diff options
Diffstat (limited to '30968.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 30968.txt | 4659 |
1 files changed, 4659 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/30968.txt b/30968.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..973cbff --- /dev/null +++ b/30968.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4659 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Sunny Little Lass, by Evelyn Raymond + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Sunny Little Lass + + +Author: Evelyn Raymond + + + +Release Date: January 15, 2010 [eBook #30968] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUNNY LITTLE LASS*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank, D Alexander, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 30968-h.htm or 30968-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30968/30968-h/30968-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30968/30968-h.zip) + + + + + +A SUNNY LITTLE LASS + +by + +EVELYN RAYMOND + + + + + + + +New York +Hurst & Company +Publishers + +Copyright, 1906, by +George W. Jacobs & Company + +Published August, 1906 + +All rights reserved + +Printed in U. S. A. + + + + +CONTENTS + CHAPTER PAGE + I. The One Room House 9 + II. After the Colonel's Visit 25 + III. In Elbow Lane 47 + IV. Beside Old Trinity 59 + V. A Desolate Awakening 77 + VI. The Beginning of the Search 93 + VII. A Guardian Angel 111 + VIII. With Bonny as Guide 125 + IX. In the Ferry-House 143 + X. Another Stage of the Journey 155 + XI. A Haven of Refuge 177 + XII. News from the Lane 201 + XIII. The Wonderful Ending 217 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The One Room House + + +It was in "the littlest house in Ne' York" that Glory lived, with +grandpa and Bo'sn, the dog, so she, and its owner, often boasted; and +whether this were actually true or not, it certainly was so small that +no other sort of tenant than the blind captain could have bestowed +himself, his grandchild, and their few belongings in it. + +A piece-of-pie shaped room, built to utilize a scant, triangular space +between two big warehouses, only a few feet wide at the front and no +width at all at the rear. Its ceiling was also its roof and from it +dangled whatever could be hung thus, while the remaining bits of +furniture swung from hooks in the walls. Whenever out of use, even the +little gas-stove was set upon a shelf in the inner angle, thereby giving +floor space sufficient for two camp-stools and a three-cornered scrap of +a table at which they ate and worked, with Bo'sn curled beneath. + +This mite of a house stood at the crook of Elbow Lane, down by the +approaches to the big bridge over East River, in a street so narrow that +the sun never could shine into it; yet held so strong an odor of salt +water and a near-by fish-market, that the old sailor half fancied +himself still afloat. He couldn't see the dirt and rubbish of the Lane, +nor the pinched faces of the other dwellers in it, for a few tenements +were still left standing among the crowding warehouses, and these were +filled with people. Glory, who acted as eyes for the old man, never told +him of unpleasant things, and, indeed, scarcely saw them herself. To +her, everything was beautiful and everybody kind, and in their own tiny +home, at least, everything was scrupulously clean and shipshape. + +When they had hung their hammocks back upon the wall, for such were the +only beds they had room for, and had had their breakfast of porridge, +the captain would ask: "Decks scrubbed well, mate?" + +"Aye, aye, sir!" came the cheery answer, and Glory's hands, fresh from +the suds, would touch the questioner's cheek. + +"Brasses polished, hawsers coiled, rations dealt?" + +"Aye, aye, cap'n!" again called the child. + +"Eight bells! Every man to his post!" ordered the master, and from the +ceiling a bell struck out the half-hours in the only way the sailor +would permit time to be told aboard his "ship." Then Glory whisked out +her needle and thread, found grandpa his knife and bit of wood, and the +pair fell to their tasks. His was the carving of picture frames, so +delicately and deftly that one could hardly believe him sightless; hers +the mending of old garments for her neighbors, and her labor was almost +as capable as his. It had earned for her the nickname of +"Take-a-Stitch," for, in the Lane, people were better known by their +employments than their surnames. Grandpa was "Cap'n Carver" when at his +morning work, but after midday, "Captain Singer," since then, led by his +dog Bo'sn, he sang upon the streets to earn his livelihood. In the later +hours the little girl, also, wore another title--"Goober Glory"--because +she was one of the children employed by Antonio Salvatore, the peanut +man, to sell his wares on commission. + +But grandpa, Glory, and Bo'sn had the long delightful mornings at home +and together; and this day, as usual, their talk turned upon the dream +of their lives--"Sailors' Snug Harbor." + +"Now, grandpa, talk. Tell how 'tis. Do it fast an' picturey-like, 'less +I never can guess how to make this piece do. It's such a little patch +an' such a awful big hole! Posy Jane gets carelesser an' carelesser all +the time. This very last week that ever was she tore this jacket again. +An' I told her, I said: 'Jane, if you don't look out you'll never wear +this coat all next winter nohow.' An' she up an' laughed, just like she +didn't mind a thing like that. An' she paid me ten whole centses, she +did. But I love her. Jane's so good to everybody, to every single body. +Ain't she, grandpa?" + +"Aye, aye, deary. I cal'late she done it a purpose. She makes her money +easy, Jane does. Just sets there on the bridge-end and sells second-hand +flowers to whoever'll buy. If she had to walk the streets----" + +Glory was so surprised by this last sentence that she snapped her thread +off in the wrong place and wasted a whole needleful. Until yesterday, +she had never heard her grandfather speak in any but the most contented +spirit about his lot in life. Then he had twice lamented that he "didn't +know whatever was to become o' two poor creatur's like them," and now, +again, this gay morning, he was complaining--almost complaining. Glory +didn't feel, in the least, like a "poor creatur'." She felt as "chirpy +as a sparrow bird," over in City Hall park; and, if the sun didn't shine +in the Lane, she knew it was shining in the street beyond, so what +mattered? + +Vaguely disturbed, the child laid her hand on his arm and asked, "Be you +sick, grandpa?" + +He answered promptly and testily, "Sick? No, nor never was in my life. +Nothin' but blind an' that's a trifle compared to sickness. What you +askin' for? Didn't I eat my breakfast clean up?" + +"Ye-es, but--but afterward you--you kicked Bo'sn, an' sayin' that about +'walkin' the street' just a singin'; why, I thought you liked it. I know +the folks like to hear you. You do roll out that about the 'briny wave' +just grand. I wish you'd sing it to Bo'sn an' me right now, grandpa, +dear." + +Wholly mollified and ashamed of his own ill-temper, the captain tried +the familiar tune but it died in his throat. Music was far beyond him +just then, yet he stroked the child's head tenderly, and said, "Some +other time, mate, some other time. I'm a little hoarse, maybe, or +somethin'." + +"Well, then, never mind. Let's talk 'Snug Harbor.' You begin. You tell +an' I'll put in what I'm mind to; or I'll say what I guess it's like an' +you set me straight if I get crooked. 'Cause you've seen it, grandpa, +an' I never have. Not once; not yet. Bime-by---- Oh, shall I begin, +shall I, grandpa?" + +The sailor sighed fit to shake the whole small tenement and nodded in +consent; so, observing nothing of his reluctance to their once favorite +subject, Glory launched forth: + +"'Sailors' Snug Harbor' is the most beautifulest spot in the whole +world! It's all flowery an' grassy an' treesy. It's got fountains an' +birds an' orchestry-music forever an' ever. 'Tain't never cloudy there, +nor rainy, nor freezy, nor snowy, nor nothin' mean. Eh, grandpa? Am I +straight or crooked?" + +The captain, roused as from a reverie, replied absently, "It's a +beautiful place, mate; I know that. Nobody wants for nothin' there, an' +once a man casts anchor there he's in safe haven for the rest of his +days. Oh, I ain't denyin' none of its comforts, but I wish the whole +concern'd burn to the ground or sink in the bay. I wish the man first +thought of it had died before he did." + +In his anger, the blind man clasped his knife till its blade cut his +hand and Glory cried out in dismay. But he would not have her bathe the +wound and resumed his carving in silence. The little girl waited awhile, +once more fitting the small patch into the big hole of Posy Jane's +jacket; then she went on as if nothing had occurred: + +"When we go there to live, me an' you, we'll have a room as big an' nice +as this an' you won't have to do a hand's turn for yourself. You an' +Bo'sn'll just set round in rockin'-chairs--I've seen 'em in the +stores--with welwet cushings on your laps--I mean you two a settin' on +the cushings, a dressed up to beat. Maybe, they'll let you order the +whole crew, yourself, into white ducks for muster at six bells, or +somethin'. + +"An'," Glory continued, "there'll be me a wearin' a white frock, all new +an' never mended, an' my hair growed long an' lovely, an' me just as +purty as I wish I was, an' as everybody has to be that lives to the +'Harbor.' An' bime-by, of a Sunday, maybe, when they can spare the time, +Posy Jane an' Billy Buttons, an' Nick, the Parson, 'll come walkin' up +to the beautiful gate, an' the captain what keeps it'll write their +names in a book an' say, 'Walk right in, ladies an' gentlemens, walk +right in. You'll find Captain Simon Beck an' Miss Glorietta +Beck'--'cause I'm goin' to put that long tail to my plain 'Glory' when I +go to live there, grandpa. + +"Lemme see. Where was I?" the little girl went on. "Oh, yes. The Elbow +folks had just come, an' was showed in. They was told, 'Walk right in. +You'll find your friends settin' in the front parlor on them welwet +cushings readin' stories out o' books an' chewin' candy all day long.' +An' then they'll scurce know us, Billy an' them, an' not till I laugh +an' show my teeth an' you get up an' salute will they suspicion us. An' +you'll have on gold specs an' dress-uniform an' that'll make you look +just like you could see same's other folks. Why, grandpa, darlin', I've +just thought, just this very minute that ever was, maybe, to the +'Harbor' you won't be blind any more; for true, maybe not. In such a +splendid place, with doctors settin' round doin' nothin', an' hospitals +an' all, likely they'll put somethin' in your eyes will make you see +again. O grandpa---- If!" + +The old man listened silently. + +"An' when--when do you think would be the soonest we might go? 'Twon't +cost much to take me an' you an' Bo'sn on the boat to Staten Island. I +know the way. Onct I went clear down to the ferry where they start from +just a purpose to see, an' we could 'most any time. Will we go 'fore +next winter, grandpa? An' yet I hate, I do hate, to leave this dear +Lane. We live so lovely in our hull house an' the folks'd miss us so an' +we'd miss the folks. Anyway, I should. You wouldn't, course, havin' so +many other old sailors all around you. An'---- Why, here's that same man +again!" + +Even in Elbow Lane, where the shadows lie all day long, other and darker +shadows may fall; and such a shade now touched Glory's shoulder as she +pictured in words the charm of that blessed asylum to which the captain +and she would one day repair. He had always fixed the time to be "when +he got too old and worthless to earn his living." But that morning she +had swiftly reasoned that since he had grown cross--a new thing in her +experience--he must also have suddenly become aged and that the day of +their departure might be near at hand. + +The shadow of the stranger pausing at their door cut short her rhapsody +and sent her, the table, and Bo'sn, promptly out of doors, because when +any of the sailor's old cronies called to see him, there wasn't room in +"the littlest house" for all. So, from the narrow sidewalk beyond the +door, the child listened to the talk within, not much of it being loud +enough for her to hear, and fancied, from grandpa's short, sharp replies +to his guest's questions, that he was crosser, therefore, more ill, than +ever. + +Bo'sn, too, sat on his haunches beside her, closely attentive and, at +times, uttering a low, protesting growl. Both child and dog had taken a +dislike to this unknown, who was so unlike the usual visitors to the +Lane. + +Glory sometimes wandered as far as Fifth Avenue, with her peanut basket, +and now confided to Bo'sn: + +"He's just like them dressed-up folks on th' avenue, what goes by with +their noses in th' air, same's if they couldn't abide the smell o' +goobers, whilst all the time they're just longing to eat 'em. Big shiny +hat, clothes 'most as shiny, canes an' fixin's, an' gloves, doggie; +gloves this hot day, when a body just wants to keep their hands under +the spigot, to cool 'em. + +"An'," continued Glory, "he ain't like the rest, Cap'n Gray, an' Cap'n +Wiggins, what makes grandpa laugh till he cries, swoppin' yarns. This +one 'most makes him cry without the laughin' an'---- Why, Bo'sn, Bo'sn!" + +In the midst of her own chatter to the terrier, Glory had overheard a +sentence of the "shiny gentleman" which sent her to her feet, and the +table, work, and stool into the gutter, while her rosy face paled and +her wide mouth opened still more widely. The stranger was saying: + +"_Of course, they'll never take in the child._ You can go to the +'Harbor' to-day, if you will, and you ought. She--oh, there are plenty +of Homes and Orphanages where they will give her shelter. She'd be far +better off than she is here, in this slum, with only a blind old man to +look after her. You come of good stock, Beck, and, with a proper chance, +the little girl might make a nice woman. Here--whew, I really can't +endure the stench of this alley any longer. We'll make it this +afternoon, captain. At three o'clock I'll send a man to take you over, +and I'll get my sister, who knows about such things, to find a place for +your grandchild. Eh? I didn't quite catch your words." + +Grandpa was murmuring something under his breath about: "Slum! I knew it +was small but 'slum'--my little Glory--why, why----" + +Colonel Bonnicastle interrupted without ceremony. He had put himself out +to do an old employee a service and was vexed that his efforts were so +ungratefully received. However, he was a man who always had his way and +intended to do so now; so he remarked, as if the captain had not +objected to so sudden a removal, "The man will be here at three +precisely. Have whatever traps you value put together ready. You'll not +know yourself in your new quarters. Good-morning." + +With that the visitor turned to depart but Bo'sn darted between his +feet, causing him either to step about in a peculiar fashion or crush +the dog; and, with equal want of courtesy, Glory pushed him aside to +fling herself on grandpa's neck, and to shriek to the guest, "Go 'way! +Go 'way! Don't you come back to Elbow Lane! I hate you--oh, I do hate +you!" + +The great man was glad to go, nor did he notice her rudeness. His +carriage was waiting in the street outside the alley, and even his +sister Laura, who spent her days working to help the poor and who had +sent him here, could expect no more of him than he had done. Neither his +visit of yesterday nor to-day seemed appreciated by that old captain who +had once so faithfully commanded the colonel's own ship. + +Miss Laura had chanced to hear of the seaman's blindness and poverty, +and promptly tried to help him by having him placed in "Sailors' Snug +Harbor," of which her brother was a trustee. Nobody had told her about +Glory, nor that the "Harbor" was the subject oftenest discussed within +the "littlest house." + +But other old sailors had told the captain of it, and pictured its +delights, and once a crony had even taken him to visit it. After that, +to him and his grandchild, the asylum had seemed like a wonderful +fairyland where life was one happy holiday. When at their work, they +talked of this safe "Harbor" and the little girl's imagination endowed +the place with marvelous beauties. In all their dreaming they had still +been together, without thought of possible separation, till Colonel +Bonnicastle's sentence fell with a shock upon their ears, "_They will +never take in the child_." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +After the Colonel's Visit + + +"Don't you go an' leave me, grandpa. Grandpa, don't you dast to go!" +wailed Glory, her arms clasped so tightly about the captain's neck that +they choked him. When he loosened them, he drew her to his knee and laid +her curly head against his cheek, answering, in a broken voice, "Leave +you, deary? Not while I live. Not while you will stay with the old blind +man, who can't even see to what sort of a home he has brought his pet." + +"Why, to the nicest home ever was. Can't be a nicer nowhere, not any +single where. Not even on that big avenue where such shiny people as him +live. Why, we've got a hull house to ourselves, haven't we?" + +"Child, stop. Tell me exact, as you never told before. Is Elbow Lane a +'slum'?" + +"'Deed I don't know, 'cause I never heard tell of a 'slum' 'fore. It's +the cutest little street ever was. Why, you can 'most reach acrost from +one side to the other. Me an' Billy has often tried. It's got the +loveliest crook in it, right here where we be; an' one side runs out one +way an' t'other toward the river. Why, grandpa, Posy Jane says +onct--onct, 'fore anybody here was livin', the Lane was a cow-path an' +the cows was drove down it to the river to drink. Maybe she's lyin'. +'Seems if she must be, 'cause now there ain't no cows nor nothin' but +milk-carts an' cans in corner stores, an' buildin's where onct she says +was grass--grass, grandpa, do you hear?" + +"Yes, I hear, mate. But the folks, the neighbors. A slum, deary, I guess +a slum is only where wicked people live. I don't know, really, for we +had no such places on the broad high sea. Are our folks in the Lane +wicked, daughter?" + +"Grandpa!" she cried, indignantly. "When there's such a good, good +woman, Jane's sister Meg-Laundress, what washes for us just 'cause I +mend her things. An' tailor-Jake who showed me to do a buttonhole an' +him all doubled up with coughin'; an' Billy Buttons who gives us a paper +sometimes, only neither of us can read it; an' Nick, the parson, who +helps me sort my goobers; an' Posy Jane, that's a kind o' mother to +everybody goin'. Don't the hull kerboodle of 'em treat you like you was +a prince in a storybook, as I've heard Billy tell about? Huh! Nice +folks? I should think they was. Couldn't be any nicer in the hull city. +Couldn't, for sure, an' I say so, I, Glory Beck." + +"And all very poor, mate, terrible, desperate poor; an' ragged an' dirty +an' swearers, an' not fit for my pet to mix with. Never go to church nor +Sunday-school, nor----Eh, little mate?" persisted the old man, +determined to get at the facts of the case at last. + +Glory was troubled. In what words could she best defend her friends and +convince her strangely anxious guardian that Elbow folks were wholly +what they should be? Since she could remember she had known no other +people, and if all were not good as she had fancied them, at least all +were good to her. With all her honest loyal heart she loved them, and +saw virtues in them which others, maybe, would not have seen. With a +gesture of perplexity, she tossed her head and clasped her hands, +demanding: + +"An' what's poor? Why, I've heard you say that we're poor, too, lots o' +times. But is any of us beggars? No, siree. Is any of us thievers? No, +Grandpa Beck, not a one. An' if some is ragged or dirty, that's 'cause +they don't have clothes an' spigots handy, an' some's afraid o' takin' +cold, like the tailor man. Some of us lives two er three families in a +room, but--but that's them. Me an' you don't. We have a hull house. Why, +me an' you is sort of rich, seems if, and----It's that big shiny-hatted +man makes you talk so queer, grandpa darlin', an' I hate him. I wish +he'd stayed to his house an' not come near the Lane." + +"No, no, mate, hate nobody, nobody. He meant it kind. He didn't know how +kindness might hurt us, deary. He is Colonel Bonnicastle, who owned the +ship I mastered, an' many another that sails the sea this day. He's got +a lot to do with the 'Harbor' an' never dreamed how't we'd known about +it long ago. A good ship it was an' many a voyage she made, with me +layin' dollars away out of my wage, till the sudden blindness struck me +an' I crept down here where nobody knew me to get over it. That's a long +while since, deary, and the dollars have gone, I always hopin' to get +sight again and believin' I'd done a fine thing for my orphan +grandchild, keepin' so snug a place over her head. So far, I've paid the +rent reg'lar, and we've had our rations, too. Now, mate, fetch me the +bag and count what's in it." + +The little canvas bag which Glory took from the tiny wall-cupboard +seemed very light and empty, and when she had untied the string and held +it upside down not a coin fell from it. The old man listened for the +clink of silver but there was none to hear and he sighed deeply as he +asked, "Empty, Glory?" + +"Empty, grandpa. Never mind, we'll soon put somethin' back in it. You +must get your throat cleared and go out early an' sing your loudest. +I'll get Toni to let me have a fifty-bagger, an' I'll sell every single +one. You might make as much as a hull quarter, you might, an' me--I'll +have a nickel. A nickel buys lots o' meal, an' we can do without milk on +our porridge quite a spell. That way we can put by somethin' toward the +rent, an' we'll be all right. + +"Maybe," little Glory went on, "that old colonel don't have all to say +'bout the 'Harbor.' Maybe he don't like little girls an' that's why. +I'll get Cap'n Gray to find out an' tell. He likes 'em. He always gives +me a cent to put in the bag--if he has one. He's poor, too, though, but +he's got a daughter growed up 'at keeps him. When I get growed I'll +earn. Why, darlin' grandpa, I'll earn such a lot we can have everything +we want. I will so and I'll give you all I get. If--if so be, we don't +go to the 'Harbor' after all." + +The captain stroked his darling's head and felt himself cheered by her +hopefulness. Though they were penniless just now, they would not be for +long if both set their minds to money getting; and, as for going to +"Snug Harbor" without Glory, he would never do that, never. + +"Well, well, mate, we're our own masters still; and, when the colonel +sends his man for me, I'll tell him 'no,' so plain he'll understand. +'Less I may be off on my rounds, singin' to beat a premer donner. Hark! +mess-time already. There goes eight bells. What's for us, cook?" + +As he spoke, the little bell, which hung from the ceiling, struck eight +tinkling notes and Glory's face clouded. There was nothing in the tiny +cupboard on the wall save a remnant of porridge from breakfast, that had +cooled and stiffened, and the empty money-bag. + +"O grandpa! So soon? Why, I ought to have finished Jane's jacket and +took it to her. She'd have paid me an' I'd ha' got the loveliest chop +from the store 'round the corner. But now, you dear, you'll just have to +eat what is an' make the best of it. Next time it'll be better an' +here's your plate." + +Humming a tune and making a great flourish of plate and spoon, she +placed the porridge before the captain and watched his face anxiously, +her heart sinking as she saw the distaste apparent at his first +mouthful. He was such a hungry old dear always, and so was she hungry, +though she didn't find it convenient to eat upon all such occasions. +When there happened to be enough food for but one, she was almost glad +of the sailor's blindness. If he smelled one chop cooking on the little +stove, how should he guess there weren't two? And if she made a great +clatter with knife and plate, how could he imagine she was not eating? + +Up till now, Glory could always console herself with dreams of the "Snug +Harbor" and the feasts some day to be enjoyed there. Alas! The colonel's +words had changed all that. For her there would be no "Harbor," ever; +but for him, her beloved grandpa, it was still possible. A great fear +suddenly possessed her. What if the captain should get so very, very +hungry, that he would be tempted beyond resistance, and forsake her +after all! She felt the suspicion unworthy, yet it had come, and as the +blind man pushed his plate aside, unable to swallow the unpalatable +porridge, she resolved upon her first debt. Laying her hand on his she +begged, "Wait a minute, grandpa! I forgot--I mean I didn't get the milk. +I'll run round an' be back with it in a jiffy!" + +"Got the pay, mate?" he called after her, but, if she heard him, she, +for once, withheld an answer. + +"O Mister Grocer!" she cried, darting into the dairy shop, like a stray +blue and golden butterfly, "could you possibly lend me a cent's worth o' +milk for grandpa's dinner? I'll pay you to-night, when I get home from +peddlin', if I can. If I can't then, why the next time----" + +"Say no more, Take-a-Stitch, I've a whole can turnin' sour on me an' +you're welcome to a pint on't if you'll take it. My respects to the +captain, and here's good luck to the Queen of Elbow Lane!" + +Glory swept him a curtsy, flashed a radiant smile upon him and was +tempted to hug him; but she refrained from this, not knowing how such a +caress might be received. Then she thanked and thanked him till he bade +her stop, and with her tin cup in her hand sped homeward again, crying: + +"Here am I, grandpa! More milk 'an you can shake a stick at, with the +store-man's respeckses an' all. A hull pint! Think o' that! An' only +just a teeny, tiny mite sour. Isn't he the nicest one to give it to us +just for nothin'? An' he's another sort of Elbow folks, though he's off +a bit around the block. Oh, this is just the loveliest world there is! +An' who'd want to go to that old 'Snug Harbor' an' leave such dear, dear +people, I sh'd like to know? Not me nor you, Cap'n Simon Beck, an' you +know it!" + +Glory sat down and watched her grandsire make the best dinner he could +upon cold porridge and sour milk, her face radiant with pleasure that +she had been able so well to supply him, and almost forgetting that +horrid, all-gone feeling in her own small stomach. Never mind, a peanut +or so might come her way, if Toni Salvatore, the little Italian with the +long name, should happen to be in a good humor and fling them to her, +for well he knew that of the stock he trusted to her, not a single +goober would be extracted for her personal enjoyment; and this was why +he oftener bestowed upon her a tiny bag of the dainties than upon any +other of his small sales people. + +The captain finished his meal and did not distress his darling by +admitting that it was still distasteful, then rose, slung his basket of +frames over his shoulder, took Bo'sn's leading-string, and passed out to +his afternoon's peddling and singing. But, though he had kissed her +good-bye, Glory dashed after him, begging still another and another +caress, and feeling the greatest reluctance to letting him go, yet +equally unwilling to have him stay. + +"If he stays here that man will come and maybe get him, whether or no; +an' if he goes, the shiny colonel may meet him outside and take him +anyhow. If only he'd sing alongside o' my peddlin' route! But he won't. +He never will. He hates to hear me holler. He says 'little maids +shouldn't do it'; only I have to, to buy my sewin' things with; +an'----My, I clean forgot Posy Jane's jacket! I must hurry an' finish +it, then off to peanuttin'," pondered the child, and watched the blind +man making his way, so surely and safely, around the corner into the +next street, with Bo'sn walking proudly ahead, what tail he had pointing +skyward and his one good ear pricked forward, intent and listening. + +The old captain in the faded uniform he still wore, and the faithful +little terrier, who guided his sightless master through the dangers of +the city streets with almost a human intelligence were to Goober Glory +the two dearest objects in the world, and for them she would do anything +and everything. + +"Funny how just them few words that shiny man said has changed our hull +feelin's 'bout the 'Harbor.' Only this mornin', 'fore he come, we was +a-plannin' how lovely 'twas; an' now--now I just hate it! I'm glad +they's water 'twixt us an' that old Staten Island, an' I'm glad we +haven't ferry money nor nothin'," cried the little girl, aloud, shaking +a small fist defiantly southward toward the land of her lost dreams. +Then, singing to make herself forget how hungry she was, she hurried +into the littlest house and--shall it be told?