The Angel of the Tenement

CHAPTER IX.

MARY CAREW IS TEMPTED.

When Norma, on reaching home with the tired child, finished her story, which, truth to tell, lost nothing of its dramatic possibilities in her telling, Mary Carew looked up with her face so set and white that Norma, who had been too intent in her recital to notice the gradual change in the other's manner, was startled.

"Don't take on so, Mary," she cried, removing the child's wraps as she spoke, "I've always warned you she wasn't any deserted child, haven't I?" but there was a real tenderness in Norma's voice as she reminded the other of it.

"You'd better get your supper," Mary replied, "it's near time for you to be going," and she pushed her work aside and held out her arms for the child, her face softening as it did for nothing else in the world.

Tired, cold, dazed with crying, the drooping little soul crept into Mary's arms, which closed hungrily and held her close as the sobs began to come again.

Unlike her usual self, Mary let Norma prepare the supper unaided, while she sat gazing down on the flushed little face pillowed on her arm, and drew off the broken shoes, chafing and rubbing the cold, tired feet with her hand.

She wanted no supper, she declared shortly in response to Norma's call, but on being pressed, came to the table and drank a little tea thirstily, and fed the sleepy child from her own plate.

"Now don't take on so, Mary, don't fret about it while I'm gone," Norma begged as she hurried off to her nightly duties. "I'll miss her just as much as you, if it does turn out that we have to give her up, and for the darling's own sake, Mary, we ought to be glad to think she's going back to her own."

But Mary, laying the sleeping child down in the crib, burst forth as the door closed, "An' it's Norma Bonkowski can tell me I ought to be glad! She can tell me that, and then say she'll miss her the same as me! It's little then she knows about my feelings,—for it'll be to lose the one bright thing outer my life as has ever come in it. 'Go back to her own!' Like as not her own's a mother like them fine ones I see on the Avenoos as leaves their little ones to grow up with hired nurses. 'Give her up—give—her up—' Norma says so easy like,—when every word chokes me—" and struggling against her sobs, Mary fell on her knees beside the crib, burying her face in the covers, "an' I must go on sittin' here day after day sewin', an' my precious one gone; stitchin' an' stitchin', one day jus' like another stretchin' on ahead, long as life itself, an' no little feet a-patterin' up the stairs, an' no little voice a-callin' on me,—nothin' to live for, nothin' to keep me from thinkin' an' thinkin' till I'm nigh to goin' crazy with the stitchin'—give her up?"—a wild look was on Mary's face as she raised it suddenly, a desperate one in her eyes—"I'll not give her up—she's mine——"

For a moment she gazed at the flushed face framed about with the sunny hair, then she rose, and, moving about the room with feverish haste, she gathered together certain of the garments which hung from nails about the walls, and rolled them into a bundle. Then from between the mattress and the boards of the bed she drew an old purse, and counted its contents.

"Two dollars and seventy-five,—eighty-five, ninety,—that's mine,—the rest is Norma's," and she returned the remainder to the hiding-place. Then, putting on her own hat and shawl, she lifted the drowsy child, still dressed, and slipping on her cloak, rolled her in addition, in the shawl found with her that July morning almost five months before.

Then grimly picking up child and bundle, with one guilty, frightened look about the room that for so many years had meant home to her, she went out the door and hurried cautiously down the steps and out into the snowy night.

*****

It was half-past twelve when Norma Bonkowski, returning, climbed the stairs of the Tenement wearily. She was cold, for her clothes were thin; she was tired, for the day had been a hard one; she was dispirited, for the manager had been more than usually sharp and critical of her performance that night.

When she entered her door the room was dark. The lamp had burned itself out and the room was filled with the sickening smell. The fire, too, was out, save for a few red embers. With a sudden realization that something was wrong, Norma groped about the littered mantel-shelf for a match, then hastily lit an end of candle. Bed and crib were empty, half the nails bare of their garments.

"Gone!" cried Norma, beginning to wring her hands. Intuitively she felt what had happened. Desperate at the thought of losing her darling, Mary Carew had fled.

But in a moment a re-assuring look replaced the fright on the blue, pinched features. "I know Mary better than she knows herself," declared the optimistic Norma, "she'll be back," and tossing her blonde head resolutely, she threw aside her hat and cape and began to rekindle the fire.

"I'll put on the tea-kettle, too," she told herself, "and be real comfortable and extravagant for once, and have a cup of tea ready when they come," for the good lady had no intention of going to bed, assuring herself she would not sleep if she did. So, moving about, she refilled the lamp, and drawing the machine nearer the stove, began to sew where Mary had left off. "I wonder how she thinks to make a livin'," Norma asked herself, smiling grimly, "seein' the machine's left behind. Poor Mary! I know her too well, she'll be back before morning."

