in another city. A high wall and a hedge quite shut off everything in that direction, and it was only from the upper veranda that one knew there was any part of the town on that side. Here, however, Mildred, the little girl that Molly saw with her doll and puppy, liked best to play.

Mildred was the daughter of Mr. Glendale, one of the leading men in the city, and she lived in this house in the winter. In the summer she lived in the country, in another house, quite as large as this, but very different. The city house was taller than that in the country, and had finer rooms and handsomer things. But, somehow, Mildred liked the place in the country best. The house in the country was long and had many rooms and curious corners with rambling passages leading to them. It was in a great yard with trees and shrubbery and flowers in it, with gardens about it filled with lilacs and rosebushes, and an orchard beyond, full of fruit trees. Green fields stretched all about it, where lambs and colts and calves played. And when in the country Mildred played out of doors all day long.

The city Mildred did not like. She was a little lame and had to wear braces; but the doctors had always said she must be kept out of doors, and she would become strong and outgrow her lameness. Thus she had been brought up in the country, and knew every corner and cranny there. She knew where the robins and mocking-birds nested; the posts where the bluebirds made their homes and brought up their young, and the hollow locusts where the brown Jenny Wrens kept house, with doors so tiny that Mildred could not have gotten her hand in them. In town she felt constrained. There she had to be dressed up and taken to walk by her mammy. In the country she never thought of her lameness; but in town she could not help it. It was hard not to be able to run about and play games like the other children. Rough boys, too, would talk about the braces she had to wear, and sometimes would even laugh at her. So she was shy, and often thought herself very wretched. Her mother and her mammy used to tell her that she was better off than most little girls, but Mildred could not think so. At least, they did not have to wear braces, and could run about where they pleased and play games and slide down hills without any one scolding them for ruining their dresses or not being a lady. Mildred often wished she were not a lady, and, though efforts were made to satisfy her least whim, she was dissatisfied and unhappy.

A large playroom was set apart for her in town; and it was fitted up with everything that could be thought of. After the first few days it ceased to give her pleasure. The trouble was that it was all "fixed," her playthings were all "made playthings." She had to play according to rule; she could not do as she pleased. In the country she was free; she could run about the yard or garden, and play with the young birds and chickens and "live" things. One "live" thing was, in Mildred's eyes, worth all the "made" ones in the world; and if it was sick or crippled, she just loved it. A lame chicken that could not keep up with the rest of the brood, or a bird that had broken its wing falling out of the nest, was her pet and care. Her playroom in town was filled with dolls and toys of every size and kind, and in every condition, for a doll's condition is different from that of people; it depends not on the house it lives in and the wealth it has, but on the state of its body and features. Mildred's playhouse in the country was a corner of a closet, under the roof. There she used to have war with her mammy, for Mammy was very strict, and had severe ideas. So whenever a sick chicken or lame duck was found crying and tucked up in some of the doll's best dresses there was a battle. "I don't want dolls," Mildred would say. "It don't hurt a doll to break it; they don't care; and it don't help them to mend them; they can't grow. I want something I can get well and feed." Indeed, this was what her heart hungered for. What she wanted was company. She felt it more in the city than in the country. In town she had nothing but dolls. She used to think, "Oh, if I just had a chicken or a bird to pet and to love--something young and sweet!" The only place in town where she could do as she pleased was the upper back veranda. Thus she came to like it better than any other spot, and was oftenest there.

III.

One day when Mildred had been dressed up by her mammy and taken out to walk, as she stopped on the edge of the park to rest, a fat, fawn colored puppy, as soft as a ball of wool and as awkward as a baby, came waddling up to her on the street; pulled at her dress; rolled over her feet, and would not let her alone. Mildred was delighted with it. It was quite lame in one of its legs. She played with it, and hugged it, and fed it with a biscuit; and it licked her hands and pinched her with its little white, tack-like teeth. After a while Mammy tried to drive it away, but it would not go, it had taken too great a fancy to its new found playmate to leave her, and, though Mammy slapped at it and scolded it, and took a switch and beat it, it just ran off a little way and then turned around when they moved on and followed them again, coming up to them in the most cajoling and enticing way. When they reached home Mammy shut it out of the gate; but it stayed there and cried, and finally squeezed through the fence, scraping its little fat sides against the pickets, and, running up to the porch after them, slipped into the house, and actually ran and hid itself from Mammy under some furniture in the drawing-room.

Mildred begged her father to let her keep the dog. He said she might, until they could find the owner, but that it was a beautiful puppy and the owner would probably want him. Mildred took him to her veranda and played with him, and that night she actually smuggled him into her bed; but Mammy found him and turned him out of so snug a retreat, and Mildred was glad to compromise on having him safely shut up in a box in the kitchen. Her father put an advertisement in the papers and every effort was made to find the owner, but he never appeared, which was perhaps due to Mildred's fervent prayers that he might not be found. She prayed hard that he might not come after Roy, as she named him, even if he had to die not to do so.

From that time Mildred found a new life in the city. The two were always together, playing and romping. Roy was the most adorable of puppies, and was always doing the most comical and unexpected things. At times he would act like a baby, and other times would be as full of mischief as a boy.

The upper gallery was Mildred's favorite place. Her mother had given it up to her. There she could run about, without having Mammy scold her for letting Roy scratch up the floor. Roy made havoc in her playroom; he appeared to have a special fondness for doll babies, and would chew their feet off recklessly. He did not have a wholly easy time, however, for Mildred used to insist on dressing him up and making him sleep in her doll's carriage, and, as Roy had the bad taste not to appreciate these honors, he had to be trained. Mammy had been strict enough with Mildred to give her very sound ideas of discipline, so sometimes Mildred used to coerce Roy till he rebelled with whines. It was all due to affection, however, and Roy used to whine more over the huggings his little mistress gave him than anything else.

"What you squeezin' dat dog so for? Stop dat! Don' you heah him crying?" Mammy used to say.

"'Tain' any use havin' a dog if you carn't squeeze him," Mildred would reply.

Whenever they went out Roy used to go along. Roy was a most inquisitive dog. Curiosity was his besetting sin. It got him into more trouble than anything else. He used to chew up lace curtains, and taste the silk of the chair covers in the parlors just to try them, though anything else would have done just as well; and once or twice he actually tried the bottom of Mammy's dress. This was a dreadful mistake for him to make, as he found out, for Mammy allowed no liberties to be taken with her.