--caught up her grandpa's +plate and licked the crumbs from it, then inverted the tin cup and let +the few drops still left in it trickle slowly down her throat; and such +was Glory's dinner. + +Afterward she took out needle and thread and heigho! How the neat +stitches fairly flew into place, although to make the small patch fill +the big hole, there had to be a little pucker here and there. Never +mind, a pucker more or less wouldn't trouble happy-go-lucky Jane, who +believed little Glory to be the very cleverest child in the whole world +and a perfect marvel of neatness; for, in that particular, she had been +well trained. The old sea captain would allow no dirt anywhere, being as +well able to discover its presence by his touch as he had once been by +sight; and, oddly enough, he was as deft with his needle as with his +knife. + +So, the jacket finished, Glory hurried away up the steep stairs to the +great bridge-end, received from the friendly flower-seller unstinted +praise and a ripe banana and felt her last anxiety vanish. + +"A hull banana just for myself an' not for pay, dear, dear Jane? Oh, how +good you are! But you listen to me, 'cause I want to tell you somethin'. +Me an' grandpa ain't never goin' to that old 'Snug Harbor,' never, +nohow. We wouldn't be hired to. So there." + +"Why--why, Take-a-Stitch! Why, be I hearin' or dreamin', I should like +to know. Not go there, when I thought you could scarce wait for the time +to come? What's up?" + +"A shiny rich man from the avenue where such as him lives and what owns +the ship grandpa used to master, an' a lot more like it has so much to +do with the 'Harbor' 'at he can get anybody in it or out of it just as +he pleases. He's been twice to see grandpa an' made him all solemn an' +poor-feelin', like he ain't used to bein'. Why, he's even been cross, +truly cross, if you'll believe it!" + +"Can't, hardly. Old cap'n's the jolliest soul ashore, I believe," said +Jane. + +"An' if grandpa maybe goes alone, 'cause they don't take little girls, +nohow, then that colonel'd have me sent off to one o' them Homeses or +'Sylums for childern that hasn't got no real pas nor mas. Huh, needn't +tell me. I've seen 'em, time an' again, walkin' in processions, with +Sisters of Charity in wide white flappin' caps all the time scoldin' +them poor little girls for laughin' too loud or gettin' off the line or +somethin' like that. An' them with long-tailed frocks an' choky kind of +aperns an' big sunbonnets, lookin' right at my basket o' peanuts an' +never tastin' a single one. Oh, jest catch me! I'll be a newspaper boy, +first, but--but, Jane dear, do you s'pose anything--any single thing, +such as bein' terrible hungry, or not gettin' paid for frames or +singin'--could that make my grandpa go and leave me?" + +For at her own breathless vivid picture of the orphanage children, as +she had seen them, the doubt concerning the captain's future actions +returned to torment her afresh. + +"He might be sick, honey, or somethin' like that, but not o' free will. +Old Simon Beck'll never forsake the 'light o' his eyes,' as I've heard +him call you, time an' again." + +"Don't you fret, child," continued Posy Jane. "Ain't you the 'Queen of +Elbow Lane'? Ain't all of us, round about, fond of you an' proud of you, +same's if you was a real queen, indeed? Who'd look after Mis' McGinty's +seven babies, when she goes a scrubbin' the station floors, if you +wasn't here? Who'd help the tailor with his job when the fits of +coughin' get so bad? 'Twas only a spell ago he was showin' me how't +you'd sewed in the linin' to a coat he was too sick to finish an' a +praisin' the stitches beautiful. What'd the boys do without you to sew +their rags up decent an' tend to their hurt fingers an' share your +dinner with 'em when--when you have one an' they don't? + +"An' you so masterful like," went on the flower-seller, "a makin' +everybody do as you say, whether or no. If it's a scrap in a tenement, +is my Glory afraid? not a mite. In she walks, walks she, as bold as +bold, an' lays her hand on this one's shoulder an' that one's arm an' +makes 'em quit fightin'. Many's the job you've saved the police, Glory +Beck, an' that very officer yonder was sayin' only yesterday how't he'd +rather have you on his beat than another cop, no matter how smart he +might be. He says, says he, 'That little girl can do more to keep the +peace in the Lane 'an the best man on the force,' says he. 'It's prime +wonderful how she manages it.' An' I up an' tells him nothin' wonderful +'bout it at all.' It's 'cause everybody loves you, little Glory, an' is +ashamed not to be just as good as they know you think they be. + +"Don't you fret, child," Jane went on, "Elbow folks won't let you go, +nor'll the cap'n leave you, and if bad come to worst them asylums are +fine. The Sisters is all good an' sweet, givin' their lives to them 'at +needs. Don't you get notions, Glory Beck, an' judge folks 'fore you know +'em. If them orphans gets scolded now an' then it does 'em good. They +ought to be. So'd you ought, if you don't get off to your peddlin'. It's +long past your time. Here's a nickel for the jacket an' you put it safe +by 'fore you start out. May as well let me pin one o' these carnations +on you, too. They ain't sellin' so fast an' 'twould look purty on your +blue frock. Blue an' white an' yeller--frock an' flower an' curly +head--they compare right good." + +Ere Jane's long gossip was ended, her favorite's fears were wholly +banished. With a hug for thanks and farewell, Glory was off and away, +and the tired eyes of the toilers in the Lane brightened as she flitted +past their dingy windows, waving a hand to this one and that and smiling +upon all. To put her earnings away in the canvas bag and catch up her +flat, well-mended basket, took but a minute, and, singing as she went, +the busy child sped around to that block where Antonio had his stand. + +That day the trade in goobers had been slack and other of his small +employees had found the peanut-man a trifle cross; but, when Glory's +shining head and merry face came into view, his own face cleared and he +gave her a friendly welcome. + +"A fifty-bagger this time, dear Toni! I've got to get a heap of money +after this for grandpa!" + +"Alla-right, I fill him," returned the vender; and, having carefully +packed the fifty small packets in the shallow basket, he helped her to +poise it on her head, as he had long since taught her his own +countrywomen did. This was a fine thing for the growing child and gave +her a firm erectness not common to young wage-earners. She was very +proud of this accomplishment, as was her teacher, Antonio, and had more +than once outstripped Billy Buttons in a race, still supporting her +burden. + +"Sell every bag, little one, and come back to me. I, Antonio Salvatore +have secret, mystery. That will I tell when basket empty. Secret bring +us both to riches, indeed!" + +Crafty Antonio! Well he knew that the little girl's curiosity was great, +and had led her into more than one scrape, and that his promise to +impart a secret would make her more eager to sell her stock than the +small money payment she would earn by doing so. + +Glory clasped her hands and opened her brown eyes more widely, +entreating, "Now, Toni, dear Tonio, tell first and sell afterward. +Please, please." + +"No, not so, little one. Sell first, then I tell. If you sell not----" +Antonio shrugged his shoulders in a way that meant no sale, no secret. +So, already much belated, Goober Glory--as she had now become--was +forced to depart to her task, though she turned about once or twice to +wave farewell to her employer and to smile upon him, but she meant to +make the greatest haste, for, of all delightful things, a secret was +best. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +In Elbow Lane + + +"Pea--nuts! Cent-a-b-a-a-g!" + +This cry shrilled, almost yelled from the sidewalk upon which she was +descending from her carriage so startled Miss Bonnicastle that she +tripped and fell. In falling, she landed plump in a basket of the nuts +and scattered them broadcast. + +"Look out there! What you doin'?" indignantly demanded Glory, while a +crowd of street urchins gathered to enjoy a feast. + +"Help me up, little girl; never mind the nuts," begged the lady, +extending her gloved hand. + +"You don't mind 'em, 'course. They ain't yours!" retorted the dismayed +child, yet seizing the hand with such vigor that she split the glove and +brought its owner to an upright position with more precision than grace. +Then, paying no further heed to the stranger, she began a boy-to-boy +assault upon the purloiners of her wares; and this, in turn, started +such an uproar of shrieks and gibes and laughter that poor Miss Laura's +nerves gave way entirely. Clutching Glory's shoulder, she commanded, +"Stop it, little girl, stop it, right away! You deafen me." + +The effect was instant. In astonished silence, the lads ceased +struggling and stared at this unknown lady who had dared lay hands on +the little "Queen of Elbow Lane." Wild and rough though they were, they +rarely interfered with the child, and there was more amazement than +anger in Glory's own gaze as it swept Miss Bonnicastle from head to +foot. The keen scrutiny made the lady a trifle uncomfortable and, +realizing that she had done an unusual thing, she hastened to apologize, +saying, "Beg pardon, little girl, I should not have done that, only the +noise was so frightful and----" + +"Ho, that?" interrupted the peanut vender, with fine scorn. "Guess you +ain't used to Elbow boys. That was nothin'. They was only funnin', they +was. If they'd been fightin' reg'lar--my, s'pose you'd a fell down +again, s'pose." + +Wasting no further time upon the stranger, Glory picked up the basket +and examined it, her expression becoming very downcast; and, seeing +this, the boy who had been fiercest in the scramble stepped closer and +asked, "Is it clean smashed, Glory?" + +"Clean," she answered, sadly. + +"How much'll he dock yer?" asked another lad, taking the damaged article +into his own hands. "Pshaw, hadn't no handle, nohow. Half the bottom was +tore an' patched with a rag. One side's all lopped over, too. Say, if he +docks yer a cent, he's a mean old Dago!" + +"Well, ain't he a Dago, Billy Buttons? An' I put in that patch myself. I +sewed it a hour, with strings out the garbage boxes, a hull hour. Hi, +there! you leave them goobers be!" cried the girl, swooping down upon +the few youngsters who had returned to pilfer the scattered nuts and, at +once, the two larger boys came to her aid. + +"We'll help yer, Glory. An' me an' Nick'll give ye a nickel a-piece, fer +new bags, won't we, Nick?" comforted Billy. But, receiving no reply from +his partner in the news trade, he looked up to learn the reason. Nick +was busily picking up nuts and replacing them in such bags as remained +unbroken but he wasn't eager to part with his money. Nickels were not +plentiful after one's food was paid for, and though lodgings cost +nothing, being any odd corner of floor or pavement adjoining the +press-rooms whence he obtained his papers, there were other things he +craved. It would have been easy to promise but there was a code in Elbow +Lane which enforced the keeping of promises. If one broke one's word +one's head was, also, promptly broken. There was danger of this even now +and there, because Billy's foot came swiftly up to encourage his mate's +generosity. + +However, the kick was dexterously intercepted by Glory; Master Buttons +was thrown upon his back, and Nick escaped both hurt and promise. With a +burst of laughter all three fell to work gathering up the nuts and the +small peddler's face was as gay as ever, as she cried: + +"Say, boys, 'tain't nigh so bad. Ain't more'n half of 'em busted. I +guess the grocer-man'll trust me to that many--he's real good-natured +to-day. His jumper's tore, too, so maybe he'll let me work it out." +Then, perceiving a peculiar action on the part of the too helpful Billy, +she sternly demanded, "What you doin' there, puttin' in them shells +that's been all chewed?" + +"Huh! That's all right. I jams 'em down in the bottom. They don't show +an' fills up faster'n th' others. Gotter make yer losin's good, hain't +yer?" + +"Yes, Billy Buttons, I have, but I ain't goin' to make 'em cheatin' +anybody. What'd grandpa think or say to that? Now you can just empty out +every single goober shell you've put in an' fill up square. I'll save +them shells by theirselves, so's to have 'em ready next time you +yourself want to buy off me." + +The beautiful justice of this promise so impressed the newsboy that he +turned a somersault, whereby more peanuts were crushed and he earned a +fresh reproof. + +Miss Bonnicastle had remained an amused observer of the whole scene, +though the actors in it had apparently forgotten her presence. To remind +them of this, she inquired, "Children, will you please tell me how much +your peanuts were worth?" + +"Cent a bag!" promptly returned Glory, selecting the best looking packet +and holding it toward this possible customer. + +"All of them, I mean. I wish to pay you for all of them," explained the +lady, opening her purse. + +Too surprised to speak for herself, Nick answered for the vender, "They +was fifty bags, that's fifty cents, an' five fer commish. If it'd been a +hunderd, 'twould ha' been a dime. Glory, she's the best seller Toni +Salvatore's got, an' he often chucks her in a bag fer herself, besides. +Fifty-five'd be fair, eh, Take-a-Stitch?" + +Glancing at Glory's sunny face, Miss Laura did not wonder at the child's +success. Almost anybody would buy from her for the sake of bringing +forth one of those flashing smiles, but the girl had now found her own +voice and indignantly cried: + +"Oh, parson, if you ain't the cheat, I never! Chargin' money for goobers +what's smashed! Think you'll get a lot for yourself, don't you? Well, +you won't an' you needn't look to, so there." + +Thus having rebuked her too zealous champion Glory explained to Miss +Bonnicastle that "they couldn't be more'n twenty-five good bags left. +They belongs to Antonio Salvatore, the peanut man. I was goin' to buy +needles an' thread with part, needin' needles most, but no matter. +Better luck next time. Do you really want a bag, lady?" + +Again the tiny packet was extended persuasively, the small peddler being +most anxious to make a sale although her honesty forbade her accepting +payment for goods unsold. + +But Miss Laura scarcely saw the paper bag, for she was looking with so +much interest upon the child's own face. Such a gay, helpful, hopeful +small face it was! Beneath a tangle of yellow curls, the brown eyes +looked forth so trustfully, and the wide mouth parted in almost +continual laughter over white and well-kept teeth. Then the white +carnation pinned to the faded, but clean, blue frock, gave a touch of +daintiness. Altogether, this seemed a charming little person to be found +in such a locality, where, commonly, the people were poor and ill-fed, +and looked sad rather than glad. The lady's surprise was expressed in +her question, "Little girl, where do you live? How came you in this +neighborhood?" + +"Why--I belong here, 'course. Me an' grandpa live in the littlest house +in Ne' York. Me an' him we live together, all by our two selves, an' we +have the nicest times there is. But--but, did you want a bag?" she +finished, pleadingly. Time was passing and she was too busy to waste +more. She wondered, too, why anybody so rich as to ride in a carriage +should tarry thus long in Elbow Lane, though, sometimes, people did get +astray and turn into the Lane on their way to cross the big bridge. + +"Yes, little Glory, as I heard them call you, I meant just what I said. +I wish to buy all your stock as well as pay for a new basket. Will you +please invite your friends to share the feast with you? I'm sorry I +caused you so much trouble and here, the little boy suggested fifty-five +cents, suppose we make it a dollar? Will that be wholly satisfactory?" + +The face of Take-a-Stitch was again a study in its perplexity. The +temptation to take the proffered money was great, but a sense of +justice was even greater. After a pause, she said with complete +decision, "It must be this way; you give me the fifty cents for Toni +Salvatore--that'll be hisn. You take the goobers an' give 'em to who you +want. I won't take no pay for the basket, 'cause I can mend it again; +nor for myself, 'cause I hain't earned it. I hain't hollered scarce any +to sell such a lot. That's fair. Will I put 'em in your carriage, lady?" + +"No, no! Oh, dear! No, indeed. Call your mates and divide among them as +you choose. Then--I wonder why my man doesn't come back. The coachman +can't leave the horses, and the footman seems to have lost himself +looking for a number it should be easy to find." + +The children had gathered about Glory who was now beaming with delight +at the chance to bestow a treat upon her mates as well as enjoy one +herself. Indeed, her hunger made her begin to crack the goobers with her +strong white teeth and to swallow the kernels, skins and all. But again +Miss Bonnicastle touched her shoulder, though this time most gently, +asking: + +"If this is Elbow Lane, and you live in or near it, can you show me the +way to the house of Captain Simon Beck, an old blind man?" + +Glory gasped and dropped her basket. All the rosy color forsook her face +and fear usurped its gaiety. For a time, she stared at the handsome old +lady in terror, then demanded, brokenly, "Be--you--from--'Snug Harbor'?" + +It was now the stranger's turn to stare. Wondering why the child had +asked such a question and seemed so startled, she answered, "In a way, +both yes and no. I am interested in 'Snug Harbor,' and have come to find +an old, blind sea captain whom my brother employed, in order to take +him, myself, to that comfortable home. Why do you ask?" + +Then Glory fled, but she turned once to shake a warning fist toward Nick +and Billy, who instantly understood her silent message and glared +defiantly upon the lady who had just given them an unexpected feast. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Beside Old Trinity + + +"Why, what is the matter? Why did she run away?" asked the astonished +stranger. + +Billy giggled and punched Nick who was now apportioning the peanuts +among the children he had whistled to his side, but neither lad replied. + +This vexed Miss Bonnicastle who had come to the Lane in small hope of +influencing the old captain to do as her brother had wished him to do +and to remove, at once, to the comfortable "Harbor" across the bay. She +had undertaken the task at her brother's request; and also at his +desire, had driven thither in the carriage, in order to carry the blind +man away with her, without the difficulty of getting him in and out of +street cars and ferry boat. It would greatly simplify matters if he +would just step into the vehicle at his own humble door and step out of +it again at the entrance to his new home. + +But the Lane had proved even narrower and dirtier than she had expected. +She was afraid that having once driven into it the coachman would not be +able to drive out again, and the odors of river and market, which the +blind seaman found so delightful, made her ill. She had deprived herself +of her accustomed afternoon nap; she had sprained her ankle in falling; +her footman had been gone much longer than she expected, searching for +the captain's house; and though she had been amused by the little scene +among the alley children which had been abruptly ended by Glory's +flight, she was now extremely anxious to finish her errand and be gone. + +In order to rest her aching ankle, she stepped back into the carriage +and from thence called to Billy, at the same time holding up to view a +quarter dollar. + +Master Buttons did not hesitate. He was glad that Nick happened to be +looking another way and did not see the shining coin which he meant to +have for himself, if he could get it without disloyalty to Glory. +Hurrying forward, he pulled off his ragged cap and inquired, "Did you +want me, ma'am?" + +"Yes, little boy. What is your name?" + +"Billy." + +"What else? Your surname?" continued the questioner. + +"Eh? What? Oh--I guess 'Buttons,' 'cause onct I was a messenger boy. +That's what gimme these clo'es, but I quit." + +He began to fear there was no money in this job, after all, for the hand +which had displayed the silver piece now rested in the lady's lap; and, +watching the peanut feasters, he felt himself defrauded of his own +rightful share. He stood first upon one bare foot then upon the other, +and, with affectation of great haste, pulled a damaged little watch from +his blouse and examined it critically. The watch had been found in a +refuse heap, and even in its best days had been incapable of keeping +time, yet its possession by Billy Buttons made him the envy of his +mates. + +He did not see the amused smile with which the lady regarded him, and +though disappointed by her next question it was, after all, the very one +he had anticipated. + +"Billy Buttons, will you earn a quarter by showing me the way to where +Captain Beck lives? that is, if you know it." + +"Oh, I knows it all right, but I can't show it." + +"Can't? Why not? Is it too far?" + +Billy thought he had never heard anybody ask so many questions in so +short a time and was on the point of saying so, impertinently, yet found +it not worth while. Instead, he remarked, "I ain't sayin' if it's fur er +near, but I guess I better be goin' down to th' office now an' see if +they's a extry out. Might be a fire, er murder, er somethin' doin'." + +With that courtesy which even the gamins of the streets unconsciously +acquire from their betters, Billy pulled off his cap again and moved +away. But he was not to escape so easily. Miss Laura's hand clasped his +soiled sleeve and forth came another question, "Billy, is that little +girl your sister?" + +"Hey? No such luck fer Buttons. She ain't nobody's sister, she ain't. +She just belongs to the hull Lane, Glory does. Huh! Take-a-Stitch my +sister? Wished she was. She's only cap'n---- Shucks!" Having so nearly +betrayed himself, Billy broke from the restraining hand and disappeared. + +Miss Bonnicastle sighed and leaned back upon her cushions, feeling that +something evil must have befallen her faithful footman to keep him so +long away, and almost deciding to give up this apparently hopeless +quest. Then she discovered that Nick had drawn near. Possibly, he would +act as her guide, even if his mate had refused. She again held up the +quarter and beckoned the lad. + +He responded promptly, his eyes glittering with greed as they fixed upon +the coin--not to be removed from it till it was in his own possession, +no matter how many questions were asked. These began at once, in a +crisp, imperative tone. + +"Little boy, tell me your name." + +"Nick, the parson." + +"Indeed? Nick Parsons, I suppose. Is it?" + +"No'm. I'm Nicky Dodd. I got a father. He's Dodd. So be I, 'course. But +the fellers stuck it onto me 'cause--'cause onct I went to a +Sunday-school." + +"Don't you go now, Nick Dodd?" + +"No, indeedy! Ketch me!" laughed the boy, watching the gleam of the +money his questioner held so lightly between her gloved fingers. What if +she should drop it! If some other child should see it fall and seize it +before he could! "Was--was you a-wantin' somethin' of me, lady?" + +"Yes, I was. Will you show me the way to Captain Beck's house?" + +Now Nick loved Glory as well as Billy did and he had as fully understood +from her warning gesture that he was to give this stranger no +information concerning her or her grandfather, but, alas! he also loved +money, and he so rarely had it. Just then, too, the "Biggest Show On +Earth" was up at Madison Square Garden and, if Nick had not remembered +that enticing circus, he might not have betrayed his friend. Yet those +wonderful trained animals----Ah! + +"Fer that quarter? Ye-es, ma'am, I--I--will," stammered the lad. + +So Miss Laura again left her carriage and walked the narrow, dirty +length of the Lane, past the sharp bend which gave it its name of +"Elbow," far down among the warehouses and wharves crowding the approach +to the bridge. As she walked, she still asked questions and found that +all the dwellers in the Lane were better known by their employments than +their real names, how that Glory's deftness with a needle had made her +"Take-a-Stitch," and anybody might guess why Jane was called "Posy" or +Captain Beck had become the "Singer." Besides, she discovered that this +ragged newsboy was as fond and proud of his "Lane" as she was of her +avenue, and that if she had any pity to bestow, she needn't waste it on +him or his mates and that---- + +"There 'tis! The littlest house in Ne' York," concluded Nick, proudly +pointing forward, seizing the coin she held so carelessly, and +vanishing. + +"Well! have I become a scarecrow that all these children desert me so +suddenly!" exclaimed Miss Laura, looking helplessly about and lifting +her skirts the higher to avoid the dirty suds which somebody was +emptying into the gutter. + +"Ma'am?" asked the woman with the tub, dropping it and with arms akimbo +staring amazedly at the stranger. How had such a fine madam come there? +"Was you a-lookin' for somebody, ma'am?" + +Miss Laura turned her sweet old face toward the other, Meg-Laundress, +and answered, "Yes, for one, Captain Simon Beck. A boy told me this tiny +place was where he lives--though it doesn't seem possible any one could +really live in so small a room--and it's empty now, anyway. Do you know +where he is?" + +"Off a-singin' likely. He mostly is, this time o' day." + +"Oh, I'm so sorry. I have come----" Miss Bonnicastle checked herself, +unwilling to disclose to this rough