One, two,—then three, a neighboring church clock tolled, and Norma stitched and waited, stitched and waited. Several times she fell asleep, her head upon the machine, to awake with a start, hurry to the door and listen.

A little before four she heard a step, and running to the door caught poor Mary as she staggered in, half-sinking with her burdens. Taking the frightened, wailing child and putting her down by the fire, Norma dragged Mary to a chair.

"Hush," she commanded, when Mary tried to speak, "I know—I understand," and for once regardless of the child's comfort, she dragged the sodden shoes from Mary's feet, drew off the wet skirts and wrapped her in anything, everything, warm she could find. By this time Mary was sobbing wildly, and Norma, half-distracted, turned to draw the tea and to toast some slices of the stale bread she had waiting.

"Now," she said, jerking the table around before Mary, then sitting down and taking up the child, "you drink that, Mary Carew, before you dare to say one word!"

The child responded promptly to the warmth and food and began to chatter. "C'rew did take Angel away, Norma, and it was cold and Angel cwied, and C'rew cwied, but the nice lady sang."

"I tried to run off with her," sobbed Mary, "but the Lord stood right in my way an' turned me back."

"Whatever do you mean, Mary?" demanded Norma.

"Just that, just what I said. I was a-runnin' off so's to keep her fer my own, an' th' Lord stopped me an' sent me back."

The child, nodding on Norma's knee like a rosy little Mandarin, caught the sacred name. "I p'ay the Lord mine and Joey's and eve'ybody's soul to keep," she murmured with drowsy effort, thinking C'rew was urging her to say the little prayer Miss Ruth had taught her.

"He will, He will," said Mary Carew with awed emphasis, "if ever I doubted it before, Norma, I know now He will. I had been walkin' a good while after I left here, for I had laid my plans hasty-like, to cross the river an' get a room on the other side, for I was jus' outer my head, Norma, along of the thought of losin' her,—an' as I said, I had been walkin' I don' know how long, plannin' as I went, when the darlin' woke up, an' begun to cry. An' jus' then a man opened a door to come out of a place as had a great sign up, an' in the light as come out with him, he caught sight of us.

"'Haven't you no place to go fer shelter, my poor woman?' he says, for I was kinder breathless, an' pantin', fer the darlin' an' the bundle was a weight to carry. But I was that tired out, I couldn't say nothin' but jus' begin to cry. Seem' which he says, 'This is one of the All-Night-Missions, come in an' I will see if you may stay until morning.'

"Thinkin' as how th' child might be sufferin' with the cold, I follered him in, a-plannin' to leave at daylight an' get across the river. I set down on a bench where he pointed me, an' when I got my breath I begun to look around.

"It was a nice place, Norma, with picters round th' walls an' a good fire an' people sittin' round listenin' to a man talkin', an' when he stopped, a lady begun to sing a song about some sheep as were lost.

"Angel here, she had stopped crying soon as she got warm, an' now she set up, peart an' smilin', pleased to death with the singin'. An' when she was done her song, the lady went to talkin', an' right along, Norma, she was talkin' straight at me. It mus' have been th' Lord as tol' her to do it, else how did she know?

"'Rachel,' says she, an' I reckon this Rachel's another poor such a one as me, don't you, Norma?—'Rachel a cryin' for her children an' there wasn't any comfort for her because they weren't there!' That's how she begun. 'There isn't no love,' she said, 'no love on earth like the love a mother has for her child, you might take it away,' she said, 'an' try to fill its place with money an' everything good in life, but you can't make her stop wantin' her child an' thinkin' about it, not if you was to separate them fifty years; or you might try to beat it out of a mother or starve it out of her, but if the mother love had ever been there, it'd be there still.' That's what she said, Norma. An' she s'posed like the child was lost an' she said, 'even if there was a lot of children besides that a one, would she stay at home, contented like, with them as was safe? No,' she said, 'that mother wouldn't, she'd start out and go hunt for the one as was lost,—even to faintin' along the way, till she found the child or give up an' died. That's how the Lord cares for us'—she said, but I didn't hear no more after that, for I jus' set there turned like to stone, goin' over what she said, the darlin' asleep again in my lap. An' seems like I must a set there for hours, Norma, fightin' against the Lord.

"'An' if you as ain't her mother wants her so,' at last, somethin' inside says to me, 'how much more must th' mother what's lost her want her?' and at that, Norma, the Lord won an' I got up an' come back with the child."

CHAPTER X.

THE MAJOR OBEYS ORDERS.

"He's going fast." So the nurse whispered to Miss Stannard, as with Mr. Dilke and Old G. A. R., she came in that December afternoon. As the three neared the little bed, shut off by the screens from the rest of the ward, they found the Angel already there in the arms of a tall, dark gentleman, while by Joey's pillow knelt a slender lady with shining hair and grave, sweet eyes like the Angel's.

