III—THE WAY TO HEAVEN

Then, he had two sisters who were nice, wholesome, attractive girls, who danced all winter in silks and laces, kept Lent rigorously with early services, sewing-classes, and historical lectures, and took their turns in visiting the slums. All summer there was pleasuring. The young women in their “set” were much alike, and he wondered who of them all could show these little waifs the way to heaven.

For himself, he had gone through college honorably. He was a moral young man, because a certain fine, clean instinct and artistic sense forbade any excesses. To be sure, he had read Strauss and Renan after his Darwin and Spencer, he had even dipped into the bitter fountains of Schopenhauer. He had a jaunty idea that the myths and miracles of the Bible were the fables and legends of the nations in the earlier stages of their development, quite outgrown in these later days of exact philosophical reasoning.

But as he sat there, with these children’s eyes fixed upon him with an intent life-and-death expression, uttering a strong, inward soul cry that reached his ears and would not be shut out, a certain assurance came to him. These tender little souls were waiting for the word that was to lead them in the way of life everlasting. “Whoso offendeth one of these little ones”—it was there in letters of fire.

What but heaven could compensate them for their dreary lives here! What but the love of God infold them when father and mother had failed. For surely they had not demanded any part in the struggle of life. Ah, if the dead rose not again—what refinement of cruelty to send human beings into the world to suffer like brutes, having a higher consciousness to intensify it ten-fold, and then be thrust into the terrible darkness of nothingness. Even he was not willing to come to a blank, purposeless end.

He had been sketching rapidly, but he saw the little faces changing with an uncomprehended dread. Dil’s sunshine was going out in sullen despair. Yes, he must bear witness—for to-day, for all time, for all human souls. In that moment he believed. A rejoicing, reverent consciousness was awakened within him; and the new man had been born, the man who desired to learn the way to heaven, even as these little children.

“Yes, there is a heaven.” He could feel the tremulousness in his voice, yet the assurance touched him with inexpressible sweetness, so new and strange was it. “There is a God who cares for us all, loves us all, and who has prepared a beautiful land of rest where there is no pain nor sorrow, where no one is sick or lonely or in any want, where the Lord Jesus gathers the sorrowing into his arms, and wipes away their tears, soothes them with his own great love, which is sweeter and tenderer than the best human love.”

“Oh,” cried Dil, as he paused, “are you jest certain sure? There was a little old lady who came and sang once ’bout a beautiful country, everlastin’ spring, an’ never with’rin’ flowers. I didn’t get the hang of it all, but it left a sort of sweetness in the air that you could almost feel, you know. Don’t you b’lieve she knew ’bout the truly heaven?”

Dil’s brown eyes were illumined again.

“Yes—that was heaven.” His grandmother sang that old hymn. He would go up there and learn it some day, and tell her that in the midst of the great city he had borne witness to the faith. The knowledge was so new and strange that it filled him with great humility, made him a little child like one of these.

“Oh,” cried Dil, with a long, restful sigh of satisfaction, while every line of her face was transfigured, “you must know, ’cause, you see, you’ve had chances. You can read books and all. And now I am quite sure—Bess an’ me,” placing her hand lovingly over the little white one. “An’ mebbe you c’n tell us just how to go. And when you come to the place, there’s a bridge or something that people get over, and go up beyond the sky—jest back of the blue sky,” with a certain confident, happy emphasis in the narrow, but rapt, vision.

“Couldn’t we start right away?” cried Bess with eager hopefulness, her wan little face in a glow of excitement. “What’s the good o’ goin’ back home? Me an’ Dil have talked it over an’ over. An’ there must be crowds an’ crowds goin’,—people who are strong and well, an’ can run. Why, I sh’d think they’d be in an awful hurry to get there. An’ you said no one would be sick. My head aches so when the babies cry, an’ my poor back is so tired an’ sore. Oh, if I had two good legs, so Dil wouldn’t have to push me an’ lift me out an’ in! O Dil, do let’s go!”

She was trembling with excitement, and her eyes were a luminous glow.

What could John Travis say to these eager pilgrims? He did not remember that he had ever known any one in a hurry to get to heaven. How strange it was! And how could he explain this great mystery of which he knew so little,—the walk that was by faith, not sight?

“You said you had been to the Mission School,” catching at that straw eagerly. “Did they not tell you—teach you”—and he paused in confusion.

“I ain’t been much. Mammy don’t b’lieve in thim. An’ I think they don’t know. One tells you one thing, an’ the nex’ one another. One woman said the sky was all stars through an’ through, an’ heaven was jest round you, an’ where you lived. Well, if it’s Barker’s Court,” and she made a strange, impressive pause, “’tain’t much like the place the woman set out for.”

“She left the City of Destruction. Her name was Christiana.”

“Oh, yes!” kindling anew with awakened memory. “Well, that’s Barker’s Court. There’s fightin’, an’ swearin’, an’ gettin’ drunk, an’ bein’ ’rested. Poor Bess hears ’em in the night when she can’t sleep. An’ the woman went away, an’ took her children. But mammy wouldn’t go, an’ we’ll have to start by our two selves. O mister! do you know anything ’bout prayin’? The teacher told me how, an’ I prayed ’bout Bess’s poor legs, an’ that mother’d let rum alone, an’ not go off into tantrums the way pop uster. An’ it didn’t do a bit o’ good.”