stranger affairs in which she had no +concern. "I was told he had a grandchild living with him. Is she +anywhere about?" + +"Glory? She's off peddlin' her goobers, I s'pose. I can give 'em any +word that's left," said Meg, with friendly interest. + +"Glory? Is her name Glory? Is it she I saw with a basket of peanuts, a +yellow haired, bright-faced little girl, in a blue frock?" cried the +lady, eagerly, and recalling the child's inquiry about "Snug Harbor" +felt that she should have guessed as much even then. + +"Sure. The purtiest little creatur' goin'; or, if not so purty, so +good-natured an' lovin'. Why, she's all the sunlight we gets in the +Lane, Glory is, an', havin' her, some on us don't 'pear to need no more. +Makes all on us do her say-so but always fer our own betterment. In an' +out, up an' down, lendin' a hand or settin' a stitch or tendin' a baby, +all in the day's work, an' queenin' it over the hull lot, that's our +'Goober Glory,' bless her! And evil to anybody would harm the child, say +I! Though who'd do ill to her? Is't a bit of word you'd be after +leavin', ma'am?" said Meg, with both kindness and curiosity. + +"Thank you. If you see either of them, will you say that Miss +Bonnicastle, Colonel Bonnicastle's sister, will be here again in the +morning, unless it storms, upon important business? Ask them to wait +here for me, please. I should not like to make a second useless trip. +Good-afternoon." + +As the gentlewoman turned and made her way back along the alley toward +her distant carriage, which could come no nearer to her because the Lane +was so narrow, Meg watched and admired her, reflecting with some pride: + +"She's the real stuff, that old lady is. Treated me polite 's if I was +the same sort she is. I wonder what's doin' 'twixt her an' the Becks? +Well, I'll find out afore I sleep, or my name ain't Meg-Laundress, an' I +say it. Guess Jane'll open her eyes when I up an' tells her how one them +grand folks she sees crossin' the bridge so constant has got astray in +the Lane an' come a visitin', actilly a visitin', one our own folks. But +then, I always knowed, we Elbowers was a touch above some, an' now +she'll know it, too. + +"I do wish the cap'n would come in," continued Meg. "But 'twill be a +long spell yet afore he does. An', my land! I must sure remind him to +put on his other shirt in the mornin'. He don't never get no sile on +him, the cap'n don't, yet when grand carriage folks comes a callin', +it's a time for the best or nothin'." + +By a roundabout way, Glory had hurried, breathlessly, to her tiny home, +fearing that by some mischance grandpa might have returned to it, and +that this fresh advocate of the "Harbor" would find him there. She was +such a pretty old lady, she had such a different manner from that of the +Lane women, she might persuade the gallant old captain to accompany her +to the asylum, whether or no. If he were at home, Glory meant to coax +him elsewhere; or, if he would not go, then she would remain and use her +own influence against that of this dangerous stranger. + +One glance showed her that all was yet safe. The tiny room was empty and +neither "Grandpa!" nor "Bo'sn!" answered to her call. + +"I hain't got no goobers to sell now an' them boys won't show her a step +of the way an' she couldn't get here so quick all herself without bein' +showed so I may as well rest a minute," said Glory to herself, and sat +down on the narrow threshold to get cool and to decide upon what she +should do. + +But she could not sit still. A terrible feeling that these strangers +were determined to separate her from her grandfather made her too +restless. It was natural, she thought, that they should wish to do him a +kindness, such as providing him with a fine home for life. He was a +grown-up man and a very clever one, while she was only a little girl, of +no account whatever. They didn't care about her, 'course, but him---- + +"I must go find him! I must keep him away, clear, clear away from the +Lane till it gets as dark as dark. Then we can come home an' sleep. Such +as them don't come here o' nights," cried Glory, springing up. "An' I'm +glad grandpa is blind. If he went right close by them two he couldn't +see 'em, an' she, she, anyway, don't know him. I wonder where best to +look first. I s'pose Broadway, 'cause that's where he gets the most +money. They's such a heap of folks on that wide street an' it's so nice +to look at." + +Having decided her route, Glory was off and away. She dared not think +about Toni Salvatore and his anger. She did not see how she would ever +be able to repay him for his loss and she could remember nothing at all +about the money Miss Bonnicastle had offered her. If Billy or Nick had +taken it, they would give it to her, of course; but if not--well, that +was a small matter compared to the spiriting away of her grandfather and +she must find him and hold him fast. + +"Grandpa don't go above the City Hall, 'cause Bo'sn don't know the way +so well. Up fur's there an' down to Trinity; that's the 'tack he sails' +an' there I'll seek him. I wish one them boys was here to help me look, +though if he was a-singin' I shouldn't need nobody." + +So thinking and peering anxiously into the midst of every crowd and +listening with keen intentness, the little girl threaded her way to the +northern limit of the captain's accustomed "beat." But there was no sign +nor sound of him upon the eastern side of the thoroughfare, and, +crossing to the more crowded western side, she crept southward, step by +step, scanning every face she passed and looking into every doorway, for +in such places the blind singer sometimes took his station, to avoid the +jostling of the passers-by. + +"Maybe I'll have to go 'way down to the Battery, 'cause he does, often. +Though 'seems he couldn't hardly got there yet." + +Now Glory was but a little girl, and, in watching the shifting scenes of +the busy street, she soon forgot her first anxiety and became absorbed +in what was around her. And when she had walked as far southward as old +Trinity, there were the lovely chimes ringing and, as always, a mighty +crowd had paused to listen to them. Glory loved the chimes, and so did +grandpa; and it was their habit on every festival when they were to be +rung to come and hear them. Always the child was so moved by these +exquisite peals that when they ceased she felt as if she had been in +another world, and it was so now. To hear every tone better, she had +clasped her hands and closed her eyes and uplifted her rapt face; and so +standing upon the very curb, she was rudely roused by a commotion in the +crowd about her. + +There was the tramping of horses' feet, the shouts of the police, the +"Ahs!" and "Ohs!" of pity which betokened some accident. + +"Out the way, child! You'll be crushed in this jam! Keep back there, +people! Keep back!" + +Glory made herself as small as she could and shrank aside. Then +curiosity sent her forward again to see and listen. + +"An old man!" + +"Looks as if he were blind!" + +"Back those horses! Make way--the ambulance--make way!" + +"All over with that poor fellow! A pity, a pity!" + +These exclamations of the onlookers and the orders of the policemen +mingled in one harsh clamor, yet leaving distinct upon Glory's hearing +the words, "An old blind man." + +"Oh, how sorry grandpa will be to know that!" thought the child, and, +with eagerness to learn every detail of the sad affair, stooped and +wormed her way beneath elbows and between legs till she had come to the +very roadbed down which an ambulance was dashing at highest speed, its +clanging bell warning everything from its path. Right before the curb +where she stood it paused, uniformed men sprang to the pavement and, +with haste that was still reverent and tender, laid the injured man upon +the stretcher; then off and away again, and the little girl had caught +but the faintest glimpse of a gray head and faded blue garments, yet +thought: + +"Might be another old captain, it might. Won't grandpa be sorry--if I +tell him. Maybe I shan't, though I must hurry up an' find him, 'cause +seein' that makes me feel dreadful lonesome, 'seems if. Oh! I do wish +nobody ever need get hurted or terrible poor, or anything not nice! +And--oh, oh, there's that very lady I run away from, what come to the +Lane! Drivin' down in her very carriage and if----She mustn't see me! +She must not--'less she's got him in there with her a'ready! What if!" + +Miss Bonnicastle's laudau was, indeed, being carefully driven through +the jam of wagons which had stopped to give the ambulance room and she +was anxiously watching the inch-by-inch progress of her own conveyance. +Yet with an expression of far keener anxiety, Goober Glory recklessly +darted into the very tangle of wheels and animals, crying aloud: + +"She's goin' straight down toward that 'Harbor' ferry! Like's not she's +heard him singin' somewhere an' coaxed him to get in there with her. He +might be th' other side--where I can't see--an' I must find out--I must! +For----_What if!_" + +She reached the carriage steps, sprang upon them, by one glance +satisfying herself that the lady was alone, turned to retreat, but felt +herself falling. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A Desolate Awakening + + +"You little dunce! Don't you know better than do that?" + +An indignant shake accompanied these words, with which the big policeman +set Glory down upon the sidewalk after having rescued her from imminent +death. + +In the instant of her slipping from the carriage step, the child had +realized her own peril and would most certainly have been trampled under +the crowding, iron-shod hoofs, had not the officer been on the very +spot, trying to prevent accidents, and to keep clear from each other the +two lines of vehicles, one moving north, the other south. + +Glory was so rejoiced to find herself free and unhurt that she minded +neither the shaking nor the term "dunce," but instantly caught the +rescuer's hand and kissed it rapturously, crying, "Oh, thank you, thank +you! Grandpa would have felt so bad if I'd been hurt like that poor +blind man. Oh, I wish I could do somethin' for you, you dear, splendid +p'liceman!" + +"Well, you can. You can remember that a young one's place is at home, +not in the middle of the street. There, that will do. Be off with you +and never cut up such a caper again, long's you live. It would have been +'all day' with you, if I hadn't been just where I was, and two accidents +within five minutes is more'n I bargain for. Be off!" + +Releasing his hand, he returned to his task among the wagons but carried +with him a pleasant memory of a smile that was so grateful and so gay; +while Glory, subdued by what she had gone through, slowly resumed her +search for her missing grandfather. Away down to the South ferry she +paced, looking and listening everywhere. Then back again on the other +side of the long street till she had reached the point nearest to Elbow +Lane and still no sign of a blue-coated old man or a little dog with a +stub of a tail and but one good ear. + +"Well, it's nigh night now, an' he'll be comin' home. Most the folks +what gives him pennies or buys his frames has left Broadway so I might +as well go myself. Come to think, I guess I better not tell grandpa +'bout that poor hurted man. Might make him 'fraid to go round himself +with nobody 'cept Bo'sn to take care of him an' him a dog. An' oh, dear! +Whatever shall I do for sewin' things, now I didn't get no goober money? +Well, anyway, there's that nickel o' Jane's will buy a chop for his +supper an' I best hurry get it ready. He's always so terrible hungry +when he comes off his 'beat.' An' me--why, I b'lieve I hain't eat a +thing to-day, save my breakfast porridge an' Jane's banana, an' two er +three goobers. Never mind, likely grandpa'll bring in somethin' an' I +can eat to-morrow." + +Back to the littlest house she ran, singing to forget her appetite, and +whisked out the key of the tiny door from its hiding-place beneath the +worn threshold, yet wondering a little that grandpa should not already +have arrived. + +"Never mind, I'll have everything done 'fore. Then when he does get here +all he'll have to do'll be to eat an' go to bed," she said to herself. +Glory was such a little chatterbox that when she had no other listener +she made one of herself. + +The corner-grocer was just taking his own supper of bread and herrings +on the rear end of his small counter when she entered, demanding, "The +very best an' biggest chop you've got for a nickel, Mister Grocer; or if +you could make it a four-center an' leave me a cent's worth o' bread to +go along it, 't would be tastier for grandpa." + +"Sure enough, queeny, sure enough. 'Pears like I brought myself fortune +when I give you that pint o' milk. I've had a reg'lar string o' +customers sence, I have. An' here, what you lookin' so sharp at that one +chop for? Didn't you know I was goin' to make it two, an' loaf +accordin'?" + +Glory swallowed fast. This was almost too tempting for resistance, but +she had been trained to a horror of debt and had resolved upon that +slight one, earlier in the day, only because she could not see her +grandfather distressed. Her own distress----Huh! That was an indifferent +matter. + +The corner groceries of the poor are also their meat markets, bakeries, +and dairies, and there was so much in the crowded little shop that was +alluring that the child forced herself to look diligently out of the +door into the alley lest she should be untrue to her training. In a +brief time the shopman called, "All ready, Take-a-Stitch! Here's your +parcel." + +Glory faced about and gasped. That was such a very big parcel toward +which he pointed that she felt he had made a mistake and so reminded +him, "Guess that ain't mine, that ain't. One chop an' a small roll +'twas. That must be Mis' Dodd's, 'cause she's got nine mouths to feed, +savin' Nick's 'at he feeds himself." + +"Not so, neighbor. It's yourn. The hull o' it. They's only a loaf, a +trifle stale--one them three-centers, kind of mouldy on the corners +where't can be cut off--an' two the finest chops you ever set your +little white teeth into. They're all yourn." + +The grocer enjoyed doing this kindness as heartily as she enjoyed +receiving it, although he was so thrifty that he made his own meal from +equally stale bread and some unsalable dried fish. But, after a +momentary rapture at the prospect of such delicious food, Glory's too +active conscience interfered, making her say, with a regret almost +beyond expression, "I mustn't, I mustn't. Grandpa wouldn't like it, +'cause he says 'always pay's you go or else don't go,' an' that nickel's +all I've got." + +"No, 'tisn't. Not by a reckonin'. You've got the nimblest pair o' hands +I know an' I've got the shabbiest coat. I'm fair ashamed to wear it to +market, yet I ain't a man 'shamed of trifles. If you'll put them hands +of yourn and that coat o' mine together, I'd be like to credit you a +quarter, an' you find the patches." + +"A quarter! A hull, endurin' quarter of a dollar! You darlin' old +grocer-man. 'Course I will, only I--I'm nigh out o' thread, but I've got +a power o' patches. I've picked 'em out the ash-boxes an' washed 'em +beautiful. An' they're hung right on our own ceiling in the cutest +little bundle ever was--an'--I love you, I love you; Give me the coat, +quick, right now, so's I can run an' patch it, an' you see if I don't do +the best job ever!" + +"Out of thread, be you? Well, here, take this fine spool o' black linen +an' a needle to fit. A workman has to have his tools, don't he? I +couldn't keep store if I didn't have things to sell, could I? Now, be +off with you, an' my good word to the cap'n." + +There wasn't a happier child in all the great city than little +Take-a-Stitch as she fairly flew homeward to prepare the most delicious +supper there had been in the littlest house for many a day. Down came +the tiny gas stove from its shelf, out popped a small frying pan from +some hidden cubby and into it went a dash of salt and the two big chops. +Oh, how delightful was their odor, and how Glory's mouth did water at +thought of tasting! But that was not to be till grandpa came. She hoped +that would be at once, before they cooled; for the burning of gas, their +only fuel, was managed with strictest economy. It would seem a wasteful +sin to light the stove again to reheat the chops, as she would have to +do if the captain was not on hand soon. + +Alas! they were cooked to the utmost limit of that brown crispness which +the seaman liked, and poor Glory had turned faint at the delayed +enjoyment of her own supper, when she felt she must turn out the blaze +or ruin all. Covering the pan to keep its contents hot as long as might +be, she sat down on the threshold to wait; and, presently, was asleep. + +It had grown quite dark before the touch of a cold wet nose upon the +palm of her hand aroused her, and there was Bo'sn, rubbing his side +against her knee and uttering a dismal sort of sound that was neither +bark nor howl, but a cross between both and full of painful meaning. + +"Bo'sn! You? Then grandpa--oh, grandpa, darlin', darlin', why didn't you +wake me? I've got the nicest supper----Smell?" + +With that she sprang up and darted within, over the few feet of space +there was, but nobody was in sight; then out again, to call the captain +from some spot where he had doubtless paused to exchange a bit of +neighborly gossip. To him the night was the same as the day, the child +remembered, and though it wasn't often he overstayed his regular hour, +or forgot his meal-time, he might have done so now. Oh, yes, he might +easily have done so, she assured herself. But why should Bo'sn forsake +his master and come home alone? He had never done that before, never. +And why, oh, why, did he make that strange wailing noise? He frightened +her and must stop it. + +"Quiet, boy, quiet!" she ordered, clasping the animal's head so that he +was forced to look up into her face. "Quiet, and tell me--where is +grandpa? Where did you leave grandpa?" + +Of course, he could not answer, save by ceasing to whine and by gazing +at her with his loving brown eyes as if they must tell for him that +which he had seen. + +Then, seized by an overwhelming anxiety, which she would not permit +herself to put into a definite fear, she shook the dog impatiently and +started down the Lane. It was full of shadows now, which the one gas +street lamp deepened rather than dispersed, and she did not see a woman +approaching until she had run against her. Then she looked up and +exclaimed, "Oh, Posy Jane! You just gettin' home? Have you seen my +grandpa?" + +"The cap'n? Bless you, child, how should I, seein' he don't sing on the +bridge. Ain't he come in yet?" + +"No, and oh, Jane, dear Jane, I'm afraid somethin' 's happened to him. +He never, never stayed away so late before an' Bo'sn came alone. What +s'pose?" + +The flower-seller had slipped an arm about the child's shoulders and +felt them trembling, and though an instant alarm had filled her own +heart, she made light of the matter to give her favorite comfort. + +"What do I s'pose? Well, then, I s'pose he's stayin' away lest them rich +folks what runs the 'Harbor' comes again an' catches him unbeknownst. +Don't you go fret, honey. Had your supper?" + +"No, Jane, an' it's such a splendid one. That lovely grocer man----" + +"Ugh!" interrupted the woman, with a derisive shrug of her shoulders. +"You're the beatin'est child for seein' handsomeness where 'tain't." + +"Oh, I 'member you don't like him much, 'cause onct he give short +measure o' flour, or somethin', but he is good an' I didn't mean purty, +an' just listen!" + +Jane did listen intently to the story of the grocer's unusual +generosity, and she hearkened, also, for the sound of a familiar, +hesitating footstep and the thump of a heavy cane, such as would reveal +the captain's approach long before he might be seen, but the Lane was +very silent. It was later than Glory suspected and almost all the +toilers were in their beds. It was late, even for the flower-seller, who +had been up-town to visit an ailing friend and had tarried there for +supper. + +Jane had always felt it dangerous for a blind man, like the old seaman, +to go about the city, attended only by a dog, but she knew, too, that +necessity has no choice. The Becks must live and only by their united +industry had they been able to keep even their tiny roof over their +heads thus far. If harm had come to him--what would become of Glory? +Well, time enough to think of that when the harm had really happened. +The present fact was that the little girl was famishing with hunger yet +had a fine supper awaiting her. She must be made to eat it without +further delay. + +"Come, deary, we'll step along an' you eat your own chop, savin' hisn +till he sees fit to come get it. A man 'at has sailed the ocean +hitherty-yender, like Cap'n Simon Beck has, ain't likely to get lost in +the town where he was born an' raised. Reckon some them other old crony +cap'ns o' hisn has met an' invited him to eat along o' them. That Cap'n +Gray, maybe, or somebody. First you know, we'll hear him stumpin' down +the Lane, singin' 'A life on the ocean wa-a-ave,' fit to rouse the +entire neighborhood. You eat your supper an' go to bed, where children +ought to be long 'fore this time." + +Posy Jane's tone was so confident and cheerful that Glory forgot her +anxiety and remembered only that chop which was awaiting her. The pair +hurried back to the littlest house which the flower-seller seemed +entirely to fill with her big person, but she managed to get about +sufficiently to relight the little stove, place Glory in her own +farthest corner, and afterward watch the child enjoy her greatly needed +food. + +When Glory had finished, she grew still more happy, for physical comfort +was added to that of her friend's words; nor did Jane's kindness stop +there. She herself carefully covered the pan with the captain's portion +in it, and bade Glory undress and climb into her little hammock that +swung from the side of the room opposite the seaman's. This she also let +down and put into it the pillow and blanket. + +"So he can go right straight to sleep himself without botherin' you, +honey. Come, Bo'sn, you've polished that bone till it shines an' you +quit. Lie right down on the door-sill, doggie, an' watch 'at nobody +takes a thing out the place, though I don't know who would, that belongs +to the Lane, sure enough. But a stranger might happen by an' see +somethin' temptin' 'mongst the cap'n's belongings. An' so good-night to +you, little Take-a-Stitch, an' pleasant dreams." + +Then Posy Jane, having done all she could for the child she loved betook +herself to her room in Meg-Laundress's small tenement, though she would +gladly have watched in the littlest house for the return of its master, +a return which she continually felt was more and more doubtful. And +Glory slept peacefully the whole night through. Nor did Bo'sn's own +uneasy slumbers disturb her once. Not till it was broad daylight and +much later than her accustomed hour for waking, did she open her eyes +and glance across to that other hammock where should have rested a dear +gray head. + +It was still empty, and the fact banished all her drowsiness. With a +bound she was on her feet and at the door, looking out, all up and down +the Lane. Alas! He was nowhere in sight and, turning back into the tiny +room, she saw his supper still untasted in the pan where Jane had left +it. Then with a terrible conviction, which turned her faint, she dropped +down on the floor beside Bo'sn, who was dolefully whining again, and +hugged him to her breast, crying bitterly, "They have got him! They have +got him! He'll never come again!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The Beginning of the Search + + +"O Bo'sn, Bo'sn! Where did you leave him? You never left him +before--never, not once! Oh, if you could only talk!" cried poor Glory, +at last lifting her head and releasing the dog whom she had hugged till +he choked. + +His brown eyes looked back into her own pleading ones as if he, too, +longed for the gift of speech and he licked her cheek as if he would +comfort her. Then he threw back his own head, howled dismally, and +dejectedly curled himself down beneath the captain's hammock. + +Little Take-a-Stitch pondered a moment what she had best do in order to +find her grandfather and, having decided, made haste to dress. The cold +water from the spigot in the corner refreshed her and seemed to clear +her thoughts, but she did not stop to eat anything, though she offered a +crust of the dry loaf to the dog. He, also, refused the food and the +little girl understood why. Patting him on the head she exclaimed: + +"We both of us can't eat till he comes, can we, Bo'sn dear? Well, smart +doggie, put on your sharpest smeller an' help to track him whichever way +he went. You smell an' I'll look, an' 'twixt us we'll hunt him +quick's-a-wink. Goin' to find grandpa, Bo'sn Beck! Come along an' find +grandpa!" + +Up sprang the terrier, all his dejection gone, and leaped and barked as +joyfully as if he fully understood what she had said. Then, waiting just +long enough to lock the tiny door and hide the key in its accustomed +place, so that if the captain came home before she did he could let +himself in, she started down the Lane, running at highest speed with +Bo'sn keeping pace. So running, she passed the basement window where +Meg-Laundress was rubbing away at her tub full of clothes and tossed +that good woman a merry kiss. + +"Guess the old cap'n's back, 'less Glory never 'd look that gay," +thought Meg, and promptly reported her thought to Posy Jane who was just +setting out for her day's business. She was already over-late and was +glad to accept Meg's statement as fact and thus save the time it would +have taken to visit the littlest house and learn there how matters +really stood. It thus happened that neither of Glory's best friends knew +the truth of the case nor that the child had set off on a hopeless +quest, without food or money or anything save her own strong love and +will to help her. + +"But we're goin' to find grandpa, Bo'sn, an' we don't mind a thing else. +Don't take so very long to get to that old 'Harbor,' an' maybe he might +have a bite o' somethin' saved up 'at he could give us, though we don't +neither of us want to eat 'fore we get him back, do we, doggie?" cried +the child as they sped along and trying not to notice that empty feeling +in her stomach. + +But they had gone no further than the end of the Lane before they +collided with Nick, the parson, just entering it. He had finished his +morning's sale of papers and was feeling hungry for his own breakfast +and, as Take-a-Stitch ran against him, demanded rather angrily, "What +you mean, Goober Glory, knockin' a feller down that way?" + +"O Nick! Have you seen grandpa?" + +"Seen the cap'n? How should I? Ain't this his time o' workin' on his +frames?" + +Glory swiftly told her trouble and Nick's face clouded in sympathy. +Finally he suggested, "They was a old blind feller got run over on +Broadway yest'day. Likely 'twas him an' that's why. 