The Major tried to smile a welcome. "They've come—ter—carry—Angel home, they have," he whispered, "her dad—an' her—mammy."

The white hand of the Angel's "Mammy," took Joey's softly and her eyes were full of tears. "Joey is going home too," she said.

The Major's eyes wandered questioningly "The big—Angel's—come to get th' little Angel—but—my Mammy—ain't come—to get me?"

"She has not come, Joey dear," the soft voice explained, "because she is waiting for you. Joey is going to her."

The little voice was very weak now,—very wistful. "Goin'—now?" asked the Major.

"Yes, Joey."

His whisper could hardly be understood when after a long pause, he spoke again. "I—want—th' Cap'n—ter—gimme—th'—order,—'cause—I—b'long—ter—th' Reg'ment."

"What order, Major?" came from the Captain huskily.

"Old—G.—A.—R.—he knows—" the Major's voice could just be caught now.

Old G. A. R. who had given the order to those little feet so many times, knew and understood, and his big voice rolled out with suspicious unsteadiness now,—"Attention—Company!—Forward—" then the old soldier's voice broke as the little eyelids fluttered. Old G. A. R. could not go on.

"—March!" came softly from Van Alstine Dilke, and with a ghost of his old, roguish smile the Major's eyes closed, as he obeyed orders.

CHAPTER XI.

TELLS OF THE TENEMENT'S CHRISTMAS.

The Angel had but a week in which to prepare Christmas for the Tenement, but with the help of her marshaled forces she did it. With such a company of grateful assistants as her Father, her Mother, and the pretty young Aunt or "Tante" as the Angel called her, all things seemed possible.

A Christmas Tree it was decreed by her small ladyship her Tenement should have, and Mrs. O'Malligan's first floor front, failing entirely in height or breadth to accommodate it, Mr. Dilke came forward and offered Miss Angelique the Armory in the name of the Fourth Regiment.

And such a Tree! How it towered to the oaken roof and lost itself among the beams, and laden, festooned, and decorated, how proudly it spread its great branches out to the balconies!

Mrs. O'Malligan, alone, of all the Tenement, was let into the secret, and when it was finally disclosed, how the hearts of the favored fluttered as the Angel delivered her invitations,—every lady, every lady's husband, and every son and daughter of the Tenement being bidden to come. Not to steal in at the back door, as if the Armory was ashamed of its guests, but to walk proudly around the square and enter boldly in at the front doors of the building. All of which tended to raise the self-respect of the Tenement, whose spirits went up very high indeed.

And on that eventful Christmas Day, when the guests who were bidden had arrived, it was discovered that the object most desired of each good lady's heart, was to be found on, or around the base of that Tree. Perhaps if Mrs. O'Malligan had explained the meanings of the many mysterious conferences that had taken place lately in her first floor front, the ladies might better have understood.

There was a pretty carpet, as well as lace curtains, long the desire of little Mrs. Tomlins' ambition, the set of "chiny" dishes dear to another good lady, a dress for this one, a bonnet, a nice rocking chair for that,—with new hats, pipes and tobacco around for the men,—and in addition for Mr. Tomlin, an entire suit of clothes and an overcoat, did that wonderful Tree shed upon his proud shoulders.

Candy, nuts, and fruit were there in abundance, open to all, while the children paused,—awed, under a deluge of toys such as their eyes had never beheld the likeness of before.

Nor was this all,—for somewhere about that Tree, hung a document, which being delivered, revealed to Miss Norma Bonkowski that she was now the owner and proprietor of that same Costumer's establishment she had so coveted,—while a most innocent and ordinary looking little book bearing Mary Carew's name told the secret of a sum of money safely in bank, so sufficient that never again need that grim phantom, the poor-house, threaten to overshadow the end as it had the beginning of Mary's life.

As for Mrs. O'Malligan,—who had so successfully betrayed the secrets of her neighbors, she was the most surprised of all to find her own discovered. For, learning that the O'Malligans' savings toward "a house of our own over th' river wid a goat an' a bit of a pig-sty," still lacked a small sum of being sufficient, the Angel had accordingly completed the amount.

And then the Tenement, weary with the accumulations of pleasure and surprise, had taken itself home.

No one had been forgotten. Even the sixty little Kindergartens, through the combined munificence of Mr. Dilke and the Angel, were, according to the gloomy prophecies of 'Tildy Peggins as she waited upon them at the feast, "a stuffed to their little stomicks' heverlastin' undoin'." And Old G. A. R., from the depths of a new arm-chair, tried to solace his lonely old heart with whiffs of fragrant tobacco from a wonderful new pipe.