She looked up so perplexed. This was not scientific or philosophical ignorance,—he could find arguments to combat that; it was not unwillingness to try, but the utter innocent ignorance, with the boundary of certain literal experiences. But how could he explain? From the depths of his heart he cried for wisdom.

“It is a long journey, and the summer is almost gone,” he said, after some consideration. “The cold weather will be here presently, and you are both so little; suppose you wait until next spring? I will find you that book about Christiana, and you can learn a good many things—and be getting ready—”

He knew he was paltering with a miserable subterfuge; but, oh! what could he say? Surely, ere violets bloomed again and buttercups were golden, Bess would have solved the great mystery. Ah, to think of her as well and rejoicing in heaven! It moved all one’s heart in gratitude.

Both children looked pitifully disappointed. Bess was first to recover. The tears shone in her eyes as she said,—

“Well, le’s wait. My clo’es is most worn out, an’ the cold pinches me up so, Dil, you know. An’ it’ll be nice to find how Christiana went. How’ll we get the book?”

“I will bring it to you,” he promised.

“An’ will there be wild roses in heaven?” Bess fingered the poor faded buds as if her conscience suddenly smote her.

“All beautiful things; and they will not wither in that divine air.”

She pressed them against her cheek with a touch so tender he could have blessed her for it. And there came the other vision of the soft white fingers that had torn them so ruthlessly in her anger; of the hot, passionate words! Would she forgive if he went to her, or would she tread his olive branch in the dust?

“Tell me something about yourselves;” and he roused from his dream abruptly. “Where is your father?”

“’Twas him that hurted Bess’s legs, an’ he got jugged for it. He beat mammy dreadful—he uster when he had the drink in him. An’ now mammy’s goin’ the same way. That’s why I’d like to take Bess somewhere—”

“Are there just you two?”

“There’s Owen an’ Dan. They’re little chaps, but they’d get along. Boys soon get big enough to strike back. An’ some one else ’ud have to look out for the babies.”

“Babies! How many?” in amaze.

“I keep thim when their mothers go to work. Sometimes they’re cross, and it’s dreadful for poor Bess.”

“And your mother allows you to do that?”

“She’s got ter!” cried Bess, her smouldering indignation breaking out. “An’ keep the house. An’ when there’s only two or three mother swears she’ll send Dil to the shop to work. So we’d rather have thim, for it would be dreadful for me to be without Dil, don’t you see?”

Yes, he saw, and his heart ached. He had a vague idea of some of the comfortable homes, but to be without Dil! “Did his mother and sisters ever meet with any such lives, and such tender devotion?” he wondered. It was enough to break one’s heart. It almost broke his to think he could not rescue them. The picturesque aspects of poverty had appealed to him in the street-gamins and ragged old men who besieged him for “tin cints fer a night’s lodgin’,” that he knew would be spent for whiskey in the nearest saloon; but of the actual lives of the very poor he had but the vaguest idea.

“And your mother?” he ventured, dreading the reply.

“She goes out washin’. ’Tisn’t so very bad, you see,” returned Dil, with a certain something akin to pride. “Beggin’s worse.”

He had finished the sketches,—there were several of them,—and he began to gather up his pencils.

“Now that the work is done, we must have a picnic,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll find a fruit-stand somewhere. Keep right here until I return.”

The children gazed at each other in a sort of speechless wonder. There were no words to express the strange joy that filled each heart. Their eyes followed him in and out, and even when he was lost to sight their faith remained perfect. Then they looked at each other, still in amazement.

“It’s better’n Cunny Island,” said Bess. “I’ve wisht we could go sometime when mother’s startin’ out. But if she’d been good an’ tooken us, we wouldn’t a’ seen him. But I’m kinder sorry not to start right away, after all. Only there’s the cold, an’ I ain’t got no clo’es. Mebbe he knows best. An’ he’s so nice.”

“It’s curis,” Dil said after a long pause. “I wisht I could read quick an’ had some learnin’. There’s so many things to know. There’s so many people in the world, an’ some of thim have such nice things, an’ can go to places—”

“Their folks don’t drink rum, mebbe,” returned the little one sententiously.

“I don’t s’pose you can get out of it ’cept by goin’ to heaven. But then, why—mebbe the others what’s havin’ good times don’t care to go. Mebbe he won’t,” drearily.

He soon returned with a bag of fruit. Such pears, such peaches, and bananas! And when he took out his silver fruit-knife, pared them, and made little plates out of paper, their wonder was beyond any words.

Dil eyed hers askance. She was so used to saving the best.

“Oh, do eat it,” cried Bess. “You never tasted anything like it! O mister, please tell her to. She’s alwers keepin’ things for me.”