'Twas in the paper +all right, 'cause I heard a man say how't somethin' must be done to stop +such accidentses. Didn't hear no name but, 'course, 'twas the cap'n. +Posy Jane always thought he'd get killed, runnin' round loose, like he +did, without nobody but a dog takin' care." + +Glory had clutched Nick's shoulder and was now shaking him with what +little strength seemed left to her after hearing his dreadful words. As +soon as she could recover from that queer feeling in her throat, and was +able to speak, she indignantly denied the possibility of this terrible +thing being true. + +"'Tis no such thing, Nick Dodd, an' you know it! Wasn't I there, right +alongside, when't happened? Wasn't I a-listenin' to them very chimes +a-ringin' what he listens to every time he gets a chanst? Don't you +s'pose I'd know my own grandpa when I saw him? Huh!" + +"_Did_--you see him, Glory Beck? How'd come them amberlance fellers +let a kid like you get nigh enough to see a thing? Hey?" + +Glory gasped as the remembrance came that she had not really seen the +injured man but that the slight glimpse of his clothing and his white +hair had been, indeed, very like her grandfather's. Still, this awful +thing could not, should not be true! Better far that dreaded place, Snug +Harbor, where, at least, he would be alive and well cared for. + +"Oh, I got nigh. I got nigh enough to get knocked down my own self, an' +be picked up by one them 'finest' p'licemens, what marches on Broadway. +He shook me fit to beat an' set me on the sidewalk an' scolded me hard, +but I didn't care, 'cause I was so glad to keep alive an' not be tooken +off to a hospital, like that old man was. Huh! You needn't go thinkin' +nor sayin' that was Grandpa Simon Beck, 'cause I know better. I shan't +have it that 'twas, so there." + +Glory's argument but half-convinced herself and only strengthened Nick's +opinion. However, his own mind was troubled. He felt very guilty for +having guided Miss Bonnicastle to the littlest house, and the +quarter-dollar earned by that treacherous deed seemed to burn through +his pocket into his very flesh. Besides that coin, he had others in +store, having had a successful morning, and the feeling of his affluence +added to another feeling slowly awakening within him. This struggling +emotion may have been generosity and it may have been remorse. Whatever +it was, it prompted him to say, "Look-a-here, Glory, I'll help ye. I've +got to go get somethin' t'eat, first off. Then, listen, you hain't got +no money, have ye?" + +"What o' that? I've got eyes, an' I've got Bo'sn. I'm goin' to the ferry +an' I'm goin' tell the ferry man just how 'tis. That I must--I must be +let go over to that Staten Island on that boat, whether or no. Me an' a +dog won't take up much room, an', if he won't let me, I'll wait round +till I get some sort o' job an' earn the money to pay. You needn't +think, Nick Parson, that a teeny thing like a few centses will keep me +from grandpa. I'd go to Toni an' ask him only--only--I don't know a +thing what come o' that fifty-five cents the lady paid for the goobers, +an' so I s'pose he'd be mad an' wouldn't trust me. Besides, grandpa +always said to 'Pay as you go,' an' now I seem--I seem--to want to do +what he told more'n ever. O Nick Dodd! What if--what if--he shouldn't +never--never come--no--more!" + +Poor Glory's courage gave way at last and, without ado, she flung +herself upon Nick as she had done upon Bo'sn and clung to him as +chokingly. + +"Now, this is a purty fix, now ain't it?" thought the victim of her +embrace, casting a wary eye up and down the Lane, lest any mate should +see and gibe at him, and call him a "softy." Besides, for Glory to +become sentimental--if this was sentiment--was as novel as for him to be +generous. So, to relieve the situation, the newsboy put these two new +things together and wrenched himself free, saying, "Quit it, Glory Beck! +I got to breathe same's another, ain't I? You look a-here. See that +cash? Well, I'll tell ye, I'll go fetch my grub----Had any yerself, +Glory Beck?" + +The question was spoken like an accusation and Glory resented it, +answering quickly, "I don't know as that's anythin' to you, Nick +Parson!" + +"'Course. But I'll fetch enough fer two an' I'll tell ye, I'll go to +that 'Snug Harbor' my own self, a payin' my own way, I will. I can +afford it an' you can't. If so be the cap'n 's there, I'll fetch him out +lickety-cut. If he ain't, why then, 'twas him was killed. See?" + +"No, I don't see. Maybe they wouldn't let a boy in, anyhow." + +"Pooh! They're sure to. Ain't I on the papers? Don't newsboys go +anywhere they want, same's other press folks? Hey?" + +Glory admitted that they did. She had often seen them jumping on and off +of street cars at the risk of their lives and without hindrance from the +officials. Also, the lad's offer to share his breakfast with her was too +tempting to be declined. As he hurried away toward his poor home, she +sat down on the threshold of the warehouse before which they had talked +to wait, calling after him, "Don't forget a bite for Bo'sn, Nick!" + +"All right!" he returned, and disappeared within his own cellar doorway. + +Already Glory's heart was happier. She would not allow herself to think +it possible that her grandfather was hurt, and Nick's willingness to +help was a comfort. Maybe he would even take her with him, though she +doubted it. However, she put the question to him as he reappeared with +some old scraps in a torn newspaper, but while they were enjoying these +as best they could and sharing the food with Bo'sn, Nick unfolded a +better plan. + +"Ye see, Take-a-Stitch, it's this way--no use wastin' eight cents on a +old ferry when four'll do. You look all over Broadway again. Then, if he +ain't anywheres 'round there, go straight to them other crony captains +o' hisn an' see. Bein's he can't tell difference 'twixt night an' day, +how'd he know when to come back to the Lane, anyway?" + +"He always come 'fore," answered Glory, sorrowfully. + +It was a new thing for Nick to take the lead in anything which concerned +the little girl, who was the recognized leader of all the Lane children, +and it made him both proud and more generous. Yielding to a wild impulse +that now seized him, with a gesture of patronage, he drew from his +pocket Miss Bonnicastle's quarter and dropped it in Glory's lap. + +She stared at it, then almost gasped the question, "What--what's it for, +Nick Dodd?" + +"Fer--you!" cried the boy. He might have added that it was "conscience +money," and that the unpleasant burning in his pocket had entirely +ceased the instant he had rid himself of the ill-gotten coin, because at +the time he had guided Miss Laura to the littlest house he had not +tarried to learn how fruitless her visit was; else he might have felt +less like a traitor. As it was, he tossed his head and answered loftily, +"Don't do fer girls to go trav'lin' round 'ithout cash. You ain't +workin' to-day an'--an' ye may need it. Newspaper men--well, we can +scrape along 'most anyhow. Hello, here's Buttons!" + +A cheery whistle announced the arrival of the third member of this +intimate trio, and presently Billy came in sight around the Elbow, his +freckled face as gay as the morning despite the facts that he still +carried some unsold papers under his arm and that he had just emerged +from a street fight, rather the worse for that event. + +Glory's fastidiousness was shocked, and, forgetting her own trouble in +disgust at his carelessness, she exclaimed, "You bad Billy Buttons! +There you've gone lost two more your buttons what I sewed with my +strongest thread this very last day ever was! An' your jacket----What +you been doin' with yourself, Billy Buttons?" + +The newcomer seated himself between his friends, though in so doing he +crowded Nick from the door-sill to the sidewalk, and composedly helped +himself to what was left of their scanty breakfast. Better than nothing +he found it and answered, as he ate, Glory's repeated inquiry, "What +doin'? Why, scrappin', 'course. Say, parson, you hear me? They's a new +feller come on our beat an' you chuck him, soon's ye see him. I jest +punched him to beat, but owe him 'nother, 'long o' this tear. Sew it, +Take-a-Stitch?" + +"Can't, Billy. I've got to hunt grandpa. Oh, Billy, Billy, he hain't +never come home!" + +The newsboy paused in the munching of a crust and whistled, but this +time in dismay rather than good cheer. Then he demanded, "What ye givin' +us?" + +The others explained, both talking at once, though Master Buttons soon +silenced his partner in trade that he might better hear the girl's own +story. When she had finished, and now with a fresh burst of tears, he +whistled again; then ordered: + +"Quit snivelin', Glory Beck! A man ain't dead till he dies, is he? +More'n likely 'twas the old cap'n got hurt but that ain't nothin'. Why, +them hospitals is all chuck full o' smash-up folks, an' it's jest meat +fer them doctor-fellers to mend 'em again. He ain't dead, an' don't you +believe it; but dead or alive we'll find him 'fore dark. + +"Fer onct," continued Billy, "the parson's showed some sense. He might's +well do the 'Harbor,' 'cause that's only one place an' he can't blunder +much--seems if. You take the streets, same's he said; and I--if you'll +put a needle an' thread through me, bime-by, after he's found, I'll go +find him an' call it square. I'll begin to the lowest down end the city +hospitals they is an' I'll interview 'em, one by one, clean up to the +Bronx. If Cap'n Beck is in any one, I'll fetch him out, judge, an' don't +you forget it." + +This division of the search pleased Glory and, springing up, the trio +separated at once, nor did they meet again till nightfall. Alas! when +reassembled then in the littlest house none had good news to tell. + +"They ain't been no new old cap'ns tooken in to that 'Harbor' this hull +week. Th' sailor what keeps the gate said so an' was real decent. Said +he'd heard o' Cap'n Beck, he had, an' if he'd a-come he'd a-knowed. Told +me better call ag'in, might get there yet, an' I'll go," reported Nick, +putting a cheerful tone into his words for pity of Glory's downcast +face. + +"Didn't do a quarter th' hospitals they is, but he ain't in none them I +have," said Billy. "But I'll tell ye. They's a man on our force reports +all the accidentses an' I'll see him to-night, when I go for my papers, +an' get him to hunt, too. He's worth while an' me an' him's sort o' +pardners. I give him p'ints an' he 'lows I'll be a reporter myself, when +I'm bigger. An' say, I sold a pape' to a man couldn't stop fer change +an' I've got three cream-puffs in this bag. That's fer our suppers, an' +me an' Nick's goin' to stay right here all night an' take care of ye, +Take-a-Stitch, an' leave the door open, so cap'n can come straight in if +he happens 'long 'fore mornin'." + +"An' I've been to every single place he ever sung at, every single. An' +to all the captains, an'--an'--every, everywhere! An' he ain't! But I +will find him. I will!" cried Glory, resolutely. "An' you're +dear, dear darlin' boys to help me so, an' I love you, I love you!" + +"All right, but needn't bother to hug me!" protested Buttons. + +"Ner me!" cried Nick, retreating as far from the grateful child as the +limited space would permit. "An' now choose corners. This is mine." + +Down he dropped in the inner point of the triangular floor and almost +before his head had made itself a pillow of his arm he was sound asleep. +Billy flung himself beside his mate and, also, slept; and though Glory +intended to keep her eyes wide open "till grandpa comes," she placed +herself near them and rested her own tired head on Billy's shoulder, +and, presently, followed their example. + +Half an hour later, the Lane policeman sauntered by, glanced into the +dim interior, and saw the group of indistinct forms huddled together in +dreamless slumber on their bed of bare boards. Then he softly closed the +door upon them, murmuring in pity, "Poor little chummies! Life's goin' +to be as hard for 'em as the floor they lie on. But the Lane'd seem +darker 'n 'tis if they wasn't in it." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A Guardian Angel + + +City newsboys are early astir, and the shadows had but begun to lift +themselves from Elbow Lane when Billy punched Nick in the ribs to rouse +him and, with finger on lip, pointed to Glory still asleep. + +The very poor pity the poor, and with a chivalric kindness which would +have done credit to better reared lads, these two waifs of the streets +stole softly from the littlest house without waking its small mistress. + +When they were out upon the sidewalk, Billy shook his head and +whispered, as if even there he might disturb her, "Poor little kid! He +ain't never comin' back, sure! An' me an' you 's got the job o' lookin' +after her, same 's he'd a liked. He was good to me, the cap'n was. An' +I'm thinkin' Meg-Laundress's 'll be the best place to stow her. Hey?" + +"Meg can't. She's chuck full. They ain't a corner o' her room but what's +slep' in, an' you know it," responded Nick, hitching his buttonless +knickers a trifle higher beneath the string-waistband which kept them in +place. + +"Where then, pard?" + +Nick hesitated. On the day before he had developed a generosity which +had surprised himself quite as much as it had Glory; but, if allowed +room, generosity is a plant of rapid growth, so that now the once +niggardly boy was ready with a plan that was even more astonishing. His +thin face flushed and he pretended to pick a sliver from his foot as he +answered: + +"Let's me an' you hire the littles' house an' pay the rent ourselves an' +Goober Glory do our cookin' an' sewin' an'--an'--quit yer foolin', Billy +Buttons! This ain't no make-b'lieve, this ain't. I plumb mean it." + +For, the instant of its suggestion, this wild scheme had sent the +partner of Nick Dodd's fortunes to turning somersaults which would have +befitted an acrobat. To put his head where his feet should be was +Billy's only way of relieving his emotion and he brought his gymnastics +to an end, some distance down the Lane, by assuming a military +uprightness and bowing profoundly to Nick, who joined him. + +"That's the ticket, pard! We'll do it! We'll do it! Wish to goodness I'd +been the one to hatch it out, but does ye proud, parson. An' how 'bout +it? S'pose we two could sleep in his hammick?" asked Billy, his +eagerness already outstripping Nick's, as his liberality had always been +greater. + +Nick shook his head. Launched upon a course of reckless extravagance, he +now hesitated at nothing. + +"Nope. Nothin'. What's the matter buyin' 'nother? An', say, we can sling +'em one top th' other, like them berths in a sleepin' car, an' take +turns which 'd be upper, which lower. 'Fore winter we'd get in a blanket +an' piller, though wouldn't care much for 'em, in such a snug place, +an'----" + +"An'," interrupted Billy, "we'd go snooks on the grub. Glory'd do her +part chuckin' in, 'sides the housekeep. My! 'Twould be a home, a reg'lar +home, 'at I hain't never had! Cracky! I--I 'most hope he never does come +now, though fer Take-a-Stitch--maybe----" + +"He won't never. Don't ye scare on it, never. Say! Let's hurry through +our sellin' an' get it fixed. An' we're late, a'ready." + +"All right!" and with visions of a delightful importance, that made them +feel as if they were grown men, the little fellows scampered away +through the morning twilight to obtain their day's supply of newspapers, +still damp from the press, for they had long ago learned that 'tis the +early newsboy who catches the nickels and of these they must now have +many. Neither realized that a property owner, even of a "littlest +house," would not be apt to trust it to a pair of youngsters like +themselves, though to their credit it was that had their dream become +reality, they would have done their utmost to follow the example of the +former tenant to "pay as you go." + +They had long been shrilling themselves hoarse with their cries of "Sun' +'Eral'Jour'Wor--rul'! Pape's!" before Glory woke and found herself +alone. By the light in the room and the hunger she felt, she knew that +it must again be very late; and a feeling that her grandfather would be +displeased with her indolence sent her to her feet with such speed that +she awoke Bo'sn, till then slumbering soundly. + +Bo'sn was no longer young and, stiff from an all day's tramp--for he had +faithfully followed the little girl's tireless search of yesterday--he +rose slowly and stretched himself painfully, with a growl at his own +aching joints. Then he sniffed suspiciously at the floor where the +newsboys had slept and, nosing his master's hammock, howled dismally. + +Having slept without undressing, Glory's toilet was soon made and though +a dash of cold water banished drowsiness from her eyes it made them see +more clearly how empty and desolate the "littlest house" had now become, +so desolate that she could not stay in it and running to Meg-Laundress's +crowded apartment, she burst in, demanding, "Has he come? Has anybody in +the Lane seen my grandpa?" + +Meg desisted from spanking the "baddest o' them twins" and set the small +miscreant upon the sudsy floor before she answered, cheerfully, "Not +yet, honey. 'Tain't scurce time to be lookin' fer him, I reckon. When +them old sailors gets swappin' yarns needn't----" + +"But, Meg dear, he ain't at any one of their houses. I've been to the +hull lot--two er three times to each one, a-yest'day--an' he wasn't. An' +they think--I dastn't think what they think! An' I thought maybe--he +always liked you, Meg-Laundress, an' said you done his shirts to beat. +Oh, Meg, Meg, what shall I do? Whatever shall I do?" + +The warm-hearted washerwoman thrilled with pity for the forsaken child +yet she put on her most brilliant surface-smile and answered promptly: + +"Do? Why, do jest what Jane an' me laid out to have ye do. An' that is, +eat a grand breakfast. We ain't such old friends o' the cap'n's an' yet +go let his folks starve. Me an' Jane, we done it together, an' the +grocer-man threw in the rolls. There's a cunnin' little piece o' +porterhouse's ever ye see, an' 'taties--biled to the queen's taste with +their brown jackets on. Two of 'em, an' no scantin', nuther. No, you +small rapscallions, ye clear out! 'Tain't none your breakfasts, ye hear? +It's Goober Glory's an'--you all, the half-dozen on ye, best clear out +way beyant th' Elbow an' watch out fer the banan' man! If he comes to +the Lane, ma's got a good wash on hand, an'--_who knows?_" + +Away scampered Meg's brood of children, assorted sizes, yet one and all +with a longing for "banan' cheap!" and sure that no amount of coaxing +would give them a share in the savory breakfast which the two toiling +women had provided for Glory. + +Left comfortably free from crowding, Meg bustled about, removing from +the small oven the belated "steak an' 'taties" which had long been +drying there. In this removal, she clumsily tilted the boiler in which +her "wash" was bubbling and flavored the meal with a dash of soapsuds, +but Glory was more hungry than critical, and far more grateful than +either. Smiles and tears both came as she caught Meg's wet hand and +kissed it ecstatically, which action brought a suspicious moisture to +Meg's own eyes and caused her to exclaim, with playful reproof: + +"If you ain't the beatin'est one fer huggin' an' kissin'! Well, then, +set to; an' hear me tell: this is what me an' Jane has settled, how the +very minute the cap'n heaves in sight down the Lane, on I claps the very +pattron o' that same stuff ye're eatin' for him, an' calls it breakfast, +dinner, er supper, as the case is. When folks have been off visitin', +like he has, they can't 'spect to find things ready to hand to their own +houses, same's if they'd been round all the time. Now, eat, an' 'let +your victuals stop yer mouth'!" + +This was luxurious food for one accustomed to an oatmeal diet and Glory +heartily enjoyed it, although she wished she could have given it to her +grandfather instead, but she wasn't one to borrow trouble and relied +upon Meg's word that a similar repast should be forthcoming when the +seaman required it. She did not know that the very odor of the food set +the washerwoman's own mouth to watering and that she had to swallow fast +and often, to convince herself that her own breakfast of warmed-over +coffee and second-hand rolls was wholly sufficient. In any case, both +she and Posy Jane had delighted in their self-sacrifice for the little +"Queen of the Lane," in their hearts believing that the child was now +orphaned, indeed. + +It is amazing how, when one is extremely hungry, even two whole potatoes +will disappear, and very speedily Glory found that the cracked plate +from which she had eaten was entirely empty, but, also, that the +uncomfortable hunger had disappeared with its vanished contents. She +sprang up, ran to the spigot, washed and wiped the plate, and restored +it to its place on Meg's scanty cupboard, then announced: + +"I shall tell my grandpa how good all you dear, dear folks has been to +me while he--he was off a-visitin'. An' he'll do somethin' nice for you, +too, he will. My grandfather says 'giff-gaff makes good friends,' an' +'one kind turn 'serves another.' He knows a lot, grandpa does; an' me +an' him both thanks you, Meg-Laundress--you darlin'!" + +Away around the big neck of the woman at the tub went Glory's slender +arms, and when the patient toiler released herself from this +inconvenient embrace, there was something besides soapsuds glistening +on her hot cheek. + +"Bless ye an' save ye, honey sweetness, an' may yer guardian angel keep +ye in close sight, the hull endurin' time!" cried the laundress, wiping +her eyes with a wet towel to disguise that other moisture which had +gathered in them. "An' now, be off with ye to the little Eyetalian with +the high-soundin' name. Sure, 'twas Nick, the parson, hisself, what seen +them fifty-five centses was in the right hands, an' not scattered by +that power o' young ones as was hangin' round when the lady give 'em." + +"Did he take them? Oh, I'm so glad an' it's queer he should ha' forgot +to tell me last night. Never mind, though. I ain't goin' to peddle +to-day. I shan't peddle no more till I find grandpa. I couldn't. I +couldn't holler even, worth listenin'. An' who'd buy off a girl what +can't holler?" + +"Hmm. I don' know. Hollerin's the life o' your trade, same's +rub-a-dub-dubbin' 's the life o' mine, er puttin' the freshest flower to +the front the bunch is o' Jane's. But, land, 'Queenie,' you best not +wait fer the cap'n. Best keep a doin', an' onct you're at it again, the +holler'll come all right. Like myself--jest let me stan' up afore this +here tub an' the wash begins to do itself, unbeknownst like. Don't you +idle. Keep peddlin' er patchin', though peddlin's the least lonesome, +an' the time'll fly like lightnin'. It's them 'at don't do nothin' 'at +don't know what to do. Ain't many them sort in the Lane, though, thank +the dear Lord. Hey? What?" + +For Glory still lingered in the doorway and her face showed that she had +no intention of following the laundress's most sensible advice. So when +that loquacious woman paused so long that the little girl "could get a +word in edgewise," she firmly stated: + +"No Meg, dear Meg, I shan't peddle a single goober till I've found my +grandpa. Every minute of every hour I'm awake I shall keep a-lookin'. He +hain't got nobody but me left an' I hain't got nobody but him. What +belongs, I mean. 'Course, they's all you dear Lane folks an' I love you, +every one. But me an' him--I--I must, _must_ find him. I'm goin' to +start right away now, an'--thank you, thank you an' dear Posy +Jane--an'--good-bye!" + +This time it was Meg who caught the other in her arms and under pretense +of smoothing tumbled curls, hugged the child in motherly yearning over +her; then she gave her a very clean-smelling, sudsy kiss and pushed her +toward the door, crying rather huskily: + +"Well, run away now, any gate. If to peddlin' 'twould be best; if to +s'archin' fer one old blind man in this big Ne' York what's full of 'em +as haymows o' needles, so be it, an' good luck to ye. But what am I to +be preachin' work an' practicin' play? Off with ye an' hender me no +more!" + +So to the tune of a vigorous rub-a-dub-dub, Glory vanished from her good +friend's sight, though the hearts of both would have ached could they +have foreseen how long delayed would be their next meeting. + +Comforted and now wholly hopeful that her determined search would have a +speedy, happy ending, Take-a-Stitch hurried back to the littlest house +whose narrow door stood open to its widest, yet she paused on the +threshold, amazed, incredulous, not daring to enter and scarcely daring +to breathe, lest she disturb the wonderful vision which confronted her. + +For the desolate home was no longer desolate. There was one within who +seemed to fill its dim interior with a radiance and beauty beyond +anything the child of the Lane had ever dreamed. Meg's words and wish +returned to her and, clasping her hands, she cried in rapture, "Oh! it's +come! My Guardian Angel!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +With Bonny as Guide + + +Glory was truthful and loving, and her grandfather had taught her to be +clean, honest, and industrious, but, beyond this, she had had little +training. She knew that Meg-Laundress and Posy Jane both firmly believed +in "Guardian Angels" who hovered about human beings to protect and +prosper them. She had inferred that these "Angels" were very beautiful +but had never asked if they were ever visible or, if so, what form they +took. + +Glory felt now that she would never need to ask about the "Angels" for +the small creature before her answered all these unspoken inquiries; a +mite of a thing, in silken white, with glistening golden curls and the +roundest, loveliest of big blue eyes, who sat on the floor smiling and +gurgling in an unknown language, yet gravely regarding Bo'sn who, firm +upon his haunches, as gravely regarded this astonishing intruder. The +tiny visitor was so unlike any crony captain or ragged newsboy that the +dog was perplexed, yet as evidently pleased, for his eyes were shining, +his mouth "laughing" and his stump of a tail doing its utmost to wag. As +Glory appeared in the doorway, he cast one welcoming glance over his +shoulder, then with the same intensity, returned to his contemplation of +the child. + +After all, it was not an "Angel" from a spiritual world, but a +wonderfully fair and winning little human being. From whence she had +come and why, she was too young to explain and Glory was too delighted +to care. Here she was, gay, shining, and wholly undisturbed, and, as the +little goober girl appeared, the baby lifted her face, laughing, and +lisping: "Bonny come!" + +"Angels" could use human speech then; and now her awe of the visitant +vanished and down went Take-a-Stitch beside Bo'sn and clasped the little +one close and kissed and caressed it to her heart's content, which meant +much to Glory, because even grandpa had objected to overmuch caressing, +though this newcomer appeared to take kissing as a matter of course and +to like it. + +"Oh! you darlin', darlin', sweetest 'Angel'! Have you truly come to live +with me?" + +"Bonny come!" answered the other, thrusting her tiny hands into Glory's +own curls and pressing her dewy lips to Glory's cheek. + +"Oh, you precious, precious, sweetest, darlin'est one. Oh, won't grandpa +be pleased! An' you'll help--that's what you come for, ain't it?