Neither was Joey forgotten in this time of rejoicing, for St. Luke's was made glad that Christmas Day when the Fourth Regiment endowed a child cot's "In memory of The Little Major."

Even Rosy O'Brien, whose one act of unfaithfulness had been so terribly punished, was made happy by the news her little Angelique brought her, that now since she was freed of her wearing secret, her health would begin to return. And in time it did, and long after, when her tongue could again frame its words, she dictated such a letter of contrition and remorse to Mrs. Breaux, that that gentle heart's last feelings against her were forgotten. In this letter, too, the poor girl related the happenings of the afternoon when she left the Hotel.

Allured by the shop windows, she and her charge had stopped so often that on reaching the river, they learned of the accident which had just taken place in mid-river. At this, the girl had hurried back and crossed by the bridge.

On reaching the Tenement finally, and finding her sister's door locked, and beginning to feel anxious about returning, on the impulse of the moment, that she might go down the faster, being breathless with the climb up the steep and broken stairs, she set the tired and sleepy child down on her shawl in the adjoining room, whose door stood open, and hurried down to find Mrs. O'Malligan and beg a scrap of paper to write a few lines to put under her sister's door.

Again Fate was against her. Mrs. O'Malligan's door was locked, and she determined to run across to the corner grocery to beg a bit of paper and pencil from Mr. Buckley's brother Bill who clerked there, and learn something of the absent family. And here, while crossing the street in nervous haste, she had been knocked down in a press of vehicles,—and so the long chapter of strange accidents was set going.

*****

A few days after Christmas the prima donna of The Garden Opera House was found in her luxurious sitting-room, by her maid, face downward on the couch,—in tears, the result of a state of mind, caused, as it proved, by a visit from the little Angelique and her beautiful mother.

"How can I ever thank you for your generous impulse," Mrs. Breaux had said, in impulsive, sweet fashion, taking the wayward, beautiful, young creature's hand in hers, "or how can I ever be grateful enough to the good God for surrounding my darling with such love and preserving her, as He has done, from the evils of this terrible city," and she had cried and trembled even then, with the child there against her knee, calling and prattling to the green and yellow parrot on his gilded perch.

"If only some one could have understood all the poor child tried to tell," said the prima donna, "but her dear, funny little lisp—"

"It is no wonder they could not," cried the mother in quick exoneration of her child's Tenement friends, "her speech was a comical mixture of her father's French, my English, and the nurse's Irish brogue,—even Mr. Breaux gave up often in despair, and would turn for me to interpret."

It followed, then, that Angelique had been brought to tell the great singer good-bye, and in speaking of her first meeting with her at the Opera House, the prima donna referred to the child's wonderful grace, her poise. "She has more than talent," the professional woman said, "she has genius."

"It is a love of motion born in her," replied the mother, "my sisters have it before her. Angelique danced actually before she could talk, and my sister took her to dancing school and kindergarten when she was little more than a baby, because it seemed such a pleasure to the child."

And then it so happened the singer was led to speak of her own life, of her wretched, motherless childhood, her poverty, the discovery of her voice and her subsequent success.

"A success that sometimes seems but ashes in my mouth," she sobbed, as the young mother gathered her in her arms and comforted her with words which to her impulsive, untaught, undisciplined heart were as "apples of gold," and which sank too deep to ever be forgotten. And it was following this visit that her maid found her in tears.

*****

Pretty Miss Stannard sighed, as with Mr. Dilke in attendance, she was walking up from the station, having seen Angelique, her mother, father, and Tante off for their southern home. "How nice," she sighed, "for them to have been able to show their gratitude as they have; money can do anything."

But Mr. Dilke, who, of late had had reason to question the desirability of being a rich young man, since the conscientious and analytical young person by his side had returned an unfavorable answer to a certain matrimonial proposition on his part, alleging her inability to determine how far her affections were biased by sordidness. So Mr. Dilke shook his head and took a sidelong glance at his companion's pretty profile. "No, money cannot," he returned promptly in refutation of her statement, "all mine cannot give me the one thing that makes the rest seem worth while."

"Nor would you want that one thing if it could," returned Miss Stannard quite as promptly, though what little of her profile Mr. Dilke could catch sight of now, so attractive did something prove across the way—grew a beautiful rosy red as she spoke,—"no, money could not give you that. I've thought and thought until I am quite—convinced—of that—though if you just could be poor,—real nice and poverty-stricken long enough to test me,—I'd always feel safer—you know——"

And when, in time, a successor was found to supply Miss Stannard's place at the Darcy Settlement's Free Kindergarten, it was to see the Angel in her beautiful southern home that Mr. Van Alstine took his pretty, young wife. And there, whom did they find,—her face all softened and transfigured with happiness, tending her beloved charge with jealous care—but Mary Carew!

THE END.