“There will be plenty for you to take home. I must find you some flowers too. And this evening I am going to start on a journey—to be away several weeks. I’m sorry to lose sight of you, and I want to know how to find Barker’s Court. When I come back—would your mother mind your posing for me, do you think?”

“Posing?” Dil looked frightened.

“Just what you did this afternoon. Being put in a picture.”

It had suddenly come into his mind that he could lighten Dil’s burthen that way. He wanted to keep track of them.

“And what do you do with the pictures?”

“Sell them”—and he smiled.

“You couldn’t sell me; I’m not pritty enough,” she said, with the utter absence of all personal vanity, and a latent sense of amusement.

“When I come back we will talk about it. And I will bring you the book. You will learn more than I can tell you. I used to read it when I was a boy. And then we will talk about—going to heaven.”

He colored a little, and his heart beat with a new and unwonted emotion.

“You’re quite sure we can go nex’ spring?” queried Bess. “Do many people live there?”

“The Lord Jesus Christ and all his angels,” he answered reverently. “And the saints who have been redeemed, little children, and a multitude no man can number.”

A perplexing frown settled between Dil’s eyes.

“Seems as if I couldn’t never get the thing straight ’bout—’bout Jesus Christ,” and a flush wavered over her face. “When the people in the court get drunk and fight, they swear ’bout him. If he jest gives people strength to beat and bang each other, how can he help ’em to be good? Maybe there’s more than one. An’ why don’t the one who lives in the beautiful heaven have a different name. I ast the Mission teacher once, an’ she said I was a wicked girl. Mammy said there wasn’t any God at all. How do you know?”

There was a brave, eager innocence in her eyes, and a curious urgency as well.

“’Cause,” she subjoined, “if God lives in heaven and keeps it for people, if there wasn’t any God, there couldn’t be any heaven. Some folks in the court have the Virgin Mary, but I never see God.”

There was no irreverence in her tone, but a perplexed wonder. And John Travis was helpless before it. How did the missionaries who went to the heathen ever make them understand? They had their idols of wood and stone, and had prayed to them; but this child had no God, not even an idol, though she loved Bess with every fibre of her being.

And he had almost said in his heart, “There is no God.” A first great cause, an atom rushing blindly about the darkness for another atom, a protoplasm, a long series of evolutions—how complacent he had been about it all! Could he teach these children science? He had heard the talk of the slums occasionally, blood-curdling oaths, threats, wishes, curses hurled at one another. These two little girls lived in it. Could any one enlighten them, unless they were taken to a new, clean world? Yet their souls seemed scarcely soiled by the contact, their faces bore the impress of purity.

Was it thus when the Lord came in the flesh, when the wickedness of the world was very great, its hopelessness well nigh fatal? He found many ignorant souls; but they learned of him and believed, and went forth to convert the world. Was it so much more wicked now?

“Let me tell you about the true Jesus,” he said in a soft, low tone, almost afraid to bear witness, he was so ignorant himself. “Long ago, when people were full of sorrow and suffering, and had forgotten how to be good to each other, God, who lived in this beautiful heaven, sent his Son down to teach them. He came and lived among them and helped them. Why, my little Dil, it’s just like your caring for Bess. She can never do anything to pay you back. She cannot sweep the house, nor tend the babies, nor sew, nor earn money. But you do it because you love her, and you only want love in return. She gives it to you.”

Dil stared stupidly. “I don’t want her to do nothin’,” she said, with a quivering lip.

“But you want her to love you.”

“How could I help it?” cried Bess.

“No, you couldn’t. And when the Lord found people ill and lame and blind, he cured them—”

“O mister!” interrupted Bess, with her face in a glow of wonderful light, “do you s’pose he could have cured my poor hurted little legs so’s I could walk on ’em agen?”

“Yes, my child. He would have taken you in his arms and laid his hand on you, and you would have been strong and well.”

“And where is he now?” she asked eagerly.

“He went back to heaven—to his Father.” Ah, how could he explain to their limited understanding the sacrifice that had redeemed the world. He began to realize that faith for one’s self was easier than giving a reason for one’s faith. “He told people how to be kind and tender and loving, and to care for those in pain and sickness. He begged them to do it because he had loved them. That was all he wanted back. But there were ungrateful people, and those who were eager to fight and destroy each other, and they would not listen to him. But when he went away he left others, teachers, and they go on telling people—”

How could he make it simple enough for their comprehension? He was in despair.

“Then he called those together who loved him and were willing to be good and kind, and said to them, ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions—I go to prepare a place that you may be with me’—”

“And that’s heaven,” interrupted Bess, her eyes shining and her lips pink and quivering. “O Dil! that’s where we are to go. I can’t hardly wait till spring. An’ soon’s we get there, I’ll ast him to cure my poor little legs poppy hurted when he threw me ’gainst the wall. Oh, are you sure, sure he will, so I can run about agen? Seems jes’ too good to happen.”

“Yes, I am sure. He took little children in his arms and blessed them when they crowded around him so that people would have driven them away. And he said, ‘I have a heaven for all those who suffer, all those whose parents beat or maim or starve them. I will take them to my beautiful home, and they shall never suffer any more. They shall roam in lovely gardens and gather flowers, and sing and love and obey me, and be happy.’”