--you'll +help to find him. Why, if you're a truly 'Angel,' you know this minute +'t ever is just where to search, an' so 'twon't be more'n a bit of a +while 'fore me an' you an' him is all back here together in this +splendid littlest house, a 'livin' in peace an' dyin' in grease an' +bein' buried under a pot o' taller,' like Nick's stories end; only I +guess we'll do without the grease an' taller, 'cause I hate dirt an' +'Angels' do, 'course. Oh, let's start right away! Why--why--we might be +home again, lickety-cut, if we did. Shall we go to find grandpa, +'Angel'?" + +The stranger toddled to her feet, Bo'sn watching the operation with +keenest interest, but once upon them, there ensued delay, for, whoever +this unknown might be, Glory herself was a very human little girl. She +could not keep her fingers from feeling and examining the exquisite +garments which clothed her visitor's form, and at each fresh discovery +of daintiness, from the silken coat to the snowy shoes, her exclamations +of wonder and admiration grew more intense. Before she had finished, she +felt a reflex grandeur from her richly attired guest and unconsciously +gave her own scanty skirt an airy flirt, as if it had suddenly become of +proper length and color. + +Giving the "Angel" a fresh embrace, she clasped its pink fingers and +started to follow wherever it might lead, with Bo'sn close behind. + +So intent was she upon her small "Guardian," that she did not observe a +man entering the lane from the further end, else she would have +recognized him for the owner of the littlest house, come in person to +inspect his property and to learn if his rent would be forthcoming when +due; also, to prepare the captain for possible removal, in case a +certain deal, then in progress, should transfer the three-cornered +building to other hands and purposes. + +But the gentleman saw Glory and wondered how she had come to have in +charge, in such a neighborhood, a little child so unsuited to it. By +just the one minute's time which would have brought him to the littlest +house ere Glory left it, she missed some further enlightenment on the +subject of "Guardian Angels," and the sad news that she had not only +lost grandparent but home as well; for, seeing the place open, at the +mercy of any Elbow tramp who might enter and despoil it, the landlord at +once decided that, sale or no sale, he would get rid of so careless a +tenant. Crossing to the basement of Meg-Laundress, he made some +inquiries concerning the Becks and was told all which that talkative +woman knew or suspected. + +"An' none of us in the Lane ever looks to see him back, sir, an' that's +the fact. But whatever's to become o' his little girl, when she finds +out, land knows," she concluded. + +"Oh, plenty of institutions to take in just such as she and she'd be a +deal better off than living from hand to mouth as she has always done. +The captain must have been a fine man once and so far--so far--has had +his rent money ready when it was due; but I made it too small, a great +deal too small. I was a fool for sympathy and let my heart run away with +my head. + +"Know anybody would take in the old man's few traps and take care of +them till something develops?" continued the landlord. "He is dead, of +course. Must have been him was run over that time; but they might sell +for a trifle for the child's benefit. I wouldn't mind having that +time-keeping arrangement of bells myself. Was really quite ingenious. I +might as well take it, I reckon, on account of loss of occupancy. Yes, I +_will_ take it. And if he should return--but he won't--you tell +him, my good woman, how it was and he can look to me to settle. Know +anybody has room for his things?" + +"No, I don't. An' if I did, I wouldn't tell ye," answered Meg, testily, +and as a relief to her indignation cuffed her youngest born in lieu of +him upon whom she wished she dared bestow the correction. + +But the corner grocery-man was more obliging and better supplied with +accommodations for Captain Beck's belongings. In truth, seeing that the +landlord was determined, whether or no, to remove them from the littlest +house, he felt that he must take them in and preserve them from harm +against their owner's claiming them. He thought, with Meg, that harm had +certainly befallen the blind seaman and that they would see him no more, +but he also felt that Glory's rights should be protected to the utmost. +With this idea in mind, he stoutly objected to parting with the +bell-timepiece, and even offered to make up any arrears of rent which +the other could rightly claim. + +"Oh! that's all right," said the landlord, huffishly. "That can rest, +but I wish you'd call a cart and get the traps out now, while I'm here +to superintend." + +"I'm with you!" cried the grocer, with equal spirit; and so fully fell +in with the other's wishes that, before Glory had been an hour absent +from the only home she could remember, it had been emptied of its few, +but well loved, furnishings and the key had been turned upon its +solitude. Thus ended, too, Nick's brief brilliant dream of household +proprietorship. + +However, all this fresh trouble was unknown. Whither her "Angel" led, +she was to follow; and this proved to be in wholly a different direction +from that dark end of the Lane toward the bridge. + +For a time the small, unconscious guide toddled along, making slow +progress toward the sound of a hand-organ which her ear had caught yet +which was still out of sight. Arrived, they joined the group of children +gathered about the grinder and his monkey, and created a profound +sensation among the gutter audience. + +"Where'd you get her? Whose she belongs?" demanded one big girl who knew +Glory and found this white-clad stranger more interesting than even a +monkey. + +"Belongs to me. She's mine; she was sent," returned Take-a-Stitch, with +an inimitable gesture of pride. + +"Huh! Talk's cheap. Nobody sent silk-dressed young ones to the Lane to +be took care of, Glory Beck. I don't care, though. Keep her, if ye want +to," returned the offended questioner. + +"Sure I shall," laughed Glory, gaily. "But needn't get mad, Nancy Smith. +Maybe you can get one, too. She's my 'Guardian Angel' an' her name's +'Bonny'; she said so. She don't talk much, only that 'Bonny come.' Did +you know 'Angels' was so perfeckly lovely, Nancy?" + +Clasping her hands, this proud proprietor of an "Angel" smiled +beatifically on all around. Even the organ-grinder came in for a portion +of that smile, though hitherto, Glory had rather disliked him because +she fancied him unkind to Jocko. + +This organ-grinder was Luigi Salvatore, brother to Tonio, and as well +known in that locality. His amazement at seeing the child in the goober +seller's care caused him to stop grinding; whereupon the music also +stopped and the monkey left off holding his cap to the children, begging +their pennies, to hop upon his master's shoulder. From thence he grinned +so maliciously that the "Angel" was frightened and hid her face in +Glory's skirt, whereupon that proud girl realized that "Angels," if +young, were exactly like human young things and needed comforting. Many +an Elbow baby had learned to flee for help to Glory's arms, and now this +stranger was lifted in them and clasped closer than any other had ever +been. + +"Oh, you sweetest, dearest Bonny Angel! Don't you be afraid. Glory'll +take care of ye. Don't they have monkeys where you lived, honey? S'pose +not, less you'd ha' knowed they wouldn't hurt. Well, now, on we go. +Which way is to grandpa, Bonny Angel?" + +The tiny face burrowing under Glory's chin was partially turned and the +babyish hand pointed outward in a very imperative way. Glory construed +that she must travel in the direction indicated and, also, that even +"Angels" liked their commands to be immediately obeyed. For when she +lingered a moment to exchange compliments with Nancy, on the subject of +"stuck-up-ness" and general "top-loftiness," Miss Bonny brought these +amenities to a sudden close by a smart slap on Glory's lips and a lusty +kick in the direction she wished to be carried. + +Fortunately, Take-a-Stitch had never thought how "Angels" should behave, +else she might have been disappointed. As it was, the child at once +became dearer and more her girlish proprietor's "very own" because in +just this manner might Meg's youngest have kicked and slapped. + +"Huh! Call that a 'Angel' do ye, Glory Beck? 'Tis no such thing. It's +only somebody's baby what's got lost. Angels are folks what live in +heaven, an' they never kick ner scratch ner ask to be carried. They +don't need. All they have to do is to set still an' sing an' flap their +wings. Huh! I know." + +Nancy spoke with the conviction of an eyewitness, and for a time her +playmate was silenced. Then, as Bonny had now grown quiet and gave her +an opportunity, Glory demanded: + +"How _can_ you know? You hain't never been there. Nobody hasn't. +An' you go ask Meg-Laundress. Good-bye. Don't be mad. I'll be home +bime-by, an' Bonny Angel with me. She's come to stay. She belongs, +same's all of us. She's a reg'lar Elbower, 'now an' forevermore,' like +we say in the ring-game; an' some time, maybe, if she wants, I'll let +her 'Guardian' you somewhere. Now we're off to grandpa, but we'll be +back after a while. Good-bye. Maybe Toni'll let you peddle goobers in my +place the rest the day. Good-bye." + +Bonny Angel, as she was from that time to be called by her new friend, +was again gurgling and smiling and gaily radiant; and for some distance +Glory sped along, equally radiant and wholly engrossed in watching the +little face so near her own. It was, indeed, perfect in its infantile +beauty and more than one passer-by paused to take a second glance at +this odd pair, so unlike, and yet so well content. + +After a short while, the aching of her arms made Glory realize that even +infant "Angels" may become intolerably heavy, when clothed in healthy +human form and carried indefinitely, so she set the little one down on +its own small feet, though they seemed too dainty to rest upon the +smirched stones of the pavement which just there was even more begrimed +than that of the Lane itself. + +Then she saw that they had halted beside a coal-yard in an unfamiliar +part of the city, but there were throngs of people hurrying past them +toward some point beyond, and though many observed, none paused to +address the children. Bonny was now rested and active and merrily +started in the same direction, across the gangplank to the floor of a +crowded ferry-boat. The ferry-men supposed them to belong to some older +passengers and let them pass unchallenged; nor did Bonny Angel cease her +resolute urging forward till they had come to the very edge of the +further deck and stood looking down into the river. + +Almost at once, the boat began to move and Glory was as delighted as +Bonny by the rush of the wind on her face and by the novel sights of the +water. After all, this search for grandpa was proving the pleasantest of +outings, for, though the goober-seller had often peddled her nuts at the +landings of other ferries, she had never before crossed any. She gave +the baby a fresh deluge of kisses, exclaiming, "Oh, you dear knowin' +darlin'! He has gone this way an' you're leadin' me!" + +"Bonny come!" cried the "Angel," with a seraphic smile. + +Glory smiled back, all anxiety at rest. She was going to grandpa, with +this tiny "Guardian" an unerring guide. Why should one fear aught while +the sun shone so brightly, and over on the further shore she could see +trees waving and green terraces rising one above the other? Surely, +grandpa had done well to leave the dingy Lane for such a beautiful +place, and she was glad, yes, certainly she was glad that she had come. + +But the boat trip came to an end all too soon, and, because they were so +near the landing side, they were crowded off the broad deck before Glory +was quite ready and, in the onrush of hurrying passengers, Bonny Angel's +hand was wrested from her grasp. + +"Oh, take care there, my Angel! I mustn't lose her!" cried +Take-a-Stitch, distraught at seeing her treasure swept off her tiny feet +in the crush. + +"In course you mustn't, sissy!" cried a hearty, kindly voice, as a +timely deck-hand caught up the child and restored her to Glory's arms. +"'Course not; though there's many a one would snap at such a beauty, if +you give 'em a chance. Tight-hold her, sissy, for such posies as her +don't grow on every bush!" + +With that, the man in blue shirt and overalls not only gave Bonny a +besmirching pat on her snowy shoulder, but safely handed Glory herself +across the swaying plank to the quay beyond. + +There Bonny Angel composedly seated herself upon a pile of dirty ropes +and, rather than cross her desires, Glory also sat down. Both were much +interested in the scene about them, though "Angel" soon forgot all else +save Bo'sn who had followed, and who lay at her feet to rest his nose on +his tired paws while he steadfastly gazed at this new charge. Already he +seemed to have decided in his canine mind that she was to be guided and +guarded as he had guided and guarded his lost master, and with an equal +faithfulness. + +Soon the rush and bustle of the boat's return trip gave way to a +corresponding quiet, and Goober Glory dreamily watched the wide deck, +where she had stood, slip back and back between the water-worn piles out +upon the murky river. The space between them widened and widened, +continually, till the boat lessened in size to a mere point and, +finally, became lost in the crowding craft of the Hudson's mouth. As she +saw it disappear, a sudden homesickness seized her and, springing to her +feet, she stretched her arms longingly toward that further side which +held all that she had ever known and loved, and cried aloud: + +"Oh, I want to go back! It's there I belong, and he isn't here--I know +he isn't here!" + +Then she felt a small hand clutch her skirt and turned about to see +Bonny Angel's face clouding with grief and her dainty under lip +beginning to quiver piteously. A world of reproach seemed to dwell in +her pleading, "Bonny come!" and Glory's own cheerfulness instantly +returned. Lifting the child again, she poised her on her own shoulder +and started valiantly forward across the ferry-slip and past the various +stands of the small merchants which lined the waiting-room walls. Thus +elevated, Bonny Angel was just upon a level with one tempting display of +cakes and candies, and the sight of them reminded her that it was time +to eat. She took her arm from Glory's neck, to which she had clung, made +an unexpected dash for a heap of red confections, lost her balance, and +fell head long in the midst. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +In the Ferry-House + + +Then up rose the old woman behind the stand, ready with tongue and fist +to punish this destroyer of her stock; for the truth was that Miss Bonny +was not an "Angel" at all, but what Nancy Smith had so common-sensibly +judged her to be--a lost child. Such a plump and substantial child, as +well, that her downfall crushed to a crimson flood the red "drops" she +would have seized and utterly demolished another pile of perishable +cakes. + +"Save us and help us! You clumsy girl! What you mean, hurlin' that young +one onto my stand, that way? Well, you've spoiled a power of stuff an' I +only hope you can pay for it on the spot!" + +With that, the irate vendor snatched Bonny from the stand and dropped +her upon the floor beyond it; where, terrified both by her fall and this +rough treatment, she set up such a wail that further scolding was +prevented. More than that, instead of being properly abashed by her own +carelessness, Glory was far more concerned that Bonny's beautiful coat +was stained and ruined and its owner's heart so grieved. Down she +dropped beside her "Guardian," showering kisses upon her, and comforting +her so tenderly that the baby forgot her fear and began to lick the +sticky fluid, which had filled the "drops," from her sleeve that it had +smeared. + +This restored quiet so that the vender could demand payment for the +damage she had swiftly estimated, and she thrust her hand toward the +pair on the floor, saying, "Hand me over a dollar, and be quick about +it! Ought to be more, seein's it'll take me half a day to straighten up +and----" + +"A dollar! Why--why, I never had so much in my hull life! an' not a +single cent now. Yes--they's a quarter to home, 't I forgot an' left in +the bag, that Nick Dodd give me--but--a dollar!" gasped poor Glory, as +frightened as surprised. Just then, too, a wharf policeman drew near and +stopped to learn what was amiss. He did not look like the jolly officer +of Elbow Lane and the stand-woman seemed sure of his sympathy as she +rapidly related her side of the story. + +He listened in silence, and visions of patrol wagons, and the police +stations where arrested persons were confined, rose before poor Glory's +fancy, while with frantic tenderness she hugged Bonny Angel so close +that the little one protested and wriggled herself free. But no sooner +was she upon her feet than the child became her own best plea for +pardon. Reaching her arms upward to be lifted, she began a delighted +examination of the brass buttons on the man's blue coat; and, because he +had babies of his own, it seemed the natural thing for him to do to take +her up as she desired. + +"Oh, but you mustn't, you dastn't carry her away! She hain't done a +thing, only tumbled off my shoulder! 'Twas _me_ done it, not +holdin' her tight enough! An' she can't be 'rested, she can't! How can +she, when she's a 'Guardian Angel'? Give her back--give her back!" + +In her distress, Take-a-Stitch herself laid violent hands upon the blue +sleeves which so strongly enfolded her darling and would have wrested +them apart had strength sufficed. As it was, the helmeted officer looked +calmly down upon her anguished face and quietly whistled. + +"Keep cool, sissy, keep cool. Wait till I hear your side the business +before you talk of arrests. Besides, this baby! Why, she's the prettiest +little innocent I've seen in a week's beat," said the rough voice, and +now regarding the lips through which it issued, the young "Elbower" +perceived that they were no longer stern but actually smiling. + +Then she did talk; not only of this last adventure but, encouraged by +his close attention, of all the events of her past life. Out it came, +the whole story; Glory's love of the Lane and its people, her +grandfather's disappearance, the coming of Bonny Angel, "sent to take +his place an' help to find him," her present search and her honest +regret for the injury to this old woman's wares. + +"'Cause I know how 'tis myself. Onct a lady fell into my goober basket +an' smashed 'em so 't I was heart-broke. An' if ever--ever in this world +I can earn a hull dollar I'll come right straight back here an' pay it. +Sure, sure, sure." + +Now, during all this relation, though the policeman's face seemed to +soften and grow more like that of his brother-officer of Elbow Lane, it +did not grow less grave. Indeed, a great perplexity came into his eyes +and he appeared to be far more interested in the fate of Bonny Angel +than in the voluble interruptions of Apple Kate. When Glory paused, out +of breath and with no more to tell, he set the little one down and took +out his note-book. Having made some entries there, he exchanged a few +low-spoken words with the vender and these appeared to quiet her wrath +and silence her demands. Indeed, their influence was so powerful that +she selected a pile of the broken cakes, put them into a paper bag, and +offered them to Take-a-Stitch, saying: + +"There, girl, it's all right, or will be, soon's officer finds that +young one's folks. It's past noon, nigh on toward night, an' likely she +was hungry, too little to know any better, and you can have part +yourself. You just do what he tells ye, an' you'll soon see that baby +back in its mother's arms. Laws, how heart-broke she must be a-losin' it +so." + +Goober Glory heard and felt that her own heart was surely breaking. +Bonny Angel's "folks"! She had some, then, since this policeman said +so--policemen knew everything--and she wasn't a heaven-sent "Guardian," +at all. And, furthermore, if this was a "lost child," she knew exactly +what would be done. + +It would be the station house, after all, though not by way of arrest. +Meg-Laundress's assorted children had been "lost" on the city streets +more than once and Meg hadn't fretted a bit. She knew well, that when +her day's toil was over, she had but to visit the nearest station to +reclaim her missing offspring; or if not at the nearest, why then at +some other similar place in the great town, whence a telephone message +would promptly summon the child. But Bonny Angel? Station house matrons +were kind enough, and their temporary care of her brood had been a +relief to overworked Meg-Laundress; but for this beautiful "Guardian," +they were all unfit. Only tenderest love should ever come near so +angelic a little creature and of such love Glory's own heart was full. + +She reasoned swiftly. The baby was hers, by right, till that sad day of +which she had not dreamed when she must restore it to its "folks," +whoever and wherever they were. She would so restore it, though it break +her heart; yet better her own heart breaking than that mother-heart of +which the vender spoke. To her search for grandpa, in which Bonny Angel +was guide, was now added a search for these unknown "folks" to whom she +must give the little one up. That was all. It was very simple and very +hard to do, till one thought came to cheer her courage. By the time she +found these unknown people she would, also, have found Captain Simon +Beck! She had been supremely happy with him, always, and she would be +happy again; yet how dear, how dear this little comrade of a day had +become! + +Glory's decisions never wavered. Once made, she acted upon them without +hesitation. She now turned to the policeman, who had written some +further items in his book and was now putting it into his pocket, and +said, "You needn't bother, Mister P'liceman, to find 'em. I'll take +Bonny Angel home my own self." + +"Hey? What? Do know where she belongs, after all? You been fooling me +with your talk?" he asked quickly, and now with face becoming very stern +indeed. He was sadly used to dealing with deceit but hated to find it in +one so young as Goober Glory. + +"No, sir. I never. But I will. I'd rather an' I must--I must! Oh, I +can't let her go to that terr'ble station house where thievers an' bad +folks go, an' she so white an' pure an' little an' sweet! I can't. She +mustn't. She shan't! So there." + +At her own enumeration of Bonny Angel's charms, the girl's heart +thrilled afresh with love and admiration, and, catching her again into +her close embrace, she fell to rapturously kissing the small face that +was now "sweet" in truth, from the sticky drops the child had licked. + +"Nonsense! If you don't know where she belongs, nor have any money to +spend in finding out, the station's the only place. It's the first +place, too, she'll be looked for, and she'll be well cared for till +claimed. You can go along with her, maybe, since you appear to be lost, +too," remarked the officer. "But I'm wasting time. You stop right here +by Apple Kate's stand, while I step yonder and telephone headquarters. A +man'll come over next boat and take you both back." + +The chance of going "back" to the city whose very paving stones now +seemed dear to her did, for an instant, stagger Glory's decision. But +only for an instant. Bonny Angel was still the guide. It was Bonny Angel +who had brought them to this further shore where, beyond this great, +noisy ferry-house were those green terraces and waving trees. It was +here, separated by the wide river from all familiar scenes, that her +search must go on. + +A customer came to the stand and occupied Apple Kate's attention, at the +same time the wharf policeman walked away to send his message concerning +little Bonny. That moment was Glory's opportunity, and she improved it, +thinking with good reason: + +"If onct he gets a-hold on us he won't leave us go. He'd think it +wouldn't be right, for a p'liceman. Well, then, he shan't get a-hold!" + +A few minutes later, when her patron had passed on, Apple Kate looked +around and missed the children, but supposed they had followed the +officer. Yet when he came back to the stand, he denied that they had +done so and angrily inquired "why she couldn't keep an eye on them and +oblige a man, while he just rung up headquarters?" + +To which she as crisply replied, "Huh! My eyes has had all sight o' them +they want, and they'll trouble you nor me no more. They've skipped, so +you might 's well trot back and ring down whatever you've rung up. +They've skipped." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Another Stage of the Journey + + +The ferry-house where the policeman had found Glory and her "Angel" was +also the terminus of a great railway. Beyond the waiting-room were iron +gates, always swinging to and fro, for the passage of countless +travelers; and from the gates stretched rows of shining tracks. Puffing +engines moved in and out upon these, drawing mighty carriages that +rumbled after with a deafening noise. Gatemen shouted the names of the +outgoing trains, whistles blew, trunk-vans rattled, and on every side +excited people called to one another some confusing direction. + +Glory, with Bonny Angel in her arms, had hurried up to one of these iron +gates, feeling that if she could but dash through and place that barrier +between herself and the too-faithful policeman, she would be free at +last. But the chance of so doing was long delayed. That particular +gateman appeared to prevent anybody passing him who did not show a bit +of printed cardboard, as he called, "Tickets! have your tickets ready!" + +And, oh, in what a glorious voice he so directed them! + +"My heart! If I could holler goobers like he does them car-trains, +folks'd jest have to buy, whether er no!" thought the little peddler, so +rapt in listening that she forgot everything else; till, at one louder +yell than all, the child in her arms shrieked in terror. At which the +gateman whirled round, leaving a space behind him, and Glory darted +through. + +Neither the official nor she knew that she was doing a prohibited thing; +for he supposed she was hurrying to overtake some older party of +travelers and she knew nothing of station rules. Once past this gate, +she found herself in dangerous nearness to the many trains and could +walk neither this way nor that without some guard shouting after her, +"Take care, there!" + +She dared not put Bonny Angel down even if the child would have +consented, and, continually, the rumblings and whistlings grew more +confusing. In comparison with this great shed, Elbow Lane, that Miss +Bonnicastle had found so noisy, seemed a haven of quietude and Glory +heartily wished herself back in it. + +There must be a way out of this dreadful place, and the bewildered +little girl tried to find it. Yet there behind her rose a high brick +wall in which there was no doorway, on the left were the waiting or +moving trains and their shouting guards, and on the right that iron +fence with its rolling gates and opposing gatemen, and, also, that +policeman who would have taken Bonny Angel from her. Before her rose the +north-side wall of the building, that, at first glance, seemed as +unbroken a barrier as its counterpart on the south; but closer +inspection discovered a low, open archway through which men occasionally +passed. + +"Whatever's beyond here can't be no worse," thought Take-a-Stitch, and +hurried through the opening. But once beyond it, she could only exclaim, +"Why, Bonny Angel, it's just the same, all tracks an' cars, though +'tain't got no roof over! My, I don't know how to go--an' I wish they +would keep still a minute an' let a body think!" + +Even older people would have been confused in such a place, with +detached engines here and there, snorting and puffing back and forth in +a seemingly senseless way, its many tracks, and its wider outdoor +resemblance to the great shed she had left. + +"Guess this is what Posy Jane 'd call 'hoppin' out the fryin'-pan inter +the fire,' Bonny Angel. It's worse an' more of it, an' I want to get +quit of it soon's I can. 'Tain't no ways likely grandpa's hereabouts, +an'----My, but you're a hefty little darlin'! If I wasn't afraid to let +you, I'd have ye walk a spell. But you might get runned over by some +them ingines what won't stay still no place an' I dastn't, you dear, +precious sweetness, you! I shan't put you down till I drop, 'less we get +out o' this sudden." + +But even as she clasped her beloved burden the closer, Bonny Angel set +this decision at naught by kicking herself free from the girl too small +and weary to prevent; and once upon the ground, off she set along a +particularly shining track, cooing and shrieking her delight at her own +mischievousness. + +"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed Glory, and started in pursuit. Of course, she +could run much faster than her "Guardian," but that tiny person had a +way of darting sidewise, here and there, and thus eluding capture just +as it seemed certain. + +Fortunately, the direction she had chosen led outward and away from the +maze of steel lines, and, finding no harm come of it and the child so +happy, Glory gave up trying to catch and simply followed her. Just then, +too, there came into view the sight of green tree-tops and a glimpse of +the river, and these encouraged her to proceed. Indeed, she was now more +afraid to go back than to go forward, and Bonny Angel's strange +contentment in the care of a stranger, like herself, renewed a belief +that she was other than mere mortal, and so above the common needs of +babies. + +Reasoned this "Little Mother" of Elbow Lane, "If she was just plain baby +an' not no 'Angel,' she'd a-cried fer her ma, an' she hain't never, not +onct. She hain't cried fer crusts, neither, like Meg-Laundress's twins +is always doin'. 'Course, them cakes what th' Apple Kate give her was +sweet an' a lot of 'em. The crumbs I et when Bonny Angel fired the bag +away was jest like sugar. My, prime! Some day, when I get rich, an' they +ain't nobody else a-wantin' 'em, I'll buy myself some cakes ezackly like +them was. I will so--if they ain't nobody else. But, there, Glory Beck, +you quit thinkin' 'bout eatin' 'less first you know, you'll be hungry +an' your stummick'll get that horrid feel again. Hi, I b'lieve it's +comin' a'ready an' yet I had that splendid breakfast!" + +Somehow, the idea of food occurred to this trio of travelers at one and +the same time. Bo'sn crept up to his mistress and rubbed his sides +against her legs, dumbly pleading for rest and refreshment. He was very +tired, for a dog, and as confused as Take-a-Stitch by these strange +surroundings, and acted as if unwilling to go further afield. At every +possible chance now, he would lie down on the ground and remain there +until his companions were so far in advance that he feared to be lost +himself. Surely he felt that this long road was the wrong road, where he +would listen in vain for the tap-tap of his master's cane and the scent +of his master's footsteps. + +As for Bonny Angel, she suddenly paused in the midst of her mischievous +gaiety, put up her lip and began to howl as loudly and dismally as any +common Lane baby could have done. Then when her new nurse hurried to +her, distressed and self-reproachful for not having carried her all the +way, down the little one flung herself prone in the dirt and rolled and +kicked most lustily. + +Glory did her utmost, but she could neither quiet nor lift the +struggling "Angel," and finally she ceased her efforts and, with arms +akimbo and the wisdom of experience coolly addressed her charge: + +"See here, Bonny Angel! You're the sweetest thing in the world, but +that's jest spunk, that is. You're homesick, I s'pose, an' tired an' +hungry, an' want your ma, an' all them bad things together makes you +feel ye don't know how! I feel that-a-way myself, a-times, but I don't +go rollin' in mud puddles an' sp'ilin' my nice silk coats, I don't. I +wouldn't besmutch myself so not fer nothin'. My, but you be a sight! An' +only this mornin' 't ever was you was that lovely!" + +When Take-a-Stitch treated Bonny Angel as she would have treated any +other infant, the result proved her wisdom. As soon as comforting +ceased, the child's rebellion to it also ceased; and when, shocked by +its condition, the girl stooped to examine the once dainty coat, its +small wearer scrambled to her feet, lifted her tear-stained face to be +kissed, smiled dazzlingly, and cried merrily, "Bonny come!" + +"Oh, you surely are an 'Angel,' you beautifullest thing!" said Glory, +again raising the child in her arms and starting onward once more. She +had no idea whither they were going and Bonny Angel had ceased to point +the way with her tiny forefinger, but she cuddled her curly head on her +nurse's shoulder and presently fell asleep. + +The tracks diminished in number as they proceeded till they came to a +point where but few remained. Some ran straight on along the river bank, +though this was hidden by outlying small buildings; and some branched +westward around the bluff whereon grew those green trees and sloped the +terraces seen from the boat. Here, after a halt of admiration, Glory +found it growing exceedingly dark, and wondered if it had already become +nightfall. + +"It seems forever an' ever since we started, but I didn't think 'twas +nigh bedtime. An', oh, my! Where will we sleep, an' shall I ever, ever +find my grandpa!" + +It was, indeed, nearing the end of the day but it was a mass of heavy +clouds which had so suddenly darkened the world, clouds so black and +threatening that the workmen scattered along the tracks, busy with pick +and shovel, began to throw down their tools and make for the nearest +shelter. One man, with a coat over his head to protect him from the +already falling drops hurried past Glory, where she stood holding Bonny +Angel, and advised: + +"Best not tarry, children, but scud for home. There's a terrible storm +coming." But he did not stop to see that they followed his advice nor +inquire if any home they had. + +Poor Glory's heart sank. She was not afraid of any storm for herself +though she had never heard wind roar and wail as this did now, but how +could she bear to have her "Guardian" suffer. Even Meg's healthy +youngsters sometimes had croup and frightened their mother "outen her +seventy senses," and the croup usually followed a prolonged playing in +flooded gutters during a rain storm. + +"I must find a place! Oh, there must be a place somewhere! She mustn't +get the croup an' die on me--she mustn't. Ain't I got to take her to her +ma, an' how could I tell her I let the baby die? Oh, where?" + +With an agonized glance in every direction and a closer enfolding of the +sleeping child--over whose head she promptly threw her own abbreviated +skirt--she discovered, at last, a haven of refuge. + +"My heart! That's littler 'an the littlest house, but it's big enough +fer us, you sweetest honey darlin', an' it must ha' growed a-purpose, +all in a minute, just fer us, like them fairy-lamp-an'-Aladdin yarns +what grandpa used to tell me! An' now I know fer true she is a surely +'Guardian Angel,' an' is tooken care of every time, 'cause a minute ago +that littler than the littlest wasn't there at all, for I never saw it +an' I should. An' now 'tis, an' we're in it an'----Oh, how glad I am!" + +While these thoughts were passing through her mind Glory had been +staggering forward as swiftly as the wind and the burden she carried +would allow and she reached the shelter none too soon. The very instant +she passed within, the rain came down in torrents and the tiny structure +swayed dizzily in the gale. + +"Littler than the littlest" it was, indeed; only a railway switchman's +"box," erected to shelter him in just such emergencies and from the cold +of winter nights. It had tiny windows and a narrow door; and, placing +Bonny Angel on the corner bench--its only furnishing--Take-a-Stitch +hastened to make all secure. The lightning flashed and the thunder +rolled, but still and happily the worn-out "Guardian" slept; so that, +herself overcome by fatigue and the closeness of the atmosphere the now +vagrant "Queen of Elbow Lane" dropped in a heap on the floor and also +slept. + +This switch-box was one but seldom used and nobody came near it till +morning. Then a passing road-hand, on his way to work, fancied it a good +place wherein to eat his breakfast and opened the door. His cry of +surprise at sight of its strange occupants roused them both, and sent +Glory to her feet with an answering cry; while Bonny Angel merely opened +her eyes, stared sleepily around, and smilingly announced: "Bonny come!" + +"Bless us, me honey, so you did! But it's meself'd like to be knowin' +where from an' how long sence the pair of ye got your job on the +railroad?" + +There was nothing to fear about this man, as Goober Glory saw at once. +His homely face was gay with good health and good nature and the +sunshiny morning after the storm seemed not more sunshiny than he. But +his curiosity was great and he did not rest till it was satisfied by a +full recital of all that had happened to the straying children and their +plans for the future were explained. + +The man's face grew grave and he shook his head with misgiving: "Lookin' +for a lot of lost people, is it, then? Hmm. An', that may be more'n of a +job than straightenin' crooked rails what the storm washed away, as I +must be doin' to onct. Too big a job to be tacklin' on empty stummicks, +betoken; so here, the two of yez, fall in an' taste this bread an' meat +an' couple o' cold spuds, an' let me get on to me own affairs." + +Opening his tin pail, he made a cup of its inverted top, into which he +poured a lot of cold tea and offered it to Glory, who in turn, promptly +presented it to the now clamorous Bonny, and had the pleasure of seeing +the little one drink deeply before she discovered for herself that it +was not her accustomed milk, and rejected the remainder. Both the +workman and Take-a-Stitch laughed at the little one's wry face, while +having divided the bread and meat into three fair portions, all fell to +with a will, so that soon not a crumb was left. + +"Ah, that was prime!" cried Glory, smacking her lips; "and you're the +primest sort of man to give it to us. I hope I'll have something to give +you some time," she finished a little wistfully, and keenly regarding +various rents in his clothes. "If I had my needle an' thread I might +work it out, maybe. You need mendin' dreadful." + +"Betoken! So I do. An' be ye a colleen 'at's handy with them sort o' +tools?" + +"Indeed, I can sew!" cried Glory, triumphantly. "It's 'cause of that the +Elbowers call me 'Mend-a-Hole,' or 'Take-a-Stitch,' whichever happens. +Why--why--I earn money--real money--sewin' the Lane folks up!" + +"An' yet bein' that mite of a thing ye are!" returned this new friend, +admiringly. "Well then, 'tis out to me sister's husband's cousin's house +I'm wishin' ye was this instant. For of all the folks needs the mendin' +an' patchin', 'tis she, with her seven own childer, an' her ten boardin' +'hands,' an' her own man, that was gardener to some great folks beyant, +laid up with the chills an' not able to do a hand's turn for himself, +barrin' eatin' an' drinkin' fair, when the victuals is ready. He can +play a good knife an' fork, still, thanks be, an' it's hopin' he'll soon +be playin' his shovel an' spade just as lively, but that's no more here +nor yet there. There's miles betwixt this an' yon, an'----Hello! Aye, +hello-a-oa!" + +The sudden break in Timothy Dowd's chatter was caused by the hailing of +some fellow workmen who had rumbled up to them a hand-car over a near-by +track and had signaled him to join them. + +"For it's not down track but up you're to go, Tim, the washouts bein' +worst beyond. Step aboard, we've to hustle." + +Timothy picked up his tools and started to comply, when his glance fell +once more upon the eager face of Goober Glory and pity for her made him +hesitate. Then a bright idea flashed through his brain and he demanded +of the man who had accosted him, "How fur be ye goin'?" + +"To the trestle beyond Simpson's. Hurry up. Step on." + +For only answer, Timothy immediately swung Glory up to the little +platform car, depositing Bonny Angel beside her with equal speed, then +made room for himself among the surprised trackmen already grouped +there. Yet beyond another astonished "Hello!" no comment was made and +the hand-car bumped forward again toward its destination. + +However, it wasn't Timothy Dowd's habit to be silent when he could find +anything to say, so he was presently explaining in his loud-voiced, +jolly way that here was a "pair o' angels that he'd found floating round +in the mud and was goin' to bestow 'em where they'd do the most good. +An' that's to Mary Fogarty's, indeed. Her of the sharp tongue an' warm +heart an' houseful of creatures, every blessed one of that same rippin' +off buttons that constant, an' her livin' the very pattern of handiness +to Simpson's trestle an' couldn't have been planned no better not +if----Hi, baby, how goes it?" + +This to Bonny Angel, whose eyes had shone with delight when first the +car had rolled forward, but who now grew frightened and began to whimper +dismally, which set Glory's own heart beating sorrowfully and spoiled +her pleasure in this novel ride. Springing up she would have taken Bonny +Angel from Timothy's arms into her own had he not rudely pushed her down +again, commanding sternly: + +"Try that no more, colleen, lest ye'd be after murderin' the pair of us! +Sit flat, sit flat, girl, an' cut no monkey-shines with nobody, a-ridin' +on a hand-car." + +Glory had not thought of danger, though her new friend had not +over-rated it. In obedience to this unexpected sternness, she crouched +motionless beside him, though she firmly clutched at Bonny's skirts and +began to think this her hardest experience yet, till after a time, at +sight of a gamboling squirrel, the little one forgot her fear and +laughed out gleefully. Then Glory laughed, too, for already her tiny +"Guardian" could influence every mood, so dearly had she grown to love +the child thus thrown upon her care. + +How the fences and the fields raced by! How the birds sang and the +flowers bloomed! And how very, very soon the queer little car stopped +short at a skeleton bridge over a noisy creek! There all the workmen +leaped to the ground and hastily prepared for labor. Even Timothy had no +further time to talk but coolly setting the children upon a bank pointed +to a house across the fields and ordered Glory, "Go there an' tell your +story, an' tell Mary Fogarty I sent ye." + +Then he fell to his own tasks and Take-a-Stitch had no choice save +obedience. + +For a little distance, there was fascination in the meadow for both +small wanderers; but soon Bonny Angel's feet lagged and she put up her +arms with that mute pleading to be carried which Glory could not resist, +yet the little creature soon grew intolerably heavy, and her face buried +beneath her nurse's chin seemed to burn into the flesh, the blue eyes +closed, the whole plump little body settled limp and inert, and a swift +alarm shot through the other's heart. + +"Oh, oh, I believe she's sick! Do 'Angels' ever get sick? But she isn't +a truly 'Angel,' I know now. She's just somebody's lost baby. Queer! +Grandpa so old an' she so young should both of 'em get lost to onct, an' +only me to look out for 'em! Yet, maybe, that Mary Fogarty woman'll help +us out. I hope she'll be like Meg-Laundress, or darlin' Posy Jane. +Strange, how long these fields are. Longer'n the longest avenue there is +an' not one single house the hull length. Why ain't there houses, I +wonder. Wake up, Bonny precious! We're almost there." + +But when they reached the door of the Queen Anne cottage, which was +intended to be picturesque and had succeeded in being merely extremely +dirty, and out of which swarmed a horde of youngsters each more soiled +than the other, Glory's heart sank. For the big woman who followed the +horde was not in the least like either old friend of Elbow Lane. Her +voice was harsh and forbidding as she demanded, "Well, an' who are you; +an' what are you wantin' here?" + +"Timothy sent us," answered Glory, meekly. + +"Huh! He did, did he? Well, he never had sense. Now, into the house with +ye, every born child of ye!" she rejoined, indifferently, and "shooed" +her own brood, like a flock of chickens, back into the cottage, then +slammed its door in the visitor's face. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A Haven of Refuge + + +Glory's walk and heavy burden had exhausted her and, almost +unconsciously, she let Bonny Angel slip from her arms to the door-step +where she stood. There the child lay, flushed and motionless, in a sleep +which nothing disturbed, though hitherto she had wakened at any call. +Now, though in remorse at her own carelessness, Take-a-Stitch bent over +the little one and begged her pardon most earnestly, the baby gave no +sign of hearing and slumbered on with her face growing a deeper red and +her breath beginning to come in a way that recalled the old captain's +snores. + +"What shall I do now?" cried poor Glory, aloud, looking around over the +wide country, so unlike the crowded Lane, and seeing no shelter anywhere +at which she dared again apply. Some buildings there were, behind and +removed from the cottage; but they were so like that inhospitable +structure in color and design that she felt their indwellers would also +be the same. + +"Oh, I wish I hadn't come all that way over the grass," said poor Glory. +"If we'd stayed by them car-rails, likely we'd have come somewhere that +there was houses--different. And, Bonny Angel, sweetest, preciousest, +darlingest one, do please, please, wake up and walk yourself just a +little, teeny, tiny bit. Then, when I get rested a mite, I'll carry you +again, 'cause we've got to go, you see. That Timothy was mistook an' his +sister's husband's cousin won't let us in." + +Yet even while her back was toward it, as she contemplated the landscape +pondering which way lay her road, the door again suddenly opened and +Mary Fogarty announced, shrilly, but not unkindly: + +"There's the wagon-house. You can rest there a spell, seein' you was +simple enough to lug that hefty young one clear across the meadder. It's +that third one, where the big door stands open an' the stone-boat is." + +Glory faced about, her face at once radiant with gratitude, and its +effect upon the cottage mistress was to further soften her asperity, so +that though she again ejaculated that contemptuous "Huh!" it was in a +milder tone; and, with something like interest she demanded, "How long +'s that baby been that feverish she is now? She looks 's if she was +comin' down with somethin' catchin'. Best get her home, soon 's you can, +sissy. She ain't fit to be runnin' round loose." + +Poor little Bonny Angel didn't look much like "running loose" at +present, and as for "home," the word brought an intolerable feeling to +Glory's heart, making the sunny fields before her to seem like prison +walls that yet had a curious sort of wobble to them, as if they were +dancing up and down in a wild way. But that was because she regarded +them now through a mist of tears she could not repress, while visions of +a shadowy Lane, whose very gloom would have been precious to her on that +hot day, obtruded themselves upon the scene. + +With a desperate desire for guidance, Glory burst out her whole story +and Mary Fogarty was forced to listen, whether or no. To that good +woman's credit it was that as she listened her really warm heart, upon +which Timothy Dowd had counted, got the better of her impatience and, +once more closing the door upon her peeping children, she said, + +"Why, you poor, brave little creatur'! Come this way. I'll show you +where, though you must carry the baby yourself, if so be she won't carry +herself. I've got seven o' my own an' I wouldn't have nothin' catchin' +get amongst them, not for a fortune. I wouldn't dare. I've had 'em down, +four er five to a time, with whooping-cough an' measles an' scarletina +an' what not; an' now sence the twinses come, I don't want no more of it +I can tell you. Don't lag." + +Mary strode along, "like a horse," as her husband frequently +complimented her, walking as fast as she was talking and, with Bonny +Angel in her arms, Goober Glory did her best to keep a similar pace. But +this was impossible. Not only were her feet heavy beneath the burden she +bore, but her heart ached with foreboding. With Bonny Angel ill, how was +the search for grandpa to go on? How to look for the little one's own +people? Yet how terrible that they must be left in their grief while she +could do nothing to comfort them. + +"Oh, if they only knew! She's so safe with me, I love her so. If I could +only tell them! I wonder--I wonder who they are and where they are and +shall I ever, ever find them!" she exclaimed in her anxiety as, coming +to the wagon-house door, she found Mistress Fogarty awaiting her. + +That lady answered with her own cheerful exclamation, "'Course you will. +Everything comes right, everywhere, give it time enough. Now step right +up into this loft. There's a bed here that the extry man sleeps on when +there is an extry. None now. Real gardenin' comes to a standstill when +Dennis has the chills. You can put the baby down there an' let her sleep +her sleep out. You might 's well lie down yourself and take a snooze, +bein' you're that petered out a luggin'. + +"I must get back an' start up dinner," continued Mary. "It's a big job, +even with Dennis round to peel and watch the fryin'. Seven youngsters of +my own, with him an' me, and ten boarders----My, it takes a pile of +bread to keep all them mouths full, let alone pies an' fixin's. It's +vegetable soup to-day, and as the gang's working right nigh, they'll all +be in prompt. I won't forget ye, an' I'll send something out to ye by +somebody--but don't you pay me back by giving one of my children +anything catchin'!" + +Before Glory could assure the anxious mother that she would do her +utmost for their safety, Mary had run down the rude stairs, shaking the +shed-like building as she ran, and was within the red cottage ere the +visitor realized it. + +Glory exclaimed, as she gazed about, "Here we are, at last, in a regular +house! And my, isn't it big? Why, ever an' ever so much bigger than the +'littlest house in Ne' York!' That bed's wide enough for all Meg's +children to onct, and--my, how Bonny Angel does sleep. I'm sleepy, too, +now I see such a prime place. The woman told me to sleep and I guess I'd +better mind." + +So, presently, having removed Bonny's draggled coat from the still +drowsy child, Glory placed her charge at the extreme back of the bed and +lay down herself. + +"Wake up, sissy! Come down an' get your basin of soup. Enough in it for +the pair of ye, with strawberry shortcake to match!" + +It was this summons which aroused Glory from a delightful slumber and +she sprang to her feet, not comprehending, at first, what she heard or +where she was. Then she returned, laughing as she spoke, "'Course I'll +come, you splendid Mary Fogarty! And I'm more obliged 'an I can say, but +I'll work it out, I truly will try to work it out, if you'll hunt up +your jobs. That dear Timothy said you needed mendin', dreadful!" + +But she was unaware that this same Timothy was also close at hand. + +"Oh! he did, did he? Well, he said the true word for once, but bad +manners in him all the same," answered Mrs. Fogarty; and, as Glory +joined them at the foot of the stairs, there were the two engaged in a +sort of scuffle which had more mirth than malice in it. + +When Take-a-Stitch appeared, they regarded her with a look of compassion +which she did not understand; because at the dinner, now comfortably +over, the child and her hopeless search had been discussed and the ten +boarders, the seven children, with their parents, had all reached one +and the same conclusion, namely, that the only safe place for such +innocent and ignorant vagrants was in some "Asylum." Who was to announce +this decision and convey the little ones to their place of refuge had +not, as yet, been settled. Nobody was inclined to take up that piece of +work and the ten boarders sauntered back to their more congenial labor +on the railroad, leaving the matter in Mary Fogarty's hands. + +However, it was a matter destined for nobody to settle, because when +Glory had carefully conveyed the basin of soup, the pitcher of milk and +the generous slices of shortcake back to the loft, she was frightened +out of all hunger by the appearance of Bonny Angel. It was almost the +first time in her life that the little "Queen of Elbow Lane" had had a +dinner set before her of such proper quantity and quality, yet she was +not to taste it. + +Bonny was tossing to and fro, sometimes moaning with pain, sometimes +shrieking in terror, but always in such a state as to banish every +thought save of herself from Glory's mind. And then began a week of the +greatest anxiety and distress which even the little caretaker of Elbow +Lane, with her self-imposed charge of its many children, had ever known. + +"If she should die before I find her folks! If it's 'cause I haven't +done the best I could for her----Oh, what shall I do!" wailed +Take-a-Stitch, herself grown haggard with watching and grief, so that +she looked like any other than the winsome child who had flashed upon +Miss Bonnicastle's vision at that memorable visit of hers to that +crooked little alley where they had met. + +And Timothy Dowd, the only one of the big household near, whom Mary +Fogarty permitted to enter the wagon-house-hospital, sighed as he +answered with an affected cheerfulness: "Sure, it's nobody dies around +these parts; not a body since I was put to work on this section the +road. So, why more her nor another an' she the youngest o' the lot? +Younger, betoken, nor the twinses theirselves. + +"An' it's naught but that crotchetty woman, yon," continued Tim, "that's +cousin to me own sister's husband, 'd have took such fool notions into +her head. Forbiddin' me, even me, her own relation by marriage, to set +foot inside her door till she says the word, an' somebody tellin' her we +should be smoked out with sulphur an' brimstone, like rats in a hole, +ere ever we can mix with decent folks again. An' some of the boys, even, +takin' that nonsense from herself, an' not likin' to dig in the same +ditch along with the contagious Tim. Sure, it's contagious an' +cantankerous and all them other big things we'll be, when we get out o' +this an' find the old