“O Dil, will you mind if I love this Lord Jesus? For he is so good I can’t help it. I shall always love you best. I will tell him how it was—that you loved me when there wasn’t any one else, and mammy wanted me to die ’cause I was so much trouble. An’, Dil, don’t you b’lieve he will say that was jest the kind of love he preached about, and ’cause you did it you must have a place right by me?”

The tears came to John Travis’s eyes. He wondered if the Master had ever been rewarded with a more exquisite joy.

Dil squeezed her hand.

“Oh,” cried Bess, “when we start to go to heaven in the spring, won’t you go along? We’d like to have you so. Don’t they have grown-up men in heaven? You’re so nice an’ clean an’ different from most folks, I sh’d think you’d like to go.”

“Yes, I will,” in the tone of one who gives a sacred promise. When he came to think of it, very few people had asked him to go to heaven.

“Seems too good to be true,” said Dil sententiously. “Good things mos’ly ain’t true. An’ it all seems so strange—”

“We’ll talk it over while we are going to heaven,” he said with grave sweetness, glancing at his watch and amazed at the lateness. “I will bring you Christiana, and when you have read that I can explain many things to you. I shall have to go now. Tell me how to find Barker’s Court when I come back.”

“You won’t like it,” Dil exclaimed sharply. “It’s dirty an’ horrid, full of women washing clo’es, an’ drunken people, an’ swearin’. Oh, let me bring Bess over here. And the picture—”

“You shall have that. But I can’t tell just when I shall be able to come. Never fear but I’ll find you. Here is something because you and Bess posed.”

It was a five-dollar note. Dil drew back in dismay.

“O mister, I couldn’t take it. I’m afeard some one’d think I stole it—so much money!”

He changed the bill into smaller ones. Then he slipped it into the bag of fruit.

“This is Bess’s bank,” he said, with a friendly, trusty smile. “When she wants any delicacies, you must spend the money for them. It is Bess’s secret, and you must not tell any one.”

He thrust the bag at the foot of the shabby carriage, and then pressed both hands.

“You’re so lovely, so splendid,” sighed Bess.

He picked up three withered buds—had some hands very dear to him held them?

“Good-by. I shall find Barker’s Court and you, never fear.” Then he plunged into the crowd, not daring to look back. What a week it had been, beginning with sorrow and loss, and—had he found the Master? Had these strange, brave little heathens, who knew not God, opened his eyes and his heart to that better way?

IV—THE DELIGHTS OF WEALTH

This wonderful thing that had befallen Bess and Dil was so beyond any event that had ever happened before, and their imaginations were so limited, they could never have dreamed such a romance. John Travis had disappeared in the throng. But there was the bag of fruit, and the sweet knowledge that nothing could take away.

The roar of vehicles had grown less. Pedestrians were thinning out, for supper-time was drawing nigh. The shadows were lengthening; the wind had a certain grateful coolness. Still they sat as in a trance. The “cop” had received a “tip” to keep a kindly watch over them, but he would have done it without any reward.

“Dil!” The soft voice broke the hush, for it was as if they two were alone in the crowd.

The little fingers closed over the firm brown ones. They looked at each other for some moments with grave, wondering eyes. Then Dil rose soberly, settled Bess anew, and pushed the wagon along. The paper bag lay in plain sight, but no one molested it.

Dil began to come back to her narrow, practical world. Heaven, as John Travis had put it, was something for Bess rather than herself. It was too great a feast to sit down to all at once. And Dil was not much used to feasting, even playing at it with bits of broken crockery and make-believes, as so many children do. They left the enchanted country behind them, and returned to more familiar sights and sounds. Still, the delicious fragrance of the pears, the flavor of the peaches, the sweetness of the candy, was so much beyond the treats over on the East Side.

“Bess,” she said, stopping at a show window on the avenue, “jes’ look at the caps an’ things. Do you s’pose it’s real money in the bag? For it’s yours, an’ you do need a new cap. That old one’ll hardly hold together. If some one doesn’t give mammy a pile of things pritty soon, you’ll have to go naked.”

They both laughed. “O Dil! wasn’t it splendid?” and Bess turned her head around, as if she might still see their beneficent friend.

“Let me feel in my bank,” she said.

Dil handed her the bag, full of fruity fragrance. She drew out a bill with a fearful little gesture.

“They’re good, all of ’em,” she said reassuringly. “He wouldn’t give us bad money to get us into trouble. An’ we never have any real money to spend.”

Still Dil eyed the bill doubtfully.

“An’ flannils, an’ O Dil, couldn’t you buy one new dress? I’d like to have a spandy new one for onct.”

“I s’pose mother wouldn’t know when onct it was washed. An’ I might crumple down the bows on the cap. O Bess, you’d look so sweet! I wisht you’d had a new cap to-day. He said ’twas your money. An’ I was most afear’d it was like thim things Patsey told about, when you raised the han’kercher they wasn’t there!”

“But they’re here.” She laughed with soft exultation. “Le’s go in, Dil. I never went shoppin’ in my life! You could hide the things away from mammy. There’d be no use givin’ it to her. She’s got enough for gin an’ to go to Cunny Island an’ MacBride’s. But jinky! wouldn’t she crack our skulls if she did know it. O Dil, let’s never, never tell.”

“She couldn’t make me tell if she killed me.”

“Le’s go in. Can you carry me?”

She drew the wagon up by the corner of the show-window, and, taking Bess in her arms, entered the store and seated her on a stool, standing so she could brace the weak little back. Of the few dreams that had found lodgment in Dil’s prosaic brain, was this of indulging her motherly, womanly instinct, shopping for Bess. She felt dazed to have it come true. Her face flushed, her breath came irregularly, her heart beat with a delicious, half-guilty pleasure.

There was no one else in the store. A pale, tired, but kindly-looking woman came to wait on her. Dil tried on caps with laces and ribbons, and Bess looked so angelic it broke her heart to take them off. But the plain ones were less likely to betray them. Then they looked at dresses and the coveted “flannils,” and one nice soft petticoat, and oh, some new stockings.

A shrewd little shopper was Dil. She counted up every purchase, and laid aside the sum, really surprised at her bargains and the amount she had left. The attendant was very sympathetic, and inquired what had befallen Bess. Dil said she had been hurted by a bad fall, that her mother was ’most always out to work, and that they hadn’t any father. She was afraid her mother might be washing somewhere, and hear the story, if she was too explicit.

“Le’s buy a han’kercher for Patsey,” suggested Bess, her pale face in a glow.

They chose one with a pink border, thinking of the wild roses that had brought such great good luck.

“And here is a blue belt ribbon for the little girl,” said the lady. “It’s been in the window, and has two faded places, but you can tie them in the bow.”

Dil had been struggling between economy and a belt ribbon. She raised her brown eyes so full of delight that words were hardly needed.

They packed up their goods and departed. Bess wore her cap, and held up her head like a real lady. I doubt if there were two happier children in the whole city.

Dusk was beginning to fall; but all the stores were in a glow, and now people were coming out again after supper. They seldom stayed this late, but to-night they were quite safe. And oh, how splendid it all was! the happiness of a lifetime.

Bess kept turning partly round and talking out her delight. Pain and weariness were forgotten. They laughed in sheer gladness. If John Travis could have seen them, he would have said he had never in his life made such an investment of five dollars.

“And we’ve only spent a little over two. Oh, what a lot of things you can buy when you have some money! An’, Dil, we’ll put away a good bit, so’s when there ain’t many babies mother won’t bang you. Oh, she’d kill us both dead an’ take the money if she knew, wouldn’t she?”

“She would that,” subjoined Dil grimly.

Poor Dil had been banged pretty severely in her short day. Last spring Mrs. Quinn had been complained of, as the “banging” had been so severe that Dil had fainted, and had to keep her bed several days.

“Oh, I wisht we wasn’t ever going home,” sighed Bess. “If I had two good legs we’d run away like that Mullin girl. An’ now that I’ve got some clo’es, I’m sorry we can’t go right off. Nex’ spring—how many months, Dil?”

August was almost ended. Seven long, weary months at the best.

“There’s Thanksgivin’ an’ Christmas, an’—an’ St. Patrick’s; that’s in March, I know. An’ after that it gen’ally comes warm. Oh, it seems as if I couldn’t wait! But the man will come with Christiana, an’ then we’ll find how to go without gettin’ lost or makin’ a mistake. Ain’t it queer? I should think everybody’d want to go.”

The big eyes were full of wonder.

“Well, you see the people who have money an’ things an’ flowers an’ journeys an’ live in grand houses don’t need to be in a hurry. ’Tain’t of so much account to them. An’ I guess people haven’t got the straight of it, someway.”

Poor Dil! She wasn’t very straight in her own mind. If God could give people so much, why didn’t he do it now? Or if they had to go to heaven for it, why wasn’t it made plain, and you could be let to start whenever you desired?

Bess’s confidence gave her a curiously apprehensive feeling. Suppose there wasn’t any heaven? The mystery was incomprehensible.

It was late when they reached home. Oh, the sickening heat and smells! But at this hour on Saturday night the court was comparatively quiet. The revelry began later.

Dan sat on the stoop crying. He had been in a fight, and the under dog at that, and had one black eye, and his jacket torn to ribbons.

“An’ mother’ll wollop me for the jacket,” he whimpered.

“Come an’ have yer eye tied up with cold water. I did a bit of work this afternoon, an’ got some goodies, an’ you shall have some. Oh, it’s pritty bad, Dan. Take my penny an’ go buy an oyster,—that’ll help get the black out.”

Dan was mightily tempted to spend the penny otherwise, but the thought of the goodies restrained him. Dil took Bess and the “treasures” up-stairs, and laid her gently on the old lounge. She had everything put away when Dan returned, so she washed his face and bound up his eye.