captain, your grandpa, an' the biggest kind of a +celebration 'twill be, or never saw I the blue skies of old Ireland! +Bless the sod!" + +But in his heart, faithful Timothy did not look for Bonny Angel's +recovery. Nobody knew what ailed her, since physician had not been +called. Against such professional advice, Mary Fogarty had set her big +foot with an unmovable firmness. Doctors had never interfered in her +household save once, when Dennis, misguided man, had consulted one. And +witness, everybody, hadn't he been sick and useless ever since? + +So, from a safe distance, she assumed charge of the case; sending Glory +a pair of shears with which to shave Bonny's sunny head, directing that +all windows should be closed, lest the little patient "take cold," and +preparing food suitable for the hardest working "boarder," rather than +the delicate stomach of a sick child. + +However, had they known it, there was nothing whatever infectious about +little Bonny's illness, which was simply the result of unaccustomed +exposure and unwholesome food; nor did good Mary's unwise directions +cause any great harm, because, though a delicate child, the baby was a +healthy one. She had no desire for the coarse food that was offered her +but drank frequently of the milk that accompanied it; and as for the +matter of fresh air, although Glory had to keep the windows closed, +there was plenty of ventilation from the wide apertures under the eaves +of the shed. + +At the end of the week, the devoted young nurse had the delight of +hearing her "Angel" laugh outright, for the first time in so many days, +and to feel her darling's arms about her own neck while the pale little +lips cried out once more the familiar, "Bonny come! Bonny come!" + +To catch her tiny "Guardian" up and run with her to the cottage-door +took but a minute, but there Glory's enthusiasm was promptly dashed by +Mary's appearance. Shaking her arms vigorously, she "shooed" the pair +away, as she "shooed" everything objectionable out of her path. + +"Stand back! Stand back, the two of ye! Don't dast to come anigh, sence +the time of gettin' over things is the very worst time to give 'em. +Hurry back to the wagon-house, quick, quick! And once you're safe +inside, I'll fetch you some other clothes that you must both put on. +Every stitch you've wore, ary one, and the bedclothes, has got to be +burnt. Tim's to burn 'em this noonin'. I've got no girl your size, but +that don't matter. I've cut off an old skirt o' my own, for your +outside, an' little Joe's your very pattern for shape, so his shirt an' +blouse 'll do amazin' well. As for the baby, she can put on a suit of +the twinses' till so be we can do better. Now hurry up!" + +Glory could not help lingering for a moment to ask, "Must it be burned? +Do you really, truly, mean to burn Bonny Angel's lovely white silk coat, +an' her pretty dress all lace an' trimmin'? An' my blue frock--why, I +haven't wore it but two years, that an' the other one to home. It's as +good as good, only lettin' out tucks now and then an'----" + +"Huh! S'pose you, a little girl, know more about what's right than I do, +a big growed up woman? I've took you in an' done for ye all this time +an' the least you can do is to do as you're told," replied Mrs. Fogarty, +in her sharpest manner. + +Thus reprimanded, Glory retreated to the wagon-house, whence, after a +time, she reappeared so altered by her new attire that she scarcely knew +herself. Much less, did she think, that any old friend of Elbow Lane +would recognize her. She was next directed to carry all the discarded +clothing and bedding to a certain spot in the barnyard, where Timothy +would make a bonfire of it as soon as he appeared; and her heart ached +to part with the silken coat which had enwrapped her precious +"Guardian," even though it were now soiled and most disreputable. + +However, these were minor troubles. The joyful fact remained that Bonny +Angel had not died but was already recovered and seemed more like her +own gay little self with every passing moment. Clothes didn't matter, +even if they were those of a boy. They needed considerable hitching up +and pinning, for they were as minus of buttons as all the garments +seemed to be which had to pass through Mary Fogarty's hands and washtub; +but a few strings would help and maybe Timothy Dowd could supply those; +and if once Take-a-Stitch could get her fingers upon a needle and +thread--my, how she would alter everything! + +Summoned back to the cottage, after she had fulfilled her hostess's last +demand, Glory's spirits rose to the highest. It was the first time she +had entered the ranks of the seven other children which filled it to +overflowing, and who were "shooed" into or out of it, according to their +mother's whim. + +It happened to be out, just then, and with the throng Glory, fast +holding Bonny in her arms, chanced to pass close beside the shivering +Dennis in his seat by the stove. He looked at her curiously but kindly, +and his gaze moved from her now happy face to that of the child in her +clasp, where it rested with such a fixed yet startled expression that +Glory exclaimed, "Oh, sir, what is it? Do you see anything wrong with my +precious?" + +Now it was the fact that Dennis Fogarty spoke as seldom as his wife did +often; and that when he was most profoundly moved he spoke not at all. +So then, though his eyes kept their astonished, perplexed expression, +his lips closed firmly and to Glory's anxious inquiry, he made no reply. + +Therefore, waiting but a moment longer, she hurried after the other +children and in five minutes was leading them at their games just as she +had always led the Elbow children in theirs. But Bonny was still too +weak and too small to keep up very long with the boisterous play of +these new mates, and seeing this, Take-a-Stitch presently made the seven +group themselves around her on the grass while she told them tales. + +Glory thought of all the fairy stories with which the old blind captain +had beguiled their darkened evenings in that "littlest house" where gas +or lamplight could not be afforded; then she went on to real stories of +the Elbow children themselves; of Meg-Laundress and Posy Jane; and most +of all of Nick and Billy, her chosen comrades and almost brothers. One +and all the young Fogartys listened open-mouthed and delighted; but, +when pressed to talk more about that "grandpa you're lookin' for," poor +Glory grew silent. + +It was one of the loveliest spots in the world where Glory sat that +morning, with its view of field and mountain and the wonderful river +winding placidly between; but the outcast child would have exchanged it +all for just one glimpse of a squalid alley, and a tiny familiar +doorway, wherein an old seaman should be sitting carving a bit of wood. + +Thinking of him, though not talking, she became less interesting company +to the Fogartys, who withdrew one by one, attracted by the odor of +dinner preparing, and hungry for the scraps which would be tossed among +them by their indulgent mother. + +Bonny Angel went to sleep; and, holding her snugly, Glory herself leaned +back against the tree trunk where she was sitting and closed her own +eyes. She did this the better to mature her plans for the search she +meant to resume that very day, if possible, and certainly by the morrow +at the latest. Now that Bonny was so nearly well, she must go on; and as +her head whirled with the thoughts which swarmed it, it seemed to her +that she had "grown as old as old since grandpa went away." + +Glory at last decided that she had best stop thinking and planning +altogether, just for a moment, and go to sleep as Bonny Angel had done. +She remembered that grandpa had often said that a nap of "forty winks" +would clear his own head and set him up lively for the rest of the day. +Whatever Captain Simon Beck, in his great wisdom said was right, must be +so; and though it seemed very lazy for a big girl such as she to take +"forty winks" on her own account and in the daytime, she did take them +and with so many repetitions of the "forty" that the boarders had all +come home across the fields before she roused again to know what was +going on about her. + +There was a hum of voices on the other side of the tree; and though they +were low, as if not intended for her ear, they were also very earnest +and in evident dispute over some subject which she gradually learned was +none other than herself. + +She had been going to call out to them, cheerily, but what she heard +made her sit up and listen closely. Not very honorable, it may be, yet +wholly natural, since Mistress Mary was insisting: + +"There's no use talkin', Timothy Dowd, them two must pack to the first +'Asylum' will take 'em in. The sooner the better and this very day the +best of all. 'Twas yourself brought 'em or sent 'em, and 'tis yourself +must do the job. You can knock off work this half-day and get it +settled." + +"Oh, but Mary, me cousin, by marriage that is. I hate it. I hate it +worse nor ever was. Sure, it was bad enough touchin' a match to them +neat little clothes o' theirs but forcin' themselves away----Ah! Mary, +mother o' seven, think! What if 'twas one o' your own, now?" wheedled +Tim. + +But Mary was not to be moved. Indeed, she dared not be. As Glory had +already learned, Dennis Fogarty was the now useless gardener of the rich +family which lived in the great house on the hill beyond, and to whom +the abused Queen Anne cottage and all the other red outbuildings visible +belonged. + +The rich people were very particular to have all things on their estate +kept in perfect order; and though they had no fault to find with Dennis +himself, whenever he was well enough to work, they did find much fault +with his shiftless or careless wife, while the brood of noisy children +was a constant annoyance to them, whenever they occupied Broadacres. + +It was for this reason that during the family's stay at the great house, +Mary so seldom allowed her children out of the house; nor had Dennis +ever permitted her to visit the place in person when there was any +chance of her being seen by his employers. He felt that he held his own +position merely by their generosity; nor did he approve of her boarding +the workmen of the near-by railway. Still, he knew that his children must +be fed, and, without the money she earned, how could they be? + +Mary's argument, then, against taking into her home two more children, +to make bad matters worse, was a good one, and Timothy could find no +real word to say against it. Yet he was all in sympathy with Glory's +search for the missing seaman, and how could he be the instrument of +shutting her up in any institution, no matter how good, where she could +not continue that search? + +Having heard thus much, and recalling even then Posy Jane's saying about +"listeners hearin' no good o' theirselves," Take-a-Stitch quietly rose +and went around the tree till she stood before her troubled friends. + +"Why, I thought you was asleep!" cried poor Timothy, rather awkwardly +and very red in the face. + +"So I was, part of the time. Part I wasn't and I listened. I shouldn't +ought, I know, an' grandpa would say so, but I'm glad I did, 'cause you +needn't worry no more 'bout Bonny Angel an' me. I will start right off. +I was going to, to-morrow, anyway, if she didn't get sick again; an' +Mis' Fogarty will have to leave us these clothes till--till--I can some +time--some day--maybe earn some for myself. Then I'll get 'em sent back, +somehow, an'----" + +By this time, Mary was also upon her feet, tearful and compassionate and +fain to turn her eyes away from the sad, brave little face that +confronted her. Yet not even her pity could fathom the longing of this +vagrant "Queen" for her dirty Lane and her loyal subjects; nor how she +shrank in terror from the lonely search she knew she must yet continue, +thinking, "'Cause grandpa would never have give me up if I was lost and +I never will him, never, never, never! But if only Billy, er Nick, +er----" + +Mrs. Fogarty interrupted the little girl's thoughts with the remark, +"Now them 'Asylums' is just beautiful, honey darlin'--an' you'll be as +happy as the day is long. You'll----" + +It was Glory's turn to interrupt the cooing voice, which, indeed, she +had scarcely heard, because of another sound which had come to her ear; +and it was now a countenance glorified in truth by unlooked-for +happiness that they saw, as with uplifted hand and parted lips, she +strove to catch the distant strains of music which seemed sent to check +her grief. + +"Hark! Hark! Listen! Sh-h-h!" cried the girl. + +"Bless us, colleen! Have ye lost your seventy senses, laughin' an' +cryin' to onct, like a daft creatur'?" demanded Timothy, amazed. + +She did not stop to answer him but gently placing Bonny Angel in his +arms, sped away down the road, crying ecstatically, "Luigi! Luigi!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +News From The Lane + + +"Hmm, hmm, indeed! An' what is 'Loo-ee-gy' anyhow? An' what is the noise +I hear save one them wore-out hurdy-gurdies, that do be roamin' the +country over, soon's ever the town gets too hot to hold 'em? Wouldn't +'pear that a nice spoken little girl as yon would be takin' up with no +Eyetalian organ-grinder," grumbled Timothy, a trifle jealously. Already +he felt a sort of proprietorship in Glory and the "Angel" and had +revolved in his mind for several nights--that is when he could keep +awake--what he could do to help her. He was as reluctant to place her in +any institution against her will as she was to have him, but he had not +known what else to propose to Mary's common sense suggestion. + +Both Timothy and Mrs. Fogarty watched the open gateway, through which +Take-a-Stitch had vanished, for her to reappear, since the brick wall at +the foot of the slope fully hid the road beyond. + +The music had soon ceased, but not until all the seven had swarmed out +of the house, excited over even so trifling a "show" to break the +monotony of their lives. All seven now began to exercise themselves in +the wildest antics, leaping over one another's shoulders, turning +somersaults, each fisticuffing his neighbor, and finally emitting a +series of deafening whoops as Glory actually turned back into the +grounds, her hands clinging to the arm of a swarthy little man, who +carried a hand-organ on his back and a monkey on his shoulder. The +hand-organ was of the poorest type and the monkey looked as though he +had been "upon the road" for many, many years--so ancient and wrinkled +was his visage. His jaunty red coat had faded from its original tint to +a dirty brown; and the funny little cap which he pulled from his head +was full of holes, so that it was a wonder he did not lose from it the +few cents he was able to collect in it for his master. + +But the vagrant pair might have been some wonderful grandees, so proudly +did Goober Glory convey them up the slope to the very tree where Mary +and her brood awaited them, crying joyfully: + +"'Tis Luigi! Luigi Salvatore, Antonio's brother! He knows me, he knows +us all and he's come straight from Elbow Lane. I mean, quite straight, +'cause he was there after I was. Wasn't you, Luigi?" + +Luigi stood bareheaded now, resting his organ-pole upon the ground and +glancing from Glory's eager face to the curious faces of these others. +He understood but little of "United States language," having come to +that country but a short time before, and having hitherto relied upon +his brother Toni to interpret for him when necessary. He was waiting +permission to grind out his next tune, and not as surprised as Timothy +was that the little girl should have recognized his organ from a +multitude of others, which to the railroader sounded exactly the same. + +Take-a-Stitch nodded her head, also freshly cropped like Bonny's, and he +began. For a time all went well. The seven young Fogartys were in +ecstasies, and even their elders beamed with delight, forgetting that +the one would be "docked" for his wasted time and the other that the cat +and her kittens were at that moment helping to "clear the table" she had +left standing. Even Bonny Angel gravely nodded approval from her perch +in Timothy's arms, save when the too solicitous monkey held his cap to +her. Then she frowned and buried her pretty face on Timothy's shoulder +and raised it only when Jocko had hopped another way. + +But suddenly out of his selections, Luigi began that ancient tune, "A +Life on the Ocean Wave, A Home on the Rolling Deep"--and then disaster! + +Almost as distinctly as if he stood there before her in the flesh, +forsaken Glory saw her grandfather's beloved form; clad in his well-kept +old uniform, buttons shining, head thrown back, gilt-trimmed cap held +easily in his wrinkled hand, with Bos'n sitting gravely upright beside +him. There he stood, in her fancy; and the vision well-nigh broke her +heart. Then down upon the grass she flung herself and all her brave +self-repression gave way before the flood of homesick longing which +besieged her. + +Nobody quite understood what ailed her, though from having heard the +captain sing that melody he had just ground out, Luigi dimly guessed. +But the effect upon all was that there had been quite music enough for +the time being, and Mary showed her wisdom by drawing the company away, +counseling: + +"Let her have her cry out. She's kep' in brave an' 'twill do her good. +More good'n a lickin'!" she finished, with a lunge at her eldest son, +who was fast changing his playful cuffs of a twin into blows which were +not playful; and all because between Jocko and that twin was already +developing considerable interest, which the bigger boy wished to fix +upon himself. + +"Well now, ma! What for? 'Tain't every day a monkey comes a visitin' +here an' he's had him long enough. My turn next, an' that's fair," +protested Dennis, junior, namesake of the gardener. + +"No more it isn't, an' me forgettin' my manners after the fine music +he's give us. Look up, Glory, an' ask the gentleman, Looeegy yon, would +he like a bite to eat." + +The girl raised her face, already ashamed of crying before other people, +and instantly eager to do something for this visitor from "home"; and +when she had repeated Mary's invitation to Luigi the smiles came back to +her own face at the smiles which lightened his. + +Alas! It wasn't very much of the good dinner was left, after the cat and +her kittens had done with it, but such as remained was most welcome to +the poor Italian. Accustomed to a dry loaf of bread washed down with +water from the roadside, even the remnants of Mary Fogarty's food seemed +a feast to him; and he enjoyed it upon the door-step with Glory at his +feet and Jocko coming in for whatever portion his master thought best to +spare. + +Afterward, comforted and rested, he would have repaid his hostess by +another round of his melodies; but this, much to the disgust of seven +small lads, Take-a-Stitch prevented. + +Leading the organ-grinder from the threshold of the cottage to the tree +beyond it, Glory made Luigi sit down again and answer every question she +put to him; and though he did not always comprehend her words, he did +her gestures, so that, soon, she had learned all he knew of the Lane +since she had left it until the previous day when he had done so. + +First, because to him it seemed of the greater importance, Luigi dwelt +upon Toni's disappointment, and divulged the great "secret" which had +matured in the peanut-merchant's brain, and was to have been made known +to Goober Glory, had she not "runned the way." The secret was a scheme +for the betterment of everybody concerned and of Antonio Salvatore in +especial; and to the effect that the blind captain and Goober Glory +should form a partnership. She was to be given charge of Antonio's own +big stand; while comfortable upon a high stool, beside it, the captain +was to sit and sing. This would have attracted many customers, Toni +thought, by its novelty; and, incidentally, the seaman might sell some +of his own frames. As for the proprietor himself, he was to have taken +and greatly enlarged the "outside business"; Luigi assisting him +whenever the organ failed to pay. + +"Money, little one! Oh, mucha money for all! But you stole the baby and +runned away," ended this part of the stroller's tale, as she interpreted +it. + +"I never! Never, never, never! She was sent! She belongs. Hear me!" +cried Glory, indignantly, and forthwith poured into Luigi's puzzled ear +all her own story. Then she demanded that he should answer over again +her first question when she had met him; hoping a different reply. + +"Has my grandpa come back?" + +But Luigi only shook his head. Even through his dim understanding, there +had filtered the knowledge that the fine old captain never would so +come. He had been killed, crushed, put out of this sunny world by a +cruel accident. So Antonio had told him; but so, in pity, for her he +would not repeat. Rather he would make light of the matter, and did so, +shrugging his shoulders in his foreign fashion and elevating his +eyebrows indifferently; then conveyed to her in his broken English that +the seaman must have "moved," because the landlord had come and sent all +the furnishings of the "littlest house" to the grocer's for safe +keeping; and there she would find them when she wished. + +As for Billy Buttons and Nick, his chum, they were as bad as ever; and +Posy Jane had never a penny for his music, never; though Meg-Laundress +would sometimes toss him one if he would play for a long, long time and +so keep her children amused and out of mischief. She, too, had even gone +so far as to bid him look out all along the road he should travel for +Goober Glory herself; and if he found her and brought her back, why she +would make him a fine present. Goober Glory had been the most +inexpensive and faithful of nurses to Meg's children and she could +afford to do the handsome thing by any one who would restore her +services. + +"And here I find you, already," said Luigi, accepting the wonderful fact +as if it were the simplest thing in the world, whereas, out of the many +roads by which he might have journeyed from the city, this was the one +least likely to attract his wandering footsteps. And this strange thing +was, afterward, to confirm good Meg-Laundress in her faith in "Guardian +Angels." + +But when he proposed that they return at once to the Lane lest Meg's +promise should be forgotten and he defrauded of his present, Glory +firmly objected: + +"No, no, Luigi. I must find grandpa. I must find this baby's folks. Then +we will go back, you and me and all of us but her; 'cause then I'll have +to give her up, I reckon--the darlin', preciousest thing!" + +Luigi glanced at the sun, at the landscape, at the group of watchful +Fogartys, and reflected that there was no money to be made there. The +hand-organ belonged to Tonio, his brother, and the monkey likewise. +Tonio loved money better than anything; and Luigi, the organ, and the +monkey had been sent forth to collect it, not to loiter by the way; and +if he was not to return at once and secure Meg's present, that would +have been appropriated by Antonio, as a matter of course, he must be +about his business. When he had slowly arrived at this decision, he +rose, shouldered the hurdy-gurdy, signaled Jocko to his wrist, pulled +his cap in respect to his hostess, and set off. + +"Wait, wait, Luigi! just one little minute! I must bid them good-bye, +'cause they've been so good to me, and I'm going with you! Just one +little bit or minute!" cried Glory, clasping his arm, imploringly. + +The organ-grinder would be glad of her company, of any company, in fact; +so he waited unquestioningly, while Glory explained, insisted, and +finally overcame the expostulations of Timothy and Mary. + +"Yes, she must go. Not until she had looked forever and ever could she +be shut up in a ''sylum' where she could look no further. When she found +him, they would come back, he and she, and show them how right she was +to keep on and how splendid he was. She thanked them--my, how she did +thank them for their kindness, and, besides, there was Bonny Angel. If +she'd dared to give up lookin' for grandpa, as he wouldn't have give up +lookin' for her, she must, she must, find the Angel's folks. She +couldn't rest--nohow, never. Think o' all them broken hearts, who'd lost +such a beau-tiful darlin' as her!" + +Then she added, with many a loving look over the whole group, "But I +mustn't keep poor Luigi. He belongs to Toni, seems if, an' Toni +Salvatore can make it lively for them 'at don't please him. So, +good-bye, good-bye--everybody. Every single dear good body!" + +Turning, with Bonny Angel once more in her own arms, walking backward to +have the very last glimpse possible of these new friends, with eyes fast +filling again, and stumbling over her long skirt that had lost its last +hook, Glory Beck resumed her seemingly hopeless search. + +However, she was not to depart just yet nor thus. To the surprise of +all, Dennis himself now appeared in the doorway and held up his hand to +detain her. Until then, he had showed but slight interest in her, and +his strange staring at Bonny had been unnoticed by his wife. Now his +face wore a puzzled expression and he passed his hand across his eyes as +if he wished to clear his sight. He gazed with intensity upon Glory's +"Guardian" once more, and at last remarked: + +"Pease in a pod. 'Tother had yellow curls. Awful trouble for them, +plenty as kids are the country over. Pease in a pod. Might try it;" and +turning sidewise he pointed toward the distant great house on the hill. +Then he retreated to his fireside again, and Mary was left to interpret. +She did so, saying: + +"He's sayin' the 'family' 's in some sort o' trouble, though I hadn't +heard it. Though, 'course, they've been home only a few days an' +whatever any the other hands what's been down to see him sence has told +him he hain't told me. But I make out 't he thinks Looeegy's playin' up +there on the terrace might do noh arm an'll likely cheer 'em up a mite. +That's what I make out Dennis means. You an' the organ-man'd best make +your first stop along the road up to the big house. If they won't pay +anything to hear him play, likely they will to have him go away, bein's +they're dreadful scared of tramps an' such. Good-bye. Come an' see us +when you can!