He ceased sniffling, and cried, “O golly!” at the sight of two luscious bananas. “Dil, ye wor in luck! I didn’t even see a chance to snivy on an apple. Store folks is mighty s’picious, watchin’ out.”

“O Dan! It’s wicked to steal!”

“None o’ yer gals’ gaff!” said Dan with his mouth full. “Snivyin’ somethin’ ter eat ain’t no stealin’. An’ I’m hungry as an elefunt.”

Dil fixed him some supper, and he devoured it with the apparent capacity of the elephant. Then, as he was very tired and used up, he tumbled on his straw pallet in his mother’s room, and in five minutes was asleep.

Now the young conspirators had to consider about a hiding-place for their unaccustomed treasures.

“I’ll tell you,” and Bess laughed shrewdly, “we’ll make a bank under the cushion of the wagon.” At the risk of smothering Dan, they had shut his door. “Mother wouldn’t dast to tumble me out, and no one knows. An’ we’ll call it somethin’ else. We’ll never say m——”

“Yes.” Dil put it in the paper bag, and then she made the night bed on top of it. What a fortune it was! They glanced furtively at each other, as if questioning their right to it.

“Mammy seldom does look round,” said Dil; “an’ I’ll clear the room up on Fridays, I sometimes do. An’ I’ll tell her I made the dress, if she spies it out. No, that would be a lie, an’ tellin’ lies roughs you up inside, though sometimes it’s better than bein’ banged. Bess, dear, I wish it was all true ’bout heaven.”

“It is true, I feel it all over me.”

Poor Dil sighed softly. She wasn’t so sure.

Then she bathed Bess, and threw away the ragged garments. Bess was tired, but bright and happy. They stowed away their purchases, and were all settled when Owen came in. No one would have guessed the rare holiday.

Barker’s Court was beginning its weekly orgy—singing, swearing, dancing, fighting, and fortunate if there was not an arrest or two. But Dil was so tired that she slept through it all, forgetting about the money, and not even haunted by dreams.

It was past midnight when Mrs. Quinn returned, to find everything still within. She tumbled across her bed, and slept the sleep of a drunken woman until Sunday noon.

Dil looked after the breakfast. Dan’s eye was much improved. Out of an old bundle she found a jacket a size or two beyond him, but the children of the slums are not critical. The boys went out to roam the streets. Patsey sidled in with a knowing wink towards Mrs. Quinn’s chamber door. It was nearly always safe on Sunday morning. He had a handful of flowers.

They gave him his “hankercher.” But somehow they couldn’t tell him of their adventure.

“But yous oughtn’t ’er spend yer tin on me,” he said with awkward gratefulness. “Yous don’t have much look fer scrapin’ it up.”

“But you’re alwers so good to us,” returned Bess, in her sweet, plaintive tone.

“An’ when yous want a nickel or two, let me know,” he said with manly tenderness.

Dil made her mother a cup of strong coffee, and brushed out her long black hair, still handsome enough for a woman of fashion to envy. She had made a big Irish stew for dinner, and when the house was cleared up, she had leave to take Bess out. But they did not go to the square to-day. They rambled up and down some of the nicer streets, where the houses were closed and the people away, and speculated about the journey to heaven in the spring. Alas! There were hundreds more who did not even know there was a heaven, or for what the church bells rang, or why Sunday came.

The week was melting hot. One of the babies had a very sick day, and died that night. Several others in the court died, but the summer was always hard on babies. Mrs. Quinn had a day off, and went up to Glen Island. Children and babies were taken away for a day or a week; but Dil was too busy, and it would have been no pleasure for Bess to go without her. But some way they were overlooked.

The heat kept up well in September. People came home from the country, and Mrs. Quinn’s business was brisk enough. The boys were sent to school; but Owen often played “hookey,” and was getting quite unmanageable, in fact, a neighborhood terror.

It seemed strange indeed that Bess could live under such circumstances. But Dil’s love and care were marvellous. She kept the child exquisitely clean; she even indulged in a bottle of refreshing cologne, and some luxuries, for which they blessed John Travis. Three times they had been over to the square. They counted up the weeks; they believed with all possible faith at first, then Dil weakened unconsciously. She used to get so tired herself in these days. Her mother was very captious, and the babies fell off. Some days Dil put in two nickels out of her precious fund. Bess insisted upon it.

Dilsey Quinn ran out of an errand now and then. She was too busy ever to loiter, and every moment away from Bess was torture. So, although they lived in a crowd, they might as well have been on a desert island, as far as companionship went.

And now they saw less of Patsey, to their sorrow. He had saved up a little money, and borrowed some from a good friend, and bought a chair, and set himself up in business. Not a mere common little “kit,” mind you. But it was way down town, and he had new lodgings to be “handy.”

The last of September the weather, that had been lovely, changed. There was a long, cold storm, and blustering winds that would have done credit to March. The “flannils,” that had been such a luxury, were too thin, and Dil spent almost her last penny for some others. No one had ever found out.

How often they looked wistfully at each other, and asked a wordless question. But John Travis had not found them, had not come. Six weeks since that blissful Saturday!

It had been a very hard day for Dil; and heaven seemed far off, as it does to many of us in times of trouble. The morning was lowering and chilly. Dil had overslept, and her mother’s morning cup of coffee was not to her taste. She had given her a box on the ear, I was about to say; but her mother’s hand covered the whole side of her head, and filled it with a rush as of many waters, blinding her eyes so that all looked dark about her. Then Mrs. Kenny’s little Mamie cried for her mother, and would not be pacified. Mrs. Kenny was a young and deserted wife who worked in a coat-shop, and Mamie was a Saturday boarder as well. Dil made the boys’ breakfast with the baby in her arms, and managed to get Bess’s bread and milk, but had hardly a moment to devote to her. Only one more baby came in.

Mrs. Quinn suddenly reappeared. Mrs. Watson had been called away by the illness of her mother, and the washing was to go over to the next week.

“An’ she’ll want two days’ work done in one, an’ no more pay. An’ they don’t mind about your lost day! How’s a woman to live with a great raft of young ones to support, I’d like to know? An’ it’s hard times we hear about a’ready. Goodness knows what I’ll do. An’ you lazy trollop! you haven’t your dishes washed yet! An’ only two babies! Yer’ not worth yer salt!”

“Mamie has cried all the time—”

“Shet yer head! Not a word of impidence out of you, or I’ll crack yer skull! An’ I know—yer’ve been foolin’ over that wretched little brat in there! I’m a fool fer not sindin’ her up to th’ Island hospital. Fine work they’d have with her! She’d get nussed.”

Dil uttered a cry of terror.

Her mother caught her by the shoulder, and banged her head sharp against the wall, until no telescope was needed for her to see stars, even in the day time. They swirled around like balls of fire, and Dil staggered to a chair, looking so ghastly that her mother was startled.

Both babies set up a howl.

“Drat the brats!” she cried, shaking her fist at them. “If there can’t be more than two, you’ll march off to a shop, Dilsey Quinn; an’ if you don’t earn your bread, you won’t get it, that’s all! As fer you, ye little weasened-face, broken-backed thing, cumberin’ the ground—”

Bess seemed to shrink into nothing. Mrs. Quinn had taken her glass of gin too early in the day. What would have happened next—but a rap on the door averted it.

“O Mrs. Quinn!” cried Mrs. Malone, “I saw ye comin’ back, an’ have ye no work the day?”

“My folks went off. If I’d known last night”—Mrs. Quinn picked up one baby to hush it.

“Well, now, Ann come in a moment ago to hunt up a la’ndress. The big folks where she lives have been lift in the lurch with ivry blissid thing sprinkled down. An’ can ye go an’ iron fer ’em? It’s a foine place. Two days in a week, an’ good pay. But the la’ndress has grown that sassy they had a reg’lar shindy this mornin’. If ye’ll jist go for wanst, they’ll all be moighty glad, for it’s a fine ironer ye are, Mrs. Quinn.”

“I’ll go back wid Ann.” Mrs. Quinn dropped the baby, and resumed her hood and shawl.

Bess shivered, and stretched out her arms to Dil as soon as the door closed.

“Oh, what should we have done if she had stayed at home! She looked at me so dreadful. And she would have shaked the very life out of me if she had taken hold of me. O Dil, don’t let her send me away!”

“If she should—if she did—I’d—I’d kill her!” and a fierce, desperate look came in the brown eyes. “O Bess dear, don’t cry so, don’t cry.”

“O Dil,” sobbed the child, “then you’d be jugged like daddy, but you wouldn’t kill her—you couldn’t, she’s so much bigger an’ stronger.”

“But I’d fight awful! And I wouldn’t stay. I’d run away, if I had to drown myself.”

“They cut people up in hospitals”—and there was an awesome sound in the frightened voice.

“Don’t, dear, don’t;” and the pleading was that of agony. She held Bess close—all her life was centred in this poor, maimed body. The babies might cry, the world might cease to be, but nothing should part them.

“She’ll be cross because there ain’t more babies. And to-day she knows. But the bank’s most all out. O Dil, s’pose something happened to—to him!”

They looked at each other in a pathetic fashion through their tears, each bearing the other’s sorrow, though they knew nothing of the divine injunction. Dil had fought silent battles with herself for faith in John Travis, but Bess had never wavered until now.

“It was so beautiful—that afternoon, an’ the talkin’. I’ve thought so often ’bout his Lord Jesus, who could make my poor little legs well, an’, Dil, somehow they keep shrinken’ away. An’ the lovely fruit an’ things! An’ all that money! O Dil, we know now how rich folks feel, only they’re rich all their lives, and we was rich jest that little while. But it was splendid! Rich folks oughter be happy every minnit, an’—an’ good. ’Twould be so easy when you lived in a big, beautiful house, an’ had flowers an’ nice things to eat an’ to wear, an’ a kerrige to ride in—”

She stopped exhausted, but her eyes glowed with the vision, and a rapture illumined her wan face. Ah, Bess, one poor, forlorn creature, born in the brain of the finest genius of his time, made the same pathetic outcry in her pitiful plight, brought about by her own ill-doing. And you both touched the boundary of a broad truth.

Dil gave a long, quivering breath, and it seemed as if her arms could never unclose again, so tight and fast did they hold their treasure.

“I’m most sure he’ll come.” Bess made a strenuous effort to keep the doubt out of her tone. “He was ter bring the book, you know, and the picture; an’ he didn’t look ’s though he was one of the forgettin’ kind. There’s somethin’—I can’t quite make it out; but Dil, when things is all still, most towards mornin’, seems if I could hear him talk. Only—it’s so long to spring. I’m most sorry we didn’t start that day. Why, we might have been to heaven before real cold weather. I’m so tired. Dil, dear, lay me down on the lounge, won’t you? It’ll rest me a bit.”

She put her down softly, and tucked the faded quilt about her. Mamie had fallen asleep on the floor, and she laid her on her own little pallet. The other baby had found a dropped-out knot in the floor, and was trying to put his crust of bread down through it.

Dil washed her dishes and tidied up the house. The clothes from the floor above swung on the pulley-line, and helped to shut out even the chilly gray light. Then there was dinner to get for the boys, who went to school quite steadily. Dan wasn’t so bad, though; and Owen had been threatened with the reform-school, “where you had to sweep floors and sew on a machine like a gal!” That did not look so inviting as liberty.

What would happen to-night when her mother came home? Would she, could she, send Bess away?

“’Tain’t no use to pray,” she thought despairingly within her much-tried soul. “I uster pray about Bess’s poor little legs, an’ they never mended any. An’ mebbe he thought we’d be a bother, an’ he’d rather go to heaven alone.”

What had become of John Travis?

V—A SONG IN THE NIGHT

Mr. Travis had a little leaning toward the law for his son; the young fellow fancied he had a little leaning toward medicine. He dallied somewhat with both; he wrote a few pretty society verses; he etched very successfully, and he painted a few pictures, which roused an art ambition within him. He fell in love with a sweet girl in the winter, and in the late summer they had quarrelled and gone separate ways.

There had been another factor in his life,—his cousin, Austin Travis, some twelve years older than himself, his father’s eldest brother’s only child, and the eldest grandson. Travis farm had been his early home; and there John, the little boy, had fallen in love with the big boy.

Austin was one of the charming society men that women delight in. Every winter girls tried their best for him; and John was made much of on his account, for they were almost inseparable. It was Austin who soothed his uncle’s disappointment in the law business. It was Austin who compelled the rather dilatory young fellow to paint in earnest.

Austin had planned a September tour. They would spend a few days with grandmother, and then go to the Adirondacks. He knew a camping-out party of artists and designers that it would be an advantage for John to meet.

John had packed his traps and sent them down to the boat, that was to go out at six. There was nothing special to do. He would walk down, and presently stop in at Brentano’s, then take the car. He was very fond of seeing people group themselves together and change like a kaleidoscope. But his heart was sore and indignant, and then his quick eye fell on the withered rose-buds in the shrunken hand of the child, and after that adventure he had barely time to catch his boat.

He hardly knew himself as he sat on the deck till past midnight. Two little poverty-stricken waifs had somehow changed his thoughts, his life. When he was a little boy at Travis Farm a great many curious ideas about heaven had floated through his brain. And when his grandmother sang in her soft, limpid voice,—

        “There  is  a  land  of  pure  delight,
        Where  saints  immortal  reign;
        Infinite  day  excludes  the  night,
        And  pleasures  banish  pain,”

he used to see it all as a vision. Perhaps his ideas were not much wiser than those of poor little ignorant Bess. He had travelled with Pilgrim; he had known all the people on the way, and they were real enough to him at that period.

Oh, how long ago that seemed! Everything had changed since then. Science had uprooted simple faith. One lived by sight now. The old myths were still beautiful, of course. But long before Christ came, the Greek philosophers had prayed, and the Indian religions had had their self-denying saviours.

But he had promised to find the way to heaven for them, and they were so ignorant. He had promised to go thither himself, and he had dipped into so many philosophies; he knew so much, and yet he was so ignorant. But there must be a heaven, that was one fact; and there must be a way to go thither.

Sunday morning he was in Albany with Austin and two young men he had known through the winter. One of them was very attentive to a pretty cousin who would be found at Travis Farm. They had a leisurely elegant breakfast, they took a carriage and drove about to points of interest, had a course dinner, smoked and talked in the evening. But the inner John was a little boy again, and had gone to church with his grandmother. The sermon was long, and he did not understand it; but he read the hymns he liked, and chewed a bit of fennel, and went almost asleep. The singing was delightful, the spirited old “Coronation.”

They went out to Travis Farm the next morning. There was grandmother and Aunt Maria, the single Miss Travis, Daisy Brockholst and her dear friend Katharine Lee. Of course the young people had a good time. They always did at Travis Farm, and they were fond of coming.

“Grandmother,” John said, in a hesitating sort of way, “you used to sing an old hymn I liked so much,”

        “There  is  a  land  of  pure  delight.”