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The Wonderful Ending + + +"Sure, and it's not meself can tackle the road, the day. As well be +'docked' for the end as the beginnin', an' I'm minded to keep that lot +company a piece," remarked Timothy Dowd, to his sister's husband's +cousin. "That monkey is most interestin', most interestin' an' +improvin'; an' 'tisn't often a lad from old Ireland has the chance to +get acquaintance of the sort, leave alone that Glory girl, what's took +up quarters in me heart an' won't be boosted thence, whatever. The poor +little colleen! A-lookin' for one lost old man out of a world full! +Bless her innocent soul! Yes. I've a mind to company them a bit. What +say, Mary, woman?" + +"What need to say a word, sence when a man's bent to do a thing he does +it? But keep an open ear, Timothy, boy. I'm curious to know what sort o' +trouble 'tis, Dennis hints at, as comin' to them old people yon. And +he'd never say, considerin' as he does, that what goes on in the big +house is no consarn o' the cottage, an' fearin' to remind 'em even't +we're alive, lest they pack us off an' fetch in folks with no childer to +bless an' bother 'em. Yes, go, Timothy; and wait; here's one them handy +catch-pins, that Glory might tighten her skirt a bit." + +Timothy's usually merry face had been sadly overclouded as he watched +the departure of Glory and her companions, but it lightened instantly +when Mary favored his suggestion to follow and learn their fortune. With +his hat on the back of his head, his stick over his shoulder, and his +unlighted pipe in his mouth--which still managed to whistle a gay tune +despite this impediment--he sauntered along the road in the direction +the others had taken, though at some distance behind them. But when they +passed boldly through the great iron gates and followed the driveway +winding over the beautiful lawn, his bashfulness overcame him, and he +sat down on the bank-wall to await their return, which must be, he +fancied, by that same route; soliloquizing thus: + +"Sure, Tim, me boy, if it's tramps they object to, what for 's the use +o' turnin' your honest self into such? Them on ahead has business to +tend to; the business o' makin' sweet music where music there is none; +an' may the pennies roll out thick an' plenteous an' may the Eyetalian +have the good sense in him to share them same with my sweet colleen. +It's thinkin' I am that all is spent on such as her is money well +invested. So I'll enjoy the soft side this well-cut top-stone, till so +be me friends comes along all in a surprise to see me here." + +His own whistling had ceased, and though he listened closely he could +not hear Luigi's organ or any sound whatever. The truth was that the way +seemed endless from the entrance to the house upon the terrace; and that +having reached it at last, both Luigi and Glory were dismayed by the +magnitude of the mansion and confused by its apparently countless +doorways. Before which they should take their stand, required time to +decide; but unobserved, they finally settled this point. Luigi rested +his instrument upon its pole, loosed Jocko to his gambols, and tuned up. + +The strains which most ears would have found harsh and discordant +sounded pleasantly enough to the listening Timothy, who nodded his head +complacently, wishing and thinking: + +"Now he's off! May he keep at it till he wheedles not only the pence but +the dollars out the pockets o' them that hears! 'Twill take dollars +more'n one to keep Glory on her long road, safe and fed, and----Bless +us! What's that?" + +What, indeed, but the wildest sort of uproar, in which angry voices, the +barking of dogs, the screams of frightened women drowning the feeble +tones of "Oft in the Stilly Night," sent Timothy to his feet and his +feet to speeding, not over the graveled driveway, but straight across +the shaven lawn, where passage was forbidden. But no "Keep off the +grass" signs deterred him, as he remembered now, too late, all that he +had heard of the ferocity of the Broadacre dogs which its master kept +for just such occasions as this. + +"Bloodhounds! And they've loosed them! Oh, me darlin' colleen! Ill to me +that I let ye go wanderin' thus with that miserable Eyetalian! But I'm +comin'! Tim's comin'!" he yelled, adding his own part to the wild chorus +above. + +He reached the broad paved space before the great door none too soon, +and though, ordinarily, he would have given the yelping hounds a very +wide berth, he did not hesitate now. Huddled together in a group, with +the frantic animals bounding and barking all around them, though as yet +not touching them, stood the terrified Luigi and his friends; realizing +what vagrancy means in this "land of the free," and how even to earn an +honest living one should never dare to "trespass." + +But even as Timothy forced his stalwart frame between the children and +the dogs, the great door opened and a white-haired gentleman came +hurrying out. Thrusting a silver whistle to his lips he blew upon it +shrilly, and almost instantly the uproar ceased, and the three hounds +sprang to his side, fawning upon him, eager for his commendation. +Instead of praise, however, they were given the word of command and +crouched beside him, licking their jaws and expectant, seemingly, of a +further order to pounce upon the intruders. + +"Who loosed the dogs?" demanded the gentleman, in a clear-ringing, +indignant tone. + +Now that he seemed displeased by their too solicitous obedience, none of +the gathering servants laid claim to it; and while all stood waiting, +arrested in their attitudes of fear or defense, a curious thing +happened. Glory Beck threw off the protecting arms of Timothy Dowd and, +with Bonny Angel clasped close in her own, swiftly advanced to the +granite step where the white-haired gentleman stood. Her face that had +paled in fear now flushed in excitement as with a voice unlike her own +she cried: + +"You, sir! You, sir! What have you done with my grandfather?" + +The gentleman stared at her, thinking her fright had turned her brain; +but saying kindly, as soon as he could command his voice: + +"There, child. It's all right. The dogs won't touch you now." + +"The dogs!" retorted the child, in infinite scorn. "What do I care for +the dogs? It's you I want. You, that 'Snug-Harbor'-Bonnicastle-man who +coaxed my grandpa Simon Beck away from his own home an' never let him +come back any more!" + +Then her anger subsiding into an intensity of longing, she threw herself +at his feet, clasping his knees and imploring, piteously: + +"Oh! take me to him. Tell me, tell me where he is. I've looked so long +and I don't know where and--please, please, please." + +For a moment nobody spoke; not even Colonel Bonnicastle, for it was he, +indeed, though he silently motioned to a trustworthy man who had drawn +near to take the dogs away; and who, in obedience, whistling +imperatively, gathered their chains in his hands and led them back to +their kennel. + +When the dogs had disappeared, the master of Broadacres sank into a +near-by chair, wiping his brow and pityingly regarded the little girl +who still knelt, imploringly. He was trying to comprehend what had +happened, what she meant, and if he had ever seen her before. Captain +Simon Beck! That was a familiar name, surely, but of that ungrateful +seaman, who wouldn't be given a "Snug Harbor" whether or no, of him he +had never heard nor even thought since his one memorable uncomfortable +visit to Elbow Lane. + +"Simon Beck--Simon Beck," he began, musingly. "Yes, I know a Simon Beck, +worthy seaman, and would befriend him if I could. Is he your +grandfather, child, and what has happened to him that you speak to me +so--so--well, let us say--rudely?" + +Then he added, in that commanding tone which few who knew him ever +disobeyed: + +"Get up at once, child. Your kneeling to me is absurd, nor do I know in +what way I can help you, though you think I can do so--apparently. Why! +How strange--how like--" + +He had stooped and raised Glory, gently forcing her to her feet, and as +he did so, Bonny Angel turned her own face around from the girl's breast +where she had buried it in her terror of the dogs. + +Wasted and shorn of her beautiful hair, clothed in the discarded rags of +a Fogarty twin, it would have taken keen eyes indeed to recognize in the +little outcast the radiant "Guardian Angel" who had flashed upon Glory's +amazed sight that day in Elbow Lane; yet something about it there was +which made the near-sighted colonel grope hastily for his eyeglasses and +in his haste overlook them, so that he muttered angrily at his own +awkwardness. + +Into the blue eyes of the little one herself crept a puzzled wondering +look, that fixed itself upon the perplexed gentleman with a slowly +growing comprehension. + +Just then, too, when forgetting her own anxiety, Glory looked from the +baby to the man and back again, startled and wondering, a lady came to +the doorway and exclaimed: + +"Why, brother, whatever is the matter! Such an uproar----" + +But her sentence was never finished. Bonny's gaze, distracted from the +colonel to his sister, glued itself to the lady's face, while the +perplexity in the blue eyes changed to delight. With a seraphic smile +upon her dainty lips, a smile that would have made her recognizable +anywhere, under any disguise, the little creature propelled herself from +Glory's arms to the outstretched arms of Miss Laura, shrilling her +familiar announcement: + +"Bonny come! Bonny come!" + +How can the scene be best explained, how best described? Maybe in words +of honest Timothy Dowd himself; who, somewhat later, returning to the +Queen Anne cottage, called the entire Fogarty family about him and +announced to the assembled household: + +"Well, sirs! Ye could knock me down with a feather!" after which he sank +into profound silence. + +"Huh! And is that what ye're wantin' of us, is it? Well, you never had +sense," remarked Mary, turning away indignantly. + +Thus roused, the railroader repeated: + +"Sure, an' ye could. A feather'd do it, an' easy. But sit down, woman. +Sit down as I bid ye, an' hear the most wonderful, marvelous tale a body +ever heard this side old Ireland. Faith, I wish my tongue was twicet as +long, an' I knew better how to choose the beginnin' from the end of me +story, or the middle from any one. But sit down, sit down, lass, an' bid +your seven onruly gossoons to keep the peace for onct, while I tell ye a +story beats all the fairy ones ever dreamed. But--where to begin!" + +"Huh! I'll give you a start," answered Mrs. Fogarty, impatiently. "You +went from here: now go on with your tale." + +"I went from here," began Timothy, obediently, and glad of even this +small aid in his task. "I went from here an' I follyed the three of 'em, +monkey an' man an' girl----" + +"And the baby. That's four," corrected Dennis, junior, winking at a +brother. + +"Hist, boy! Childer should speak when they're spoke to," returned +Timothy, severely, then continued, at length: "I went from here. And I +follyed----" + +Here he became so lost in retrospection that Mary tapped him on the +shoulder, when he resumed as if no break had occurred: + +"Them four to the gate. But havin' no business of me own on the place, I +stayed behind, a listenin'. An', purty soon up pipes the beautiful +music; an' right atop o' that comes--bedlam! All the dogs a barkin', the +women servants screeching, the old gentleman commandin', and me colleen +huggin' the Angel tight an' saying never a say, though the poor Dago +Eyetalian was trembling himself into his grave, till all a sudden like, +up flies Glory, heedin' dogs nor no dogs, an' flings herself at +Broadacres' feet, demanding her grandpa! Fact, 'twas the same old +gentleman she'd been blamin' for spiritin' away the blind man; and now +comes true he knows no more the sailor's whereabouts than them two +twinses yon. But I've me cart afore me horse, as usual. For all along o' +this, out comes from that elegant mansion another old person, the lady, +Miss Laura Bonnicastle, by your leave. An' she looks at the Angel in me +colleen's arms an' the Angel looks at her; an', whisht! afore you could +wink, out flies the knowin' baby from the one to the other! An' then, +bless us! The time there was! An' you could hear a pin drop, an' in a +minute you couldn't, along of them questions an' answers, firing around, +from one person to another, hit-or-miss-like, an' all talkin' to onct, +or sayin' never a word, any one. An' so this is the trouble, Mary +Fogarty, that Dennis wouldn't mention. The Angel is their own child, and +Dennis Fogarty's the clever chap suspicioned it himself." + +"Huh! Now you're fairy-talein', indeed. 'Tis old bachelor and old maid +the pair of them is. I know that much if I don't know more," returned +the house-mistress, reprovingly. + +Timothy was undisturbed and ignored her reproof, as he went on with his +story: + +"Their child was left for them to care for. The only child of their +nevvy an' niece, who's over seas at the minute, a takin' a vacation, +with hearts broke because of word comin' the baby was lost. Lost she was +the very day them Bonnicastles set for leaving the city house an' comin' +to Broadacres; an' intrustin' the little creatur' by the care of a +nursemaid--bad luck to her--to be took across the big bridge, over to +that Brooklyn where did reside a friend of the whole family with whom +the baby would be safe till called for; meanin' such time as them +Bonnicastles had done with the movin' business an' could take care of it +theirselves, proper. Little dreamin' they, poor souls, how that that +same nursemaid would stop to chatter with a friend of her own, right at +the bridge-end and leave the child out of her arms just for the minute, +who, set on the ground by herself, runs off in high glee an' no more to +that story, till she finds herself in the 'littlest house,' where me +colleen lived; an' what come after ye know. But ye don't know how the +nursemaid went near daft with the fear, and wasted good days a searchin' +an' searchin' on her own account; the Bonnicastles' friend-lady over in +Brooklyn not expecting no such visit an' not knowin' aught; 'cause the +maid carried the note sayin' so in her own pocket. All them rich folks +bein' so intimate-like, preparin' 'em wasn't needful. And then, when the +truth out, all the police in the city set to the hunt, and word sent +across the ocean to the ravin'-distracted young parents, an'--now, all's +right! Such joy, such thanksgivin', such cryin' an' laughin'--bless us! +I couldn't mention it." + +"But that poor little Glory! Hard on her to find the Angel's folks an' +not her own!" said Mary, gently. + +"Not hard a bit! She's that onselfish like, 'twould have done you proud +to see her clappin' her hands an' smilin', though the tears yet in her +eyes, 'cause she an' Bonny must part. And 'How's that?' asks Miss Laura, +catching the girl to her heart and kissin' her ill-cropped head, 'do you +think we will not stand by you in your search and help you with money +and time and every service, you who have been so faithful to our +darlin'?' And then the pair o' them huggin' each other, like they'd +loved each other sence the day they was born." + +Here, for sheer want of breath, Timothy's narrative ended, but Mary +having a vivid imagination, allowed it full play then and prophesied, +sagely and happily: + +"Well, then, all of ye listen, till I tell ye how 'twill be. That old +man was run over in the street was Captain Simon Beck; and though he was +hurted bad, he wasn't killed; and though them clever little newsboys +couldn't find him, the folks Colonel Bonnicastle sets searchin' will. +An' when he's found, he'll be nigh well; an' he'll be brought out here +an' kep' in a little cottage somewhere on Broadacres property, with +Glory to tend him an' to live happy ever afterward. An' that'll be the +only 'Snug Harbor' any one'll ever need. An' we shan't have lost our +Glory but got her for good." + +"But them Billy Button and Nick Parson boys, what of them?" demanded +Dennis, junior, his own sympathy running toward the clever gamins. + +"They'll come too, if they want to. They'll come, all the same, now and +again, just for vari'ty like," comfortably assented his mother. "An' +your father'll get well, an' we'll move into that other house down yon, +further from the big one; an' them Bonnicastles'll fix this up prime an' +Glory'll live here." + +"So it ought to be, an' that we all should live happy forever an' a +day!" cried Timothy, enjoying her finish of his tale more than he had +his own part in it. + +And so, in truth it all happened, and Mary's cheerful prophecy was +fulfilled in due time. + + + * * * * * * + + +MOTOR CYCLE SERIES + +Splendid Motor Cycle Stories + +By LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON. Author of "Boy Scout Series." Cloth Bound. +Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE MOTOR CYCLE CHUMS AROUND THE WORLD. + +Could Jules Verne have dreamed of encircling the globe with a motor +cycle for emergencies he would have deemed it an achievement greater +than any he describes in his account of the amusing travels of Philias +Fogg. This, however, is the purpose successfully carried out by the +Motor Cycle Chums, and the tale of their mishaps, hindrances and delays +is one of intense interest, secret amusement, and incidental information +to the reader. + +THE MOTOR CYCLE CHUMS OF THE NORTHWEST PATROL. + +The Great Northwest is a section of vast possibilities and in it the +Motor Cycle Chums meet adventures even more unusual and exciting than +many of their experiences on their tour around the world. There is not a +dull page in this lively narrative of clever boys and their attendant +"Chinee." + +THE MOTOR CYCLE CHUMS IN THE GOLD FIELDS. + +The gold fever which ran its rapid course through the veins of the +historic "forty-niners" recurs at certain intervals, and seizes its +victims with almost irresistible power. The search for gold is so +fascinating to the seekers that hardship, danger and failure are +obstacles that scarcely dampen their ardour. How the Motor Cycle Chums +were caught by the lure of the gold and into what difficulties and novel +experiences they were led, makes a tale of thrilling interest. + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +GIRL AVIATORS SERIES + +Clean Aviation Stories + +By MARGARET BURNHAM. + +Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE GIRL AVIATORS AND THE PHANTOM AIRSHIP. + +Roy Prescott was fortunate in having a sister so clever and devoted to +him and his interests that they could share work and play with mutual +pleasure and to mutual advantage. This proved especially true in +relation to the manufacture and manipulation of their aeroplane, and +Peggy won well deserved fame for her skill and good sense as an aviator. +There were many stumbling-blocks in their terrestrial path, but they +soared above them all to ultimate success. + +THE GIRL AVIATORS ON GOLDEN WINGS. + +That there is a peculiar fascination about aviation that wins and holds +girl enthusiasts as well as boys is proved by this tale. On golden wings +the girl aviators rose for many an exciting flight, and met strange and +unexpected experiences. + +THE GIRL AVIATORS' SKY CRUISE. + +To most girls a coaching or yachting trip is an adventure. How much more +perilous an adventure a "sky cruise" might be is suggested by the title +and proved by the story itself. + +THE GIRL AVIATORS' MOTOR BUTTERFLY. + +The delicacy of flight suggested by the word "butterfly," the mechanical +power implied by "motor," the ability to control assured in the title +"aviator," all combined with the personality and enthusiasm of girls +themselves, make this story one for any girl or other reader "to go +crazy over." + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +MOTOR MAIDS SERIES + +Wholesome Stories of Adventure + +By KATHERINE STOKES. + +Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE MOTOR MAIDS' SCHOOL DAYS. + +Billie Campbell was just the type of a straightforward, athletic girl to +be successful as a practical Motor Maid. She took her car, as she did +her class-mates, to her heart, and many a grand good time did they have +all together. The road over which she ran her red machine had many an +unexpected turning,--now it led her into peculiar danger; now into +contact with strange travelers; and again into experiences by fire and +water. But, best of all, "The Comet" never failed its brave girl owner. + +THE MOTOR MAIDS BY PALM AND PINE. + +Wherever the Motor Maids went there were lively times, for these were +companionable girls who looked upon the world as a vastly interesting +place full of unique adventures--and so, of course, they found them. + +THE MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT. + +It is always interesting to travel, and it is wonderfully entertaining +to see old scenes through fresh eyes. It is that privilege, therefore, +that makes it worth while to join the Motor Maids in their first +'cross-country run. + +THE MOTOR MAIDS BY ROSE, SHAMROCK AND HEATHER. + +South and West had the Motor Maids motored, nor could their education by +travel have been more wisely begun. But now a speaking acquaintance with +their own country enriched their anticipation of an introduction to the +British Isles. How they made their polite American bow and how they were +received on the other side is a tale of interest and inspiration. + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +BOY INVENTORS SERIES + +Stories of Skill and Ingenuity + +By RICHARD BONNER + +Cloth Bound, Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE BOY INVENTORS' WIRELESS TELEGRAPH. + +Blest with natural curiosity,--sometimes called the instinct of +investigation,--favored with golden opportunity, and gifted with +creative ability, the Boy Inventors meet emergencies and contrive +mechanical wonders that interest and convince the reader because they +always "work" when put to the test. + +THE BOY INVENTORS' VANISHING GUN. + +A thought, a belief, an experiment; discouragement, hope, effort and +final success--this is the history of many an invention; a history in +which excitement, competition, danger, despair and persistence figure. +This merely suggests the circumstances which draw the daring Boy +Inventors into strange experiences and startling adventures, and which +demonstrate the practical use of their vanishing gun. + +THE BOY INVENTORS' DIVING TORPEDO BOAT. + +As in the previous stories of the Boy Inventors, new and interesting +triumphs of mechanism are produced which become immediately valuable, +and the stage for their proving and testing is again the water. On the +surface and below it, the boys have jolly, contagious fun, and the story +of their serious, purposeful inventions challenge the reader's deepest +attention. + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +BORDER BOYS SERIES + +Mexican and Canadian Frontier Series + +By FREMONT B. DEERING. + +Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE BORDER BOYS ON THE TRAIL. + +What it meant to make an enemy of Black Ramon De Barios--that is the +problem that Jack Merrill and his friends, including Coyote Pete, face +in this exciting tale. + +THE BORDER BOYS ACROSS THE FRONTIER. + +Read of the Haunted Mesa and its mysteries, of the Subterranean River +and its strange uses, of the value of gasolene and steam "in running the +gauntlet," and you will feel that not even the ancient splendors of the +Old World can furnish a better setting for romantic action than the +Border of the New. + +THE BORDER BOYS WITH THE MEXICAN RANGERS. + +As every day is making history--faster, it is said, than ever before--so +books that keep pace with the changes are full of rapid action and +accurate facts. This book deals with lively times on the Mexican border. + +THE BORDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RANGERS. + +The Border Boys have already had much excitement and adventure in their +lives, but all this has served to prepare them for the experiences +related in this volume. They are stronger, braver and more resourceful +than ever, and the exigencies of their life in connection with the Texas +Rangers demand all their trained ability. + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +DREADNOUGHT BOYS SERIES + +Tales of the New Navy + +By CAPT. WILBUR LAWTON + +Author of "BOY AVIATORS SERIES." + +Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ON BATTLE PRACTICE. + +Especially interesting and timely is this book which introduces the +reader with its heroes, Ned and Herc, to the great ships of modern +warfare and to the intimate life and surprising adventures of Uncle +Sam's sailors. + +THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ABOARD A DESTROYER. + +In this story real dangers threaten and the boys' patriotism is tested +in a peculiar international tangle. The scene is laid on the South +American coast. + +THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ON A SUBMARINE. + +To the inventive genius--trade-school boy or mechanic--this story has +special charm, perhaps, but to every reader its mystery and clever +action are fascinating. + +THE DREADNOUGHT BOYS ON AERO SERVICE. + +Among the volunteers accepted for Aero Service are Ned and Herc. Their +perilous adventures are not confined to the air, however, although they +make daring and notable flights in the name of the Government; nor are +they always able to fly beyond the reach of their old "enemies," who are +also airmen. + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +MOTOR RANGERS SERIES + +HIGH SPEED MOTOR STORIES + +By MARVIN WEST. + +Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE MOTOR RANGERS' LOST MINE. + +This is an absorbing story of the continuous adventures of a motor car +in the hands of Nat Trevor and his friends. It does seemingly +impossible "stunts," and yet everything happens "in the nick of time." + +THE MOTOR RANGERS THROUGH THE SIERRAS. + +Enemies in ambush, the peril of fire, and the guarding of treasure make +exciting times for the Motor Rangers--yet there is a strong flavor of +fun and freedom, with a typical Western mountaineer for spice. + +THE MOTOR RANGERS ON BLUE WATER; or, The Secret of the Derelict. + +The strange adventures of the sturdy craft "Nomad" and the stranger +experiences of the Rangers themselves with Morello's schooner and a +mysterious derelict form the basis of this well-spun yarn of the sea. + +THE MOTOR RANGERS' CLOUD CRUISER. + +From the "Nomad" to the "Discoverer," from the sea to the sky, the scene +changes in which the Motor Rangers figure. They have experiences "that +never were on land or sea," in heat and cold and storm, over mountain +peak and lost city, with savages and reptiles; their ship of the air is +attacked by huge birds of the air; they survive explosion and +earthquake; they even live to tell the tale! + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + + +BUNGALOW BOYS SERIES + +LIVE STORIES OF OUTDOOR LIFE + +By DEXTER J. FORRESTER. + +Cloth Bound. Illustrated. Price, 50c. per vol., postpaid + +THE BUNGALOW BOYS. + +How the Bungalow Boys received their title and how they retained the +right to it in spite of much opposition makes a lively narrative for +lively boys. + +THE BUNGALOW BOYS MAROONED IN THE TROPICS. + +A real treasure hunt of the most thrilling kind, with a sunken Spanish +galleon as its object, makes a subject of intense interest at any time, +but add to that a band of desperate men, a dark plot and a devil fish, +and you have the combination that brings strange adventures into the +lives of the Bungalow Boys. + +THE BUNGALOW BOYS IN THE GREAT NORTH WEST. + +The clever assistance of a young detective saves the boys from the +clutches of Chinese smugglers, of whose nefarious trade they know too +much. How the Professor's invention relieves a critical situation is +also an exciting incident of this book. + +THE BUNGALOW BOYS ON THE GREAT LAKES. + +The Bungalow Boys start out for a quiet cruise on the Great Lakes and a +visit to an island. A storm and a band of wreckers interfere with the +serenity of their trip, and a submarine adds zest and adventure to it. + +Any volume sent postpaid upon receipt of price. + +HURST & COMPANY--Publishers--NEW YORK + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUNNY LITTLE LASS*** + + +******* This file should be named 30968.txt or 30968.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/0/9/6/30968 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |