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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Pair of Them, by Evelyn Raymond
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you will
+have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
+this eBook.
+
+Title: A Pair of Them
+
+Author: Evelyn Raymond
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2021 [eBook #64891]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
+             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
+             from images generously made available by the Library of Congress)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PAIR OF THEM ***
+
+
+
+
+A Pair of Them
+
+
+
+
+SUNSHINE LIBRARY.
+
+
+  =Aunt Hannah and Seth.= By James Otis.
+  =Blind Brother= (=The=). By Homer Greene.
+  =Captain’s Dog= (=The=). By Louis Énault.
+  =Cat and the Candle= (=The=). By Mary F. Leonard.
+  =Christmas at Deacon Hackett’s.= By James Otis.
+  =Christmas-Tree Scholar.= By Frances Bent Dillingham.
+  =Dear Little Marchioness.= The Story of a Child’s Faith and Love.
+  =Dick in the Desert.= By James Otis.
+  =Divided Skates.= By Evelyn Raymond.
+  =Gold Thread= (=The=). By Norman MacLeod, D.D.
+  =Half a Dozen Thinking Caps.= By Mary Leonard.
+  =How Tommy Saved the Barn.= By James Otis.
+  =Ingleside.= By Barbara Yechton.
+  =J. Cole.= By Emma Gellibrand.
+  =Jessica’s First Prayer.= By Hesba Stretton.
+  =Laddie.= By the author of “Miss Toosey’s Mission.”
+  =Little Crusaders.= By Eva Madden.
+  =Little Sunshine’s Holiday.= By Miss Mulock.
+  =Little Peter.= By Lucas Malet.
+  =Master Sunshine.= By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.
+  =Miss Toosey’s Mission.= By the author of “Laddie.”
+  =Musical Journey of Dorothy and Delia.= By Bradley Gilman.
+  =Our Uncle, the Major.= A Story of 1765. By James Otis.
+  =Pair of Them= (=A=). By Evelyn Raymond.
+  =Playground Toni.= By Anna Chapin Ray.
+  =Play Lady= (=The=). By Ella Farman Pratt.
+  =Prince Prigio.= By Andrew Lang.
+  =Short Cruise= (=A=). By James Otis.
+  =Smoky Days.= By Edward W. Thomson.
+  =Strawberry Hill.= By Mrs. C. F. Fraser.
+  =Sunbeams and Moonbeams.= By Louise R. Baker.
+  =Two and One.= By Charlotte M. Vaile.
+  =Wreck of the Circus= (=The=). By James Otis.
+  =Young Boss= (=The=). By Edward W. Thomson.
+
+
+THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, NEW YORK.
+
+
+[Illustration: “WHY, YES, BONNY-GAY! I’VE COME.” See page 77.]
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  A PAIR OF THEM
+
+  BY EVELYN RAYMOND
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+  NEW YORK.
+  Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
+  Publishers.
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1901,
+  BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                     PAGE
+
+     I. Where the Houses are Big                 1
+
+    II. Where the Houses are Small              15
+
+   III. How the Pair Met                        29
+
+    IV. Max Reappears                           44
+
+     V. Mary Jane Goes Visiting                 59
+
+    VI. The Flight and Fright of Mary Jane      78
+
+   VII. On the Way Home                         95
+
+  VIII. Confidences                            112
+
+    IX. By the Strength of Love                132
+
+        Afterward                              150
+
+
+
+
+A PAIR OF THEM
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WHERE THE HOUSES ARE BIG
+
+
+“It’s a queer kind of a name, though it suits you,” observed the Gray
+Gentleman, thoughtfully. “How came you by it?”
+
+Bonny-Gay flashed the questioner a smile, hugged Max closer and replied:
+
+“I was born on a Sunday morning. That’s how.”
+
+“Ah, indeed? But I don’t quite understand.”
+
+“Don’t you? Seems easy. Let’s sit down here by ‘Father George’ and I’ll
+explain. If I can.”
+
+The Gray Gentleman was very tall and dignified, yet he had a habit of
+doing whatever Bonny-Gay asked him. So he now doubled himself up and
+perched on the low curb surrounding the monument, while the little
+girl and the big black dog dropped easily down beside him. Then he
+leaned his head back against the iron railing and gazed reflectively
+into the face of the big bronze lion, just opposite.
+
+Both the child and the man were fond of the wonderful lion, which
+seemed a mighty guardian of the beautiful Place, and he, at least, knew
+it to be a world-famous work of art. Bonny-Gay loved it as she loved
+all animals, alive or sculptured, and with much the same devotion she
+gave to Max. The park without either of these four-footed creatures
+would have seemed strange indeed to her, for they were her earliest
+playmates and remained still her dearest.
+
+“Now you can tell me,” again suggested the Gray Gentleman.
+
+“It was Easter, too. All the people were going to the churches, the
+bells were ringing, the organs playing, and everything just beautiful.
+Nurse Nance began it, my mother says. ‘For the child that is born on
+the Sabbath Day is lucky, and bonny, and wise, and gay.’ But my father
+says there isn’t any ‘luck’ and a child like me isn’t ‘wise,’ so they
+had to leave them out and I’m only Bonny-Gay. That’s all.”
+
+“A very satisfactory explanation,” said the Gray Gentleman, with one of
+his rare smiles, and laying his hand kindly upon the golden curls. “And
+now, my dear, one question more. In which of these beautiful houses do
+you live?”
+
+As he spoke, the stranger’s glance wandered all about that aristocratic
+neighborhood of Mt. Vernon Place, to which he had returned after many
+years of absence to make his own home. Since he had gone away all
+the small people whom he used to know and love had grown up, and he
+had felt quite lost and lonely, even in that familiar scene, till he
+had chanced to meet Bonny-Gay, just one week before. Since then, and
+her ready adoption of himself as a comrade, he had had no time for
+loneliness. She was always out in the charming Square, as much a part
+of it as the Washington monument, which the little folks called “Father
+George,” or the bronzes, and the smooth lawns. She seemed as bright as
+the sunshine and almost as well-beloved, for the other children flocked
+about her, the keeper consulted her and the keeper’s dog followed her
+like a shadow.
+
+With a toss of her yellow locks she pointed her forefinger westward.
+
+“There, in that corner one, all covered by vines, with places for the
+windows cut out, and the chimneys all green, and I think it’s the
+prettiest one in the whole place, when it has its summer clothes on.
+Don’t you?”
+
+The Gray Gentleman’s glance followed the direction of the pointing
+finger.
+
+“Yes. It is a very lovely home and a very big one. I hope you are not
+the only child who lives in it.”
+
+“But I am. Why?”
+
+“Why what?”
+
+“Do you hope it?”
+
+“You would be lonely, I should think.”
+
+“Lonely? I? Why--why--I just never have a single minute to myself.
+There’s my thirteen dolls, and the parrot, and the two canaries, and
+the aquarium, and my pony, and--Oh! dear! you can’t guess. That’s why I
+have to come out here--to rest myself.”
+
+“Ah, so! Well, I should judge that you spend the most of your time in
+‘resting,’” commented the other. “Whenever I come out you’re always
+here.”
+
+Bonny-Gay laughed; so merrily that Max lifted his head and licked her
+cheek. That reminded her of something and she asked:
+
+“Have you seen him get his second dinner?”
+
+“Not even his first!”
+
+“You haven’t? How odd!” Bonny-Gay shook out her skirts and proceeded
+to enlighten her comrade’s ignorance. She took it for granted, or she
+had done so, that he knew as much about things as she herself; but if
+not, why, there was a deal to tell. Max’s history first. She began by
+declaring:
+
+“He’s the smartest dog in the world. Everybody knows that. He’s lived
+in the Place nine years. That’s one year longer than I have. All the
+children’s big brothers and sisters have played with him, same’s we do
+now. He never lets a tramp come near. He never steps on a flower bed or
+lets us. If we forget and go on the grass he barks us off. He gets his
+first dinner at our house. When the clocks strike twelve he goes to the
+gardener and gets his basket. Then he walks to our back entrance, puts
+the basket down, stands up on his hind feet and pushes his nose against
+the ’lectric bell. That rings up the cook and--she’s a man just
+now--he--she takes the basket and puts in some food. Then Max walks
+down that side street, about a square, and sits on the curb to eat it.
+‘Just like a beggar,’ the gardener says, ‘’cause he likes to feed his
+own dog his own self.’ I would, too, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“If I owned the ‘smartest dog in the whole world’ I presume I should.”
+
+“Max feels ashamed of it, too; don’t you, dear?”
+
+The dog replied by dropping his black head from Bonny-Gay’s shoulder
+to the ground and by blinking in a deprecating way from that lowly
+position.
+
+“Then, in a few minutes, he comes back to the gardener with the empty
+basket and stands and wags his tail as if he were the hungriest dog
+that ever was. Then the keeper says: ‘Yes. You may go, Max!’ And off he
+trots, away down the other way, to some place where his master lives
+and gets a second basket full. That he brings back here, and the man
+puts a paper on the ground under the bushes and he eats again. Just
+like folks to their own table, that time; don’t you, Max Doggie, smart
+doggie!”
+
+The handsome animal shook his wavy fleece and sprang up, ready for a
+frolic and evidently aware that he had been the subject of discussion.
+
+“No, not yet, sir. The best thing hasn’t been told. Listen, please,
+Mr.----”
+
+The stranger waited a moment, then inquired:
+
+“Mr. what, Bonny-Gay? I wonder if you know my name.”
+
+“Not your truly one, but that doesn’t matter.”
+
+“What do you happen to call me, if you ever speak of me when I’m not
+here?”
+
+The little girl hesitated an instant, then frankly answered:
+
+“Why, just the ‘Gray Gentleman.’ ’Cause you are all gray, you see. Your
+hair, and your moustache, and your eyes, and your clothes, and your
+hat, and your gloves, and--and--things.”
+
+“Exactly. Trust a child to find an appropriate nickname. But I like it,
+little one. Go on, about Max and the best thing yet.”
+
+“That splendid dog has--saved--his--master’s life! As true as true!”
+cried Bonny-Gay, impressively.
+
+“Indeed! Wonderful! How was it?”
+
+“It was pay-day night and Mr. Weems, that’s his name, had a lot of
+money. And some bad men knew it. And they came, do you believe, right
+in the middle of that night, and broke a window in Mr. Weems’s house;
+and Max heard them and flew--and flew--”
+
+The Gray Gentleman stooped and searched for the dog’s wings.
+
+“Well, ran, then,” laughed Bonny-Gay, “and he drove them all off and
+they had revolvers or something and one was shot and a policeman caught
+him and Max was shot and the gardener would have been killed--”
+
+“Only he wasn’t,” interrupted somebody, coming from behind them.
+
+So the child paused in her breathless description of a scene she had
+often pictured to herself and looked up into the face of the hero of
+the affair, himself.
+
+“Why, Mr. Weems! you almost frightened me! and you please tell the
+rest.”
+
+But though the gardener smiled upon her he nodded his head gravely.
+
+“Guess it won’t do for me to think about that just now, or any other
+of our good times, old Max! Good fellow, fine fellow! Poor old doggie!
+It’s going to be as hard on you as on me, I’m afraid.”
+
+By this time Bonny-Gay saw that something was amiss. She half fancied
+that there were tears in the keeper’s eyes, and she always afterward
+declared that there were tears in his voice. As for Max, that sagacious
+animal sank suddenly upon his haunches, looked sternly into his
+master’s face, and demanded by his earnest, startled expression to know
+what was wrong. Something was. He knew that, even more positively than
+did Bonny-Gay.
+
+“It’s an outrageous law. There ought to be exceptions to it. All
+dogs--Well, there’s no other dog like Max. Ah! hum. Old doggie!”
+
+The Gray Gentleman was tempted to ask questions, but the little girl
+was sure to do that; so he waited. In a few minutes she had gotten the
+whole sad story from her old friend, the gardener, and her sunny head
+had gone down upon the dog’s black one in a paroxysm of grief.
+
+A moment later it was lifted defiantly.
+
+“But he shan’t. He shall not! Nobody shall ever, ever take our Max
+away! Why--why--it wouldn’t be the Place without him! Why--why--the
+children--Oh! Nettie! oh! Tom!” and catching sight of a group of
+playmates Bonny-Gay darted toward them, calling as she ran: “They’re
+going to take him away! They’re going to take him away!”
+
+Tom planted his feet wide apart upon the smooth path and obstructed her
+advance.
+
+“Take who away, Bonny-Gay? Where to? When?”
+
+“Max! Our Max! He can never come here any more. This is his last day in
+our park--his very last!” and the child flung herself headlong upon the
+shaven grass, for once regardless of rules.
+
+Not so regardless was Max, the trusty. It didn’t matter to him that
+this was Bonny-Gay, his best-loved playmate, or that her frantic
+sorrow was all on his account. What he saw was his duty and he did it,
+instantly. From a distance the Gray Gentleman watched the dog race
+toward the prostrate little girl and shake her short skirts vigorously,
+loosing them now and then to bark at her with equal vigor.
+
+Presently she sprang up and to the footpath, and again indulged in a
+wild embrace of the faithful canine. Indeed, he was at once the center
+of an ever-increasing company of small people, who seemed to vie with
+each other in attempts to hug his breath away and to outdo everybody in
+the way of fierce indignation. Finally, this assembly resolved itself
+into an advancing army, and with Tom and Bonny-Gay as leaders--each
+tightly holding to one of the dog’s soft ears, as they marched him
+between them--they returned to the spot where the lion calmly awaited
+them, and Tom announced their decision:
+
+“We won’t ever let him go. There’s no need for you nor the law-men
+nor nobody to interfere. This dog belongs to this park; and this
+park belongs to us children; and if anybody tries to--tries
+to--to--do--things--he won’t never be let! So there! And if he is,
+we’ll--we’ll augernize; and we’ll get every boy and girl in all the
+streets around to come, too; and we’ll all go march to where the
+law-men live; and we won’t never, never leave go talking at them till
+they take it all back. ’Cause Max isn’t going to be took. That’s the
+fact, Mr. Weems, and you can just tell them so.”
+
+“Yes,” cried Nettie, “and my big brother goes to the law school and
+he’ll suesan them. And my big sister’s friends will help; and if he
+does have to, I’ll never, never--NEVER--play in this hateful old park
+ever again. I will not!”
+
+“Whew!” whistled the Gray Gentleman, softly. “This looks serious. A
+children’s crusade, indeed. Well, that should be irresistible.” And
+this old lover of all little people looked admiringly over the group of
+flushed and indignant faces; and at the noble animal which was the very
+center of it, and whose silent protest was the most eloquent of all.
+His own heart echoed their indignation and he quietly resolved to make
+an effort on their and Max’s behalf.
+
+But the dire, unspoken threats of the children, and the silent
+resolution of the Gray Gentleman, were useless. For when upon the next
+morning the sun rose over the pleasant Place, and the monument and the
+lion began to cast their shadows earthward, there was no Max to gambol
+at their feet, and over the heart of Bonny-Gay had fallen her first
+real grief.
+
+She was out early, to see if the dreadful thing were true; and the Gray
+Gentleman met her and scarcely knew her--without the smiles.
+
+When he did recognize her he said, hopefully:
+
+“We’ll trust it’s all for the best, my dear. Besides, you will now have
+more time for the thirteen dolls, and the parrot, and the two canaries,
+and--”
+
+“But they--they aren’t Max! He was the only! We loved him so and now
+he’ll just be wasted on strangers! Oh! it’s too bad, too bad!”
+
+The Gray Gentleman clasped the little hand in sympathy.
+
+“I am very sorry for your sorrow, Bonny-Gay, and yet I can’t believe
+that Max is ‘wasted.’ No good thing ever is. Besides that, I have a
+plan in my head. With your parents’ permission, I am going to take you
+this day to visit your twin sister.”
+
+“My--twin--sister! Why there isn’t any. Don’t you remember? I told you.
+I’m the only, only one. There never was any other.”
+
+“Nevertheless, I am obliged to contradict you. Very rude, I know, and
+I shouldn’t do so, if I were not so positive of what I claim. I hope
+you’ll love her and I think you will. After breakfast I’ll see you
+again. Good morning.”
+
+With that he walked briskly away and Bonny-Gay saw him enter the big
+gray house in the middle of the Place. The house where the wooden
+shutters had always been up, ever since she could remember, until just
+this spring, when a few of the windows had been uncovered to let the
+sunlight in.
+
+“My--twin--sister! How queer that is!” mused the watching child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WHERE THE HOUSES ARE SMALL
+
+
+Mary Jane dropped her crutches on the floor and readjusted the baby. He
+had a most trying habit of not staying “put,” and sometimes the other
+children slapped him. Mary Jane never did that. She merely set him up
+again, gave his cheek a pat or a kiss, and went on about her business.
+
+For, indeed, she was almost the very busiest small body in the world.
+Besides her own mother’s five other children there were the neighbors’
+broods, big and little, with never a soul to mind them save their
+self-constituted nurse.
+
+That very morning Mrs. Bump had paused in her washing to look up and
+exclaim:
+
+“I never did see how the little things do take to her! She can do just
+wonders with them, that she can; and I reckon it was about the best
+thing ever happened to her, that falling out the top window, like she
+did. Seemed to knock all the selfishness out of her. Maybe it’s _that_
+settled in her poor body. Yes, maybe it’s that, dear heart. Anyhow, her
+inside’s all right. The rightest there ever was. If this world was just
+full of Mary Janes, what a grand place it would be!”
+
+Then, after a regretful sigh for this beatific state of things, the
+mother thrust her strong arms again into the suds, with a splash and a
+rub-a-dub-dub which told plainly enough from whom Mary Jane inherited
+her energy.
+
+Just then Mrs. Stebbins thrust her head out of the window, next door,
+to remark:
+
+“There was fifty-four of them gardens given out. My boy’s goin’ to
+raise cabbages.”
+
+“You don’t say! Now, ain’t that fine? I wish I had a son to get one,
+but all my boys is girls, save the baby, and he don’t count. Though
+he’ll grow, won’t he, mother’s lamb? He’ll grow just as fast as he
+can and get a playground garden, good’s the next one, so he will, the
+precious!” chirruped Mrs. Bump, to the year-old heir of the house.
+
+“Gah, gah!” cooed the baby; and emphasized his reply by losing his
+balance against the wall and rolling over on his face. He was too fat
+and too phlegmatic to right himself, so Mary Jane hopped back across
+the narrow room and set him up again, laughing as if this were the
+funniest thing she had ever seen.
+
+“Pshaw, daughter! If I was you and you was me, I’d leave him lie that
+way a spell. He don’t ’pear to have the sense the rest of you had, no
+he don’t, the sweet! Maybe that’s because he’s a boy. But even a boy
+might learn something after a while, if he was let. Only you’re so
+right on hand all the time he expects you to just about breathe for
+him, seems.”
+
+“Now, mother, now! And you know he’s the biggest, roundest--”
+
+“Pudding-headedest!” growled a masculine voice, at the narrow doorway.
+
+Mrs. Bump wheeled round so sharply that her rubbing-board fell out of
+the tub and scared the baby, who promptly began to scream.
+
+“Why father! You home? It can’t be dinner-time, yet. What’s happened?
+Anything wrong?”
+
+“Is anything ever right?” demanded the man, sulkily.
+
+“Plenty of things,” answered the wife, cheerfully, though her heart
+sank.
+
+“One of the right things is my getting kicked out, I s’pose.”
+
+“Father! you don’t mean it! No.”
+
+“I’m not much of a joker, am I?”
+
+“No. That you’re not. But tell me, man.”
+
+With a quiver in the usually cheerful voice, Mrs. Bump wiped the suds
+from her arms and went to her husband. Laying her hand kindly upon
+his shoulder she demanded, as was her right, to know the facts of the
+disaster that had befallen them.
+
+“’Twon’t take long to tell, woman. The company’s cuttin’ down expenses
+and I was one of the expenses lopped off. That’s all.”
+
+“Is that all--_all_, William Bump?”
+
+The question was sternly put and the man cowered before it.
+
+“It’s the truth, any way. No matter how it happened, here I am and no
+work.” With that he dropped his arms upon the window sill and his face
+upon his arms, and lapsed into a sullen silence.
+
+Mrs. Bump caught her breath, whisked away a tear that had crept into
+her eye, and returned to her tub. Mary Jane ceased staring at her
+parents, tipped the baby’s home-made go-cart on end, rolled him into
+it, righted the awkward vehicle, threw its leather strap over her
+shoulders, called to the children: “Come!” and hopped away upon her
+crutches.
+
+Though she paused, for just one second, beside her father and imprinted
+a hasty kiss upon the back of his bent head. A kiss so light it seemed
+he could scarcely have felt it, though it was quite sufficient to
+thrill the man’s soul with an added sense of regret and degradation.
+
+“We’re off to the park, mother, and I’ve taken a loaf with me!” she
+called backward, as she clicked out of sight.
+
+Again the woman idled for a moment, looking through the open doorway
+toward the small, misshapen figure of her eldest child as it swung
+swiftly forward upon its “wooden feet.” The baby’s soap-box wagon
+rattled and bumped along behind, bouncing his plump body about, and
+drawn by Mary Jane in the only manner possible to her--with a strap
+across her chest. She needed both her hands just then to support
+herself upon her crutches; for her lower limbs were useless and swung
+heavily between these crutches--a leaden weight from which she never
+could be free.
+
+Even so, there were few who could travel as rapidly as Mary Jane and
+this morning she was especially eager to get on. Because down at the
+pretty park upon which her own dingy street terminated, the children’s
+“Playgrounds” had been opened for the summer and the small gardens
+given out. She was anxious to see the planting and seed-sowing, by the
+tiny farmers of this free kindergarten, and down in her heart was a
+faint hope that even to her, a girl, might a bit of land be assigned;
+where she, too, could raise some of the wonderful vegetables which
+would be her very own when the autumn came and the small crops were
+harvested.
+
+The hope was so deep and so intense, that she had to stop, turn about,
+shake up the baby and tell him about it.
+
+“You see, Baby Bump, they don’t give ’em out to just girls. Only I’m
+not a regular plain kind of girl, I’m a crippley sort. That might make
+a difference. Though there’s Hattie Moran, she’s lame, too. Not very
+lame, Baby, only a little lame. She doesn’t have to have crutches, she
+just goes hoppety-pat, hoppety-pat, easy like. Sophia Guttmacher,
+she’s a hunchback, same’s me, course, but she can walk. Besides that
+she doesn’t want a garden and I do. As for Ernest Knabe, his foot’s
+just twisted and that’s all. Then, too, he’s a boy. He could have one
+if he wanted. He’d have to dig one, I guess, if it wasn’t for his foot.
+Oh! Baby dear. Do you s’pose I might--I might, maybe, get one?”
+
+“Goo, goo,” murmured the infant, encouragingly, and vainly trying to
+bring his own foot within reach of his mouth.
+
+“Oh! you sweet! You can’t do that, you know. You’re far too fat. And I
+declare, all the other children have gone on while I’ve stood here just
+talking to you. That won’t do, sir, much as I love you. Sit up, now,
+there’s sister’s little man, and I’ll hurry up.”
+
+But just then, Baby made a final, desperate effort to taste his toes,
+lost his balance, and rolled forward out of his box, as a ball might
+have done.
+
+Mary Jane, burst into a peal of laughter which recalled the other
+children to the spot and she explained between breaths:
+
+“The cute little fellow was trying to make ‘huckleberry-bread’; I do
+believe he was, the darling! Well, he’s so round it doesn’t matter
+which way he tumbles, and he’s so soft nothing ever hurts him. Does it,
+precious?”
+
+They all lent a hand in setting the infant right again. Several holding
+the soap-box level, a couple supporting Mary Jane without her crutches
+which left her arms free to lift and replace the dislodged baby. When
+things were once more in order the caravan started onward afresh.
+
+By this time the small, dingy houses bordering the narrow unpaved
+street had given place to open lots and weedy patches, where the sun
+lay warmly and a fresh breeze blew. To the right of the open space was
+a railway embankment, and on the left there was the cling-clanging of
+a mighty steel structure, in process of building. The railway and the
+monster “sheds” belonged to the same company for which William Bump had
+toiled--when he felt inclined--and by which he had just been discharged.
+
+Mary Jane had been accustomed to look for him, either along the rails,
+with the gang that seemed always to be replacing old “ties” by new
+ones; or else serving the skilled workmen, who hammered, hammered, all
+day long upon the great metal girders. As she now caught the echo of
+these strokes a pang shot through her loving heart and for a moment her
+sunny face clouded. She need look no more, to either right or left, for
+the blue-shirted figure, which had been wont to wave a salutation to
+her as she passed with her brood of nurselings.
+
+Fortunately, the baby was on hand to banish the cloud, which he
+promptly did in his accustomed manner--with a slight variation. For
+his small charioteer had not observed a big stone in the path, though
+the loose ricketty wheel of the wagon found and struck it squarely.
+This raised the soap-box in front and its occupant performed a backward
+somersault.
+
+“Oh! my sake! Mary Jane--Mary Jane!” shrieked several small voices in
+wild reproach.
+
+Mary Jane picked up the little one, who smiled, unhurt; and the others
+helped her shake him back to a normal condition and pose. After which,
+the park lying just before them, between the railway and the buildings,
+they scurried into it, and over the slope, and around to a sunny spot
+where scores of other little people were hard at work or play.
+
+“Hi! Mary Jane! Oh, Mary Jane!” shouted one and another; and the
+kind-faced “teachers” who guided the wee ones, also nodded their
+friendly welcome. For well they knew that there was no “assistant”
+in the whole city who could be as useful to them as this same humble
+little girl from Dingy street.
+
+“Thirteen, Mary Jane! I’m thirteen! Come see. Cucumbers!” cried
+Bobby Saunders, dragging her forward so eagerly that the soap-box
+strap slipped up across her throat and choked her. But she quickly
+released herself now from her burden, certain that in the midst of so
+many friends no harm could befall her darling; and once freed from
+this incubus, she outstripped Bobby in reaching the long rows of
+well-prepared garden plots, wherein as yet was never a sign of any
+growing thing.
+
+But oh! how soft and rich and brown the earth did look! How sweet
+the fragrance of it in Mary Jane’s nature-loving nostrils! And how,
+for once, she longed to be a boy! As straight-limbed, as strong,
+as unhindered at her toil, as any of these happy little lads who
+clustered about, each interrupting his neighbor in his eagerness for
+her sympathy and interest.
+
+“Fifty-one, Mary Jane!” cried Joe Stebbins, pointing proudly to the
+numbered stick at the foot of his plot. “Cabbages--cabbages! The
+gardener’s bringing a box of plants this minute. I’ll give you one to
+bile when they get growed. Like that?”
+
+“Prime!” answered the girl, her own face aglow.
+
+“But I’m limas, Mary Jane. I’m Seven. Away over here. I’ve sowed ’em
+and to-morrer I’ll hoe ’em, I guess.”
+
+“And I guess I wouldn’t till they sprout,” laughed she hopping along,
+at perilous speed, to inspect number seven.
+
+“Don’t go so fast, Mary Jane! I can’t keep up with you. See. I’m right
+up front--number Three. I’m tomatuses, I am. Like ’em?” demanded Ned
+Smith, a seven-year-old farmer.
+
+“I’m potatoes. They’re the best for your money,” observed Jimmy
+O’Brien. “We’ll roast some in the ashes, bime-by. Does the baby like
+’tatoes?”
+
+“Don’t he? You just ought to see him eat them--when we have them,” she
+added, cautiously.
+
+“Oh! you’ll have ’em, plenty. When I dig my crop. Why, I s’pose
+there’ll be enough in my ‘farm’ to keep your folks and mine all winter;
+and I might have some to sell on the street,” observed Jimmy, casting a
+speculative glance upon the diminutive plot of ground over which he was
+now master.
+
+“Might you; ain’t that splendid!” commented Mary Jane, delightedly.
+“Why, if you could give us all our potatoes, mother could easy wash for
+the rent and the bread and things. My sake! I ’most forgot the baby.
+Where’s he at? Can you see him?”
+
+“He’s right in the middle of the sand-heap and the teacher has give
+him a little shovel. Say, what you bring him for? this ain’t no
+day-nursery, this ain’t. It’s a playground farm and one-year-olds don’t
+belong.”
+
+“Maybe they don’t, but the baby belongs. That is if I do,” said the
+sister stoutly; “maybe you’ll say next I don’t.”
+
+“No, I shan’t say that. Why, what could we do without you? And say,
+Mary Jane.”
+
+“Well, say it quick. The girls are calling me to swing on the Maypole.
+’Cause that’s one thing I can do without my crutches.”
+
+“Well, in a minute. But, say. Sometimes I used to let you hoe in my
+garden, last summer. Remember?”
+
+“Course. I helped you a lot.”
+
+“Don’t know about that. But you might this year. That is, maybe. If we
+went partners, you see; and if the teacher didn’t get on to it; and if
+there was a medal give and you let me have it, ’cause I’m the one has
+the farm, course. What you say?”
+
+“I say we couldn’t do such a thing without the teacher knowing and I
+wouldn’t if we could. And you’ll never get a medal, you’re too lazy.
+But you’re real gen’rous, too, and I’ll be so glad to help. Oh! I love
+it! I just feel’s if I could put my face right down on that crumbly
+ground and go to sleep. It’s so dear.”
+
+“Huh! If you did I s’pose you’d get earwigs in your ears and--and
+angleworms, and--things. Maybe snakes. But I’ll let you,” concluded
+Jimmy, graciously.
+
+Then they turned around and there was--what seemed to the beholders, a
+veritable small angel!
+
+Mary Jane was so startled she dropped her crutches and, for an instant,
+quite forgot all about the baby. The apparition was clothed in white,
+so soft and fine and transparent that it seemed to enwrap her as a
+cloud; and above the cloud rose a face so lovely and so winning that it
+made Mary Jane’s heart almost stand still in ecstasy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+HOW THE PAIR MET
+
+
+But when things cleared a little, it was only Bonny-Gay! and the Gray
+Gentleman was supporting Mary Jane without her crutches--though she
+didn’t realize that, at first. Afterward she was able to look up into
+his face and smile a welcome, because he and she were already quite
+close friends.
+
+What had happened was this: the Gray Gentleman had sent his elderly
+black “boy” with a note to the vine-covered house in Mt. Vernon Place
+and had requested “the favor of Miss Beulah’s company upon a drive,
+that morning. He intended to visit one of the ‘Playgrounds’ in the
+south-western part of the city, and he felt that the little girl whose
+society he so greatly enjoyed would find much to interest her, if she
+might be with him.”
+
+To this he had signed a name which was quite powerful enough to secure
+Mrs. McClure’s instant and delighted assent; and she had at once
+returned a very graceful note of acceptance by the “boy.”
+
+Then at ten o’clock precisely, the Gray Gentleman’s carriage had
+gone around for “Miss McClure,” and she had been lifted into it and
+to a seat beside her friend. A half-hour’s drive followed; through
+streets and avenues which Bonny-Gay had never seen before, and which
+continually grew narrower and more crowded. Even the houses seemed to
+shrink in size, and the little girl had finally exclaimed:
+
+“Why, it’s like the buildings were so little that they just squeeze the
+folks out of them, upon the steps and through the windows. I never,
+never saw! Will they get to be just playhouses, by-and-by?”
+
+“No, Bonny-Gay, I’m sure you never did. Yet it’s the same city in which
+is your own big home, and they are just the same sort of human beings
+as you and I.”
+
+“Are they? It doesn’t--doesn’t just seem so, does it? And why do they
+all stare at us like that?”
+
+“Because we do at them, maybe; and it’s not a common thing to see
+carriages with liveried attendants pass this way. I suppose you, in
+your dainty clothes, are as much a ‘show’ to them as they to you in
+their coarse attire, or rags.”
+
+Bonny-Gay looked thoughtfully at her frock. She would have preferred to
+wear a simpler one; and a comfortable “Tam” instead of the feathered
+hat which adorned her sunny head. But her mother had decided otherwise;
+since the Gray Gentleman had done her the honor of that morning it was
+but courtesy to show appreciation of it by a good appearance.
+
+After a moment she looked up and observed:
+
+“It’s the queerest thing! I feel as if I ought to get out and walk; and
+as if I should give this hat to that little girl who hasn’t any.”
+
+The Gray Gentleman smiled.
+
+“That would be going to the other extreme, my dear, and would help
+neither you nor them. Besides, this is not all we came to see, and here
+we are!”
+
+Then the street had suddenly ended and the carriage had turned in at
+a big gate, to roll almost silently onward till it stopped before a
+“Mansion,” with ancient wooden shutters and a clematis-draped porch.
+This was natural and quite suggestive to Bonny-Gay of her own beloved
+Druid Hill, wherein she was accustomed to take her stately drives in
+her father’s own carriage; and when she heard the shouts and laughter
+of children from the tree-hidden “Playgrounds,” her spirits rose to the
+normal again and she laughed in return.
+
+Dancing along beside him, with her hand in his, she had demanded
+eagerly:
+
+“Is it here I am to see my ‘twin sister?’ Oh! I want to find
+her--quick, quick!”
+
+“Yes, it is here, and this is--she;” answered her guide, as they paused
+behind Jimmy and Mary Jane, toward whom he silently nodded.
+
+This was how the pair met; and while Mary Jane saw what she fancied was
+an “angel” that which Bonny-Gay saw was a girl of her own age, with
+short, limp legs, very long arms, and a crooked back. But the dark head
+above the poor humped shoulders was as shapely as the “angel’s” own;
+the dark eyes as beautiful as the blue ones; and from the wide, merry
+mouth flashed a smile quite as radiant and winning.
+
+As soon as she saw the smile Bonny-Gay began to understand what the
+Gray Gentleman had meant, and she telegraphed him a glance that said
+she did. Then she laughed and held out her two hands to Mary Jane.
+
+“I guess you’re the girl I’ve come to see: my ‘twin sister!’ How-de-do?”
+
+“How-de-do?” echoed Mary Jane, too astonished to say more.
+
+The Gray Gentleman quietly slipped her crutches under the cripple’s
+arms, and seizing Jimmy’s hand walked swiftly away.
+
+Both girls looked after him with regret but he neither glanced back nor
+expected them to follow. Then they regarded each other with curiosity,
+till Mary Jane remembered she was the hostess.
+
+“Let’s sit down,” she said pointing to the grass.
+
+Bonny-Gay hesitated, and, seeing this, the other whisked off her apron
+and spread it for her guest. “You might spoil your dress, that’s so.
+Salt and lemon juice’ll take out grass-stain. My mother uses that when
+there’s spots on the ‘wash.’”
+
+“Does she? I wasn’t thinking of my frock, though, but of _that_;”
+answered the visitor, pointing to a “Keep Off” sign behind them.
+
+“Oh! that? Nobody minds that. You see, this is _our_ park now. We play
+where we choose, only on the terraces and slopey places. You’d better
+use my apron though, it’s such a splendid dress. Your mother would feel
+bad if you smirched it.”
+
+“I suppose she would. She’s very particular.”
+
+“So’s mine. They say she’s the very neatest woman in Dingy street. The
+neighbors say it.”
+
+“And our cook says mine is the ‘fussiest’ one in the Place. That might
+be some of the ‘sister’ part, mightn’t it?”
+
+“It might. Only, course, he’s just fooling.”
+
+“I don’t believe the Gray Gentleman ever fools. He means things. He’s
+made us children think a lot. More’n we ever did before. And he says
+things mean things, too, every single one. Even ‘Father George,’ and
+the lion, and Max, and--and everything.”
+
+After this exhausting speech Bonny-Gay removed her hat and laid it upon
+the grass, where Mary Jane regarded it admiringly. It was so pretty
+she would have liked to touch it, just once. The hat’s owner saw the
+admiration, and remarked:
+
+“Put it on, Mary Jane. See if it will fit you.”
+
+“Oh! I daren’t!” gasped the other. “I might hurt it.”
+
+Bonny-Gay lifted the hat and placed it upon the cripple’s dark head,
+which was held perfectly motionless, while the face beneath the brim
+took on an expression of bewildered happiness.
+
+“My! ain’t it lovely! I should think you’d want to wear it all the
+time!”
+
+“I don’t, then. I like my ‘Tam’ better, and nothing best of all. You
+can wear it as long as I stay, if you wish.”
+
+“That’s good of you. Some of the other girls wouldn’t even let me touch
+their best hats, they wouldn’t.”
+
+“Must be selfish things, then. How old are you, Mary Jane?”
+
+“How’d you know my name? and what’s yours?”
+
+Bonny-Gay stated it and explained:
+
+“I heard that Jimmy boy call you. How old did you say?”
+
+“I didn’t say, but I’m eight, going on nine.”
+
+“Why, so am I. I’m a ‘Sunday’s bairn’.”
+
+“And I!” cried Mary Jane, breathlessly.
+
+After that confidences were swift; and, presently, each little girl
+knew all about the other; till, in one pause for breath, the cripple
+suddenly remembered the baby. Then she caught up her crutches, swung
+herself upon them, and started off in pursuit of him.
+
+Bonny-Gay watched her disappear in the midst of the crowd of children,
+who had all shyly held aloof from herself, saw how they clung about her
+and how some of the tiniest ones held up their faces to be kissed. She
+saw her stoop to tie the ragged shoe of one and button the frock of
+another; saw her pause to listen to the complaint of a sobbing lad and
+smartly box the ears of his tormentor. Then another glimmering of the
+Gray Gentleman’s meaning, when he called these two “sisters,” came into
+Bonny-Gay’s mind.
+
+“She has to take care of the children down here just as I do in our
+park. I suppose we two are the only ones have time to bother, but how
+can she do it! Her face is so pretty--prettier, even, than Nettie’s,
+but I dare not look at the rest of her. I just dare not. Poor little
+girl, how she must ache! Supposing I was that way. My arms stretched
+way down there, and my feet shortened way up here, and my back all
+scrouged up so! Oh! poor, poor Mary Jane! It hurts me just to make
+believe and she has it all the time. But here she comes back and I
+mustn’t let her see I notice her looks. I mustn’t, for anything. It’s
+bad enough to have her body hurt, I mustn’t hurt her feelings, too.”
+
+However, there was no sign of suffering about the little cripple as
+she returned to the side of her guest, dragging the soap-box wagon
+behind her and recklessly rolling the baby about in it, so eager was
+her advance. There were tears in Bonny-Gay’s eyes for a moment, though,
+till she caught sight of the baby and heard Mary Jane exclaim:
+
+“Did you ever see such a sight? What do you s’pose mother will say?
+The teacher set him in the sand-box and somebody gave him a stick of
+’lasses candy, and he’s messed from head to foot. But isn’t he a dear?”
+and dropping to the ground she caught the little one to her breast and
+covered his sandy, bedaubed countenance with adoring kisses.
+
+“He’s the funniest thing I ever saw!” laughed Bonny-Gay, so merrily
+that the Gray Gentleman drew near to join in the fun. After him trailed
+an army of young “farmers” and in another moment the visitor had ceased
+to be a stranger to anybody there.
+
+“Let’s see-saw!” cried Joe Stebbins, seizing her hand and drawing her
+to the playground. Then somebody swung Mary Jane and the baby upon the
+beam beside her, some other girls took the opposite end, and they all
+went tilting up and down, up and down, in the most exciting manner
+possible. Then there was the Maypole, furnished with ropes instead of
+ribbons, from the ends of which they hung and swung, around and around,
+till they dropped off for sheer weariness. And here Bonny-Gay was proud
+to see that Mary Jane could beat the whole company. Her arms were so
+long and so strong, they could cling and outswing all the others; and
+when she had held to her rope until she was the very last one left her
+laughter rang out in a way that was good to hear.
+
+“Seems to me I never heard so much laughing in all my life!” exclaimed
+Bonny-Gay to the Gray Gentleman when, tired out with fun, she nestled
+beside him as he rested on a bench.
+
+“Yes, it’s a fine thing, a fine thing. And you see that it doesn’t take
+big houses or rich clothes to make happiness. All these new friends of
+yours belong to those tiny homes we passed on our way down.”
+
+“They do! Even Mary Jane, my sister?”
+
+“Even in an humbler. Dingy street is just what its name implies. But
+we’ll drive that way back and what do you say to giving Mary Jane a
+ride thus far?”
+
+“Oh! I’d love it! She’s so jolly and friendly and seems never to think
+of her--her poor back and--things.”
+
+“You’ll like her better and better--if you should ever meet again.
+She won my heart the first time I saw her, over a month ago. I met
+her dragging home a basket of her mother’s laundry work, in that same
+soap-box wagon she utilizes for the baby. The family chariot it seems
+to be. I was taking a stroll this way, quite by myself, and thinking of
+other things than where I was walking when I stumbled and my hat flew
+off. Then I heard a rattle and squeak of rusty small wheels, and there
+was Mary Jane hopping up to me on her ‘wooden feet’ and holding out my
+hat, with the most sympathetic smile in the world. ‘Here it is, Mister,
+and I do hope it isn’t hurt; nor you either,’ said she; and in just
+that one glimpse I had of her I saw how sweet and brave and helpful she
+was. So I’ve been proud to call her my friend ever since.”
+
+Just then arose a cry so sudden and boisterous it could have been
+uttered by no lips except the baby’s. For a teacher had tapped a bell,
+and somebody had cried ‘Luncheon!’ and he knew what that meant as well
+as anyone.
+
+So Mary Jane swung round to where he lay upon his back in the sunshine
+and set him up against a rock, and thrust a piece of the loaf she had
+brought into his chubby fists, and cocked her head admiringly while she
+cried out:
+
+“Did anybody ever see so cute a child as he!”
+
+Then she remembered the visitors and with the truest hospitality
+proffered them the broken loaf.
+
+“I ought to have given it to you the first, I know that, but he’d have
+yelled constant if I hadn’t tended him. It’s wonderful, I think, how
+he knows that bell!”
+
+“Wonderful!” echoed the Gray Gentleman, as he bowed and gravely broke a
+tiny portion from the small stale loaf.
+
+Bonny-Gay was going to decline, but when she saw the Gray Gentleman’s
+action, she checked her “No, I thank you” unspoken and also accepted
+a crumbly crust. After which Mary Jane distributed several other bits
+among some clamorous charges and finally sat down with the last morsel
+to enjoy that herself in their presence.
+
+“I think dinner never tastes so good as it does out-doors here, in our
+park,” she remarked with a sigh of satisfaction.
+
+“Dinner!” cried Bonny-Gay and looked into the Gray Gentleman’s face.
+But from something she saw there she was warned to say no more; and
+she made a brave effort to swallow her own crust without letting her
+entertainer see how distasteful a matter it was.
+
+After this the Gray Gentleman saw a cloud arising and though he did not
+fear a shower for himself he was anxious that Bonny-Gay should take no
+harm from her unusual outing. So he called the coachman to bring up
+the carriage and had Mary Jane and the baby lifted in. Then Bonny-Gay
+sprang after them, and the master himself made his adieux to the
+teachers and followed, watched by the admiring, maybe envious, glances
+of many bright eyes.
+
+However, one carriage, no matter how capacious, cannot hold a whole
+kindergarten, and neither could it carry the pleasant “Playgrounds”
+away; so if there was any envy it did not last long. Which was a good
+thing, too, seeing what happened so soon afterward.
+
+The landau had not progressed far toward Dingy street and Mary Jane
+was still wearing the feather-trimmed hat, which her new friend had
+persuaded her to put on just to surprise Mrs. Bump, when there came a
+rush, a bark, a series of shrieks, and the high-spirited horses were
+off at a mad gallop; which grew wilder and wilder, and soon passed
+quite beyond control of coachman or even the Gray Gentleman, who had
+promptly seized the reins as they fell from the driver’s hands, but
+had been powerless to do more than retain them in his tightly clutched
+fingers.
+
+It seemed an age that the frantic beasts sped onward, following their
+own will, before the crash came and they tore themselves free, leaving
+the hindering vehicle to go to ruin against the great post, where
+it struck. But it was, in reality, not more than half a moment, and
+when the reins were wrenched from his grasp the Gray Gentleman looked
+anxiously about him to learn if anyone was hurt.
+
+Mary Jane and the baby were on the floor of the carriage, safe and
+sound. The terrified footman was clinging to his seat behind; the
+coachman had either leaped or been thrown out, but had landed upon his
+feet; but where was Bonny-Gay?
+
+A white, motionless little figure lay face downward in the dust, a rod
+away, and over this bent a black, shaggy dog, whining and moaning in a
+way that was almost human.
+
+“Max! Max! Was it you, was it you! Oh! wretched animal, what have you
+done!”
+
+Max it was. But, at the sight of his silent playmate and the altered
+sound of a familiar voice, a cowed, unhappy Max; who crouched and slunk
+away as the Gray Gentleman lifted from the roadway the limp figure of
+his own beloved Bonny-Gay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MAX REAPPEARS
+
+
+There was neither drug store nor doctor’s office near, and the Gray
+Gentleman’s instant decision was to carry Bonny-Gay to Mrs. Bump’s
+house. Strong man though he was he felt almost faint with anxiety as he
+sprang from the carriage and without losing an instant of time lifted
+out Mary Jane and the baby. Then he dropped her crutches beside her and
+ran to the child in the roadway.
+
+Five minutes later, Bonny-Gay was lying on Mrs. Bump’s bed, and
+the Gray Gentleman had gone away in pursuit of aid, leaving a last
+injunction behind him as he disappeared:
+
+“Do everything you can for her, I beg, but keep useless people out.”
+
+Thus it was that, though curious faces peered in at the window, no
+person save Mrs. Stebbins crossed the threshold of their neighbor’s
+house, and the two women were left unhindered to minister to the
+injured child as best they knew how. They were not able, indeed, to
+restore the little girl to consciousness; but they had cleared the
+soil of the street from her face and clothing and had placed the inert
+figure in an easy posture, long before there was heard the rattle and
+dash of another approaching vehicle, and a doctor’s phaeton drew up at
+the door.
+
+The surgeon’s examination showed that one of the child’s legs was
+broken but this did not trouble him half so much as her continued
+unconsciousness. But he worked diligently to restore her and to prepare
+the injured limb for removal to her own home.
+
+From a low seat in the corner and hugging the baby tight, to keep him
+quiet, Mary Jane watched the little sufferer upon her mother’s bed,
+with wide, dry eyes and heaving breast.
+
+“Oh! if I could only take it for her!” she thought, helplessly. “It
+wouldn’t have mattered to anybody like me, ’cause I’m all crooked
+anyhow; but her! She was that straight and beautiful--my sake! It
+mustn’t be--it mustn’t! And she didn’t mind. She let me wear her hat,
+me. Well, that didn’t get hurt, any way. It just tumbled off all safe.
+I had to wear it home, else I couldn’t have dragged the baby, and I
+don’t know not a thing whatever became of his wagon. Never mind that,
+though. If she only would open her eyes, just once, just once!”
+
+But they had not opened even when, a half-hour later, another carriage
+paused before the Bumps’ tenement, and a tall, pale lady descended,
+trembling so that she had almost to be carried by the Gray Gentleman
+who supported her.
+
+This was Mrs. McClure and she had just been stepping into her own
+vehicle for a morning’s shopping when he reached her door, bringing
+his unhappy message. So there was no time lost in securing a vehicle
+and the mother was soon at her child’s bedside. At any other hour she
+might have shrunk from entering so poor a place but at that moment she
+had, for once, forgotten her own high station and thought only of her
+darling.
+
+One glimpse of the lovely face, so still and unresponsive, banished the
+mother’s last vestige of strength and she would have fallen where she
+stood, had not Mrs. Bump slipped an arm about her and motioned Mrs.
+Stebbins to bring the one sound chair the room could boast. The doctor
+held a glass of water to her lips and the faintness passed.
+
+“Is--she--alive?”
+
+“Yes. She is still alive,” answered the physician, gravely, and Mrs.
+McClure turned faint again.
+
+“Of course, she’s alive, lady; and what’s more it won’t be long, I
+reckon, before she’ll be asking a lot of questions all about what’s
+happened her. Oh! yes indeed. I’ve seen ’em a sight worst than she is,
+and up and around again as lively as crickets. Why, there’s my Mary
+Jane--”
+
+But the cripple held up a warning finger and Mrs. Bump ceased speaking.
+Though not her helpful ministrations; for with a whisk to the stove she
+had seized a coarse brown teapot and poured from it a hot draught into
+a cup that had no handle, indeed, yet could serve as well as another to
+refresh an exhausted creature.
+
+“Here, honey, just sip this. Strong, I know, and not the finest, but
+’twill set you up, quick. I know. There, there.”
+
+Moved by the same instinct which had made Bonny-Gay accept her crust
+dinner, Mrs. McClure drank the scalding liquid and did, indeed, revive
+under it. Then the doctor and the Gray Gentleman lifted the injured
+child and placed her gently upon the carriage seat.
+
+Seeing which, the mother hastily rose and followed, supported still,
+though unnoticed on her part, by the strong arms of the other mother
+whose sympathetic tears were now silently flowing; even while her
+cheery voice reiterated, much to the surgeon’s disgust:
+
+“Never you fear, dear lady. She’ll be as right as a trivet. Aye,
+indeed; she’ll be talking to you before you get to your own house. Yes,
+indeed. We poor folks see many an accident and mostly they don’t amount
+to much; even my Mary Jane--”
+
+But there was Mary Jane herself just as the carriage door was closing,
+thrusting something white and feather-trimmed into the pale lady’s lap.
+
+“Her hat, lady. Bonny-Gay’s best hat!”
+
+Mrs. McClure was as kind hearted as most, yet at that moment she was
+already unstrung, and the glimpse she caught of poor Mary Jane’s
+deformity shocked her afresh. Without intending it she did shrink
+away from contact with so “repulsive” a child and Mrs. Bump saw
+the movement. Her own face hardened and she withdrew her arm from
+supporting the stranger to clasp it about her own child.
+
+But Mary Jane saw nothing, save that Bonny-Gay was being carried away
+without her beautiful headgear, and again she thrust it eagerly forward.
+
+“Her hat! Her lovely hat! She mustn’t go without her Sunday hat!”
+
+It was the sweetest, most sympathetic of voices and almost startling to
+the rich woman, coming as it did from such a source. It made her take
+a second look at the cripple and this time, fortunately, the glance
+rested upon the child’s fine, spiritual face. An instant regret for
+the repugnance she had first felt shot through Mrs. McClure’s mind and
+leaning from the carriage window she dropped the hat upon Mary Jane’s
+dark head.
+
+“Keep it, little girl, as a gift from Bonny-Gay. It will delight her
+that you should have it. Quick now, coachman. Swift and careful!”
+
+Then they were all gone and Mary Jane, bedecked in her unusual finery,
+stood leaning upon her crutches, crying as if her heart would break.
+Her mother glanced at her hastily but thought it best to let “her
+have her cry out. She cries so seldom it ought to do her good,” she
+reflected. Besides, there was the baby rolling on the floor, in
+imminent danger from a wash-boiler full of steaming water; and a whole
+hour wasted from her own exacting labors.
+
+Presently, the hunchback felt something cold and wet touch her
+down-hanging hand and dashed the tears from her eyes to see what it
+might be. There sat a great black dog beside her, so close that he
+almost forced her crutch away. His eyes were fixed upon her face in a
+mute appeal for sympathy, and his whole bearing showed as much sorrow
+as her tears had done. Her first impulse was to shrink away from him,
+even to strike at him with the crutch, as she indignantly exclaimed:
+
+“You’re the very dog did it! You jumped into the wagon and scared the
+horses. If it hadn’t been for you she wouldn’t have been hurt. Go ’way!
+Go away off out of sight! You horrid, ugly, mean old dog!”
+
+Mary Jane’s vehemence surprised even herself and she shook her head so
+vigorously that the feather-trimmed hat fell off into the dust.
+
+Then was a transformation. Max--it was, indeed he!--had already
+dropped flat upon his stomach and crouched thus, whining and moaning
+in a manner that betokened such suffering that it quickly conquered
+the cripple’s anger; and now, as the hat fell right before his nose,
+he began to smell of it and lick it with the most extravagant joy. A
+moment later he had sprung up, caught the hat in his teeth, and was
+gambolling all around and around Mary Jane, as if he were the very
+happiest dog in the world.
+
+“My sake! How you act! And oh--oh--oh! I know you, I know you! You must
+be that Max-dog that she told me about. That she’d known all her life
+and wouldn’t be let come any more to her park! I guess I can see the
+whole thing. I guess you run away from that man the gardener gave you
+to. Maybe you went right back to where ‘Father George’ and the lion
+are; and maybe you saw Bonny-Gay and the Gray Gentleman come away; and
+maybe you followed them. Maybe it was because you were so glad, and not
+bad, that you jumped into the carriage and scared the horses. Oh! you
+poor doggie, if that is how it is!”
+
+Which was, in fact, exactly what had happened; and it seemed that the
+intelligent animal, who had loved Bonny-Gay ever since she was first
+wheeled about the beautiful Place in her baby-carriage, had now a
+comprehension of the damage his delight at finding her again had done.
+
+So Mary Jane hopped back into the house and called Max by that name to
+follow her. He did so, readily, and sat down very near to the foot of
+the bed on which she carefully placed his little mistress’ hat.
+
+“Well, daughter, this has been a morning, hasn’t it? Now, these
+handkerchiefs are ready to iron and I’ve fixed your high seat right
+close to my tub, so whilst I wash you can iron away and tell me the
+whole story and all about it. Here comes father, too, and it’ll pass
+the time for him to hear it. And, oh! William! you never could guess
+whatever has happened right here in this very kitchen, this very
+morning that ever was! But, I must work now, and Mary Jane’ll talk.”
+
+Talk she did and fast; and under her eloquence Bonny-Gay became quite
+the most wonderful child in the world:
+
+“The beautifullest, the kindest, the friendliest that ever lived. It
+didn’t ’pear to make a mite of difference that she was all so fixed up
+in her clothes; she played games as lively as the next one. She hung on
+to the Maypole ropes near as long as I did, and if I’d known what was
+coming I’d have dropped off quick and let her win the count. And my!
+how she did enjoy her dinner off my loaf! To see her little white hands
+hold it up to her lips and see her just nibble, nibble--Why, mother
+Bump! ’Twould have done your heart good!”
+
+“Eat your dinner, did she? Wish to goodness it had choked her!” growled
+William Bump, from the doorstep.
+
+“Why, father! W-h-y!” gasped Mary Jane, amazed.
+
+The man replied only by whistling Max to him, and by stroking the dog’s
+head when the whistle had been obeyed.
+
+But when the cripple had reached that part of her story descriptive of
+the final accident, the father spoke again and this time with even a
+more vindictive earnestness than before.
+
+“Broke her leg, did it? Glad of it. Never was gladder of anything in
+all my life. Hope she’ll suffer a lot. Hope--What better is she, his
+little girl, than you, my Mary Jane? Glad there is something that evens
+matters up. I hope his heart’ll ache till it comes as near breakin’
+as mine--every time I look at your poor crooked shoulders, you poor
+miserable child! So I do!”
+
+Both Mrs. Bump and Mary Jane were aghast at the awfulness of this
+desire. Even the baby had paused open-mouthed and silent, as if he,
+too, could comprehend the dreadful words and be shocked by them. Only
+Max remained undisturbed, even nestled the closer to the blue-shirted
+man, who in some manner reminded him of his old master, Mr. Weems.
+
+Then Mrs. Bump found her voice, and though she was a loyal wife she did
+not hesitate in this emergency to give her husband a very indignant
+reproof. So indignant, in fact, that she forgot the caution of many
+years, and with her hand on William’s shoulder, demanded fiercely:
+
+“You say that, you? You! You dare to rejoice in the misfortunes
+of others when it was by your own fault--your own fault, William
+Bump!--that our poor lass sits yonder a cripple for life. When I
+left her in your care that I might go and intercede for you to be
+given a fresh trial at the works, what was it but that you loved the
+drink better than the child? and left her on the high ledge while you
+slept--a human log! Yet you were sorry enough afterwards and you should
+take shame to yourself for your wickedness. It’s the drink again that’s
+in you, this day; and that has lost you another job and turned your
+once good heart into a cruel beast’s! So that is what I think of you,
+and my--”
+
+Then she turned and there sat Mary Jane, listening, horror-struck and
+broken-hearted!
+
+Regret was useless. The secret, guarded so jealously for years, was now
+disclosed. Till then the hunchback had believed her affliction was hers
+from birth, and had never dreamed that it was the result of a terrible
+fall, due to her own father’s carelessness. He had always seemed to
+love her so, with a sort of remorseful tenderness quite different from
+the attention he gave to his other, healthier children. But if it had
+all been by his fault!
+
+Poor Mary Jane! Alas, alas! Far worse for her was the anger and
+hatred that at that moment sprang to life in her tortured heart. As
+in a picture she saw other little maids, her playmates, even this
+recent vision of Bonny-Gay, straight-limbed, strong, active, enjoying
+everything without aid of those hindering crutches or the heavy
+dragging limbs.
+
+“Oh! father! you did it? you! And I ought to have been like them--I
+ought--I ought!”
+
+Nobody spoke after that. Mary Jane’s head sank down upon the high table
+where stood her little flatiron, fast cooling. Mrs. Bump felt a new and
+deadly faintness seize her own vigorous body and sat weakly down. How
+could she undo the mischief she had wrought? Until now there had been
+between the father and the child such a wonderful affection that it
+had been a matter of constant comment among all the neighbors, and the
+mother had been proud that this was so. Now--what had she done, what
+had she done!
+
+Presently, William Bump rose, put on his hat, whistled to Max, and
+walked out. At the door he paused, cast one miserable glance over the
+little room and his face was very white beneath its stains of toil
+and weather. His eyes seemed mutely to seek for one ray of pity, of
+forgiveness; but Mary Jane’s head was still upon the table and her
+mother’s face was hidden in her own labor-hardened palms.
+
+Only the baby began to coo and gurgle in a way which, under ordinary
+circumstances, would have elicited admiring exclamations, but which now
+secured no response. So, then he rolled over and closed his eyes; and
+not even he saw when the man and the dog passed clear out of sight,
+across the open lots, and toward the marshy places which led to the
+water and the unknown country beyond.
+
+By-and-by, the other children came home from the “Playgrounds,” full of
+chatter about the day’s delights and eager with questions concerning
+the wonderful happening of Mary Jane’s ride. Then the mother roused and
+kept them from troubling their sister, and dispatched them to examine
+the wrecked carriage, away down the street.
+
+By the time they returned Mary Jane’s eyes were no longer red and there
+was nothing out of common in her manner. Mrs. Bump was ironing away
+as if her life depended on it, and even humming the first strains of
+a hymn, “Lord, in the morning, Thou shalt, Thou shalt--Lord, in the
+morning Thou shalt hear.” This always denoted an extra cheerfulness
+on the singer’s part, and the children became boisterously happy in
+proportion.
+
+When supper time came they “set a place for father,” just as always;
+and though even by the end of the meal he had not appeared his unused
+plate was still left, as if he might come in at any moment.
+
+Yet it was quite midnight when Mary Jane, for once unable to sleep,
+crept down to her mother’s room and called, softly:
+
+“Has he come, mother?”
+
+“No dearie, not yet. But it’s not late, you know for--him!” replied
+the wife, so cheerfully, that even her quick-witted daughter did not
+suspect the heartache beneath the cheerfulness, nor the tear-stained
+face upon the pillow.
+
+“When he does, I wish you’d call me. I must tell him it’s--it’s all
+just right.”
+
+“Yes, darling. Trust mother and go to sleep now. I’ll call you sure.”
+
+And neither guessed how long that call would be delayed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+MARY JANE GOES VISITING
+
+
+But Mary Jane Bump was not the girl to be gloomy over anything for
+very long; least of all over anything so trifling as her own personal
+afflictions; and the morning saw her hopping about in her narrow home,
+as merry, as loving, and as helpful as ever. Even more helpful, it
+seemed to the conscience-stricken mother, than before she had felt the
+fierce anger of the previous day.
+
+“Appears like she’d try to make even me forget she ever heard what
+I said, poor lamb! Well, I still think, what I’ve so often thought,
+that the Lord did bring sweet out of that bitter, when He made her so
+beautiful inside, even if she is crooked without. And more’n that, to
+me she don’t seem so misshaped. I almost forget she ain’t just like the
+rest. Aye, honey? What’s that you say?”
+
+“If you can spare me, mother, after all the work is done, I’d like to
+go to Bonny-Gay’s house and find out about her. Oh! do you s’pose she
+will get well?”
+
+“Sure, child.”
+
+“I guess she will, too. Can I, mother? When the work’s all done?”
+
+“Bless you, my lass, and that will never be. So there’s no use tarrying
+for such a time. And I don’t blame you for wanting to go. I’d admire to
+hear myself. But I guess it’s a long step from here and I don’t know
+the way, even I don’t. You’d have to ride in a street car and that
+costs money--which is one of the things I can least spare.”
+
+At mention of the car, Mary Jane’s eyes sparkled.
+
+On rare occasions--once when she went to market with her mother,
+at holiday time, and once when the wash had been too large and the
+patron’s home too distant for even her nimble crutches--she had enjoyed
+the luxury of travel by electricity. In imagination, she could still
+feel the swift rush of air against her cheek, could see the houses
+hurrying past, and hear the delightful ting-a-ling of the bell, as the
+motorman stopped to let the passengers on or off. She had not dreamed
+that it would be necessary for her to ride, in order to pay the visit
+she desired; but if it were--Oh! felicity!
+
+The light in the eyes she loved decided the mother upon the indulgence.
+A car-ride meant a nickel, or part of one, at least, for even little
+Mary Jane; and a nickel would buy a loaf, and many loaves were needful
+where there were seven mouths to fill, and every mouth a hungry one.
+More than that, if William were out of work--
+
+Mrs. Bump considered no further. Mary Jane should have the pleasure--no
+matter what happened afterward.
+
+“Of course, you’ll ride! Why not? Don’t suppose I’d let you start off
+a-foot for such a length, do you? I’ve a notion that this Mt. Vernon
+Place is away at the other end the city. Leastwise, it must be a good
+bit from Dingy street, ’cause I never heard of it before, and I’ve been
+around the neighborhood considerable, with the wash, you know. Yes, you
+may go. Fly round right smart and get your clothes changed. What a fine
+thing it is that your other frock is clean, and I must say I did have
+good luck ironing it, last week.”
+
+“You always do have good luck, mother Bump! You’re the very loveliest
+ironer in the world!” and the wooden feet clicked across the room that
+their owner might hug this famous laundress.
+
+“And you’re a partial little girl, honey.”
+
+“But, mother, dear, the work isn’t done--yet. There’s the steps to be
+scrubbed and that other pile of hank’chiefs, and--”
+
+“Well, I reckon we’ll live just as long if our steps ain’t done for one
+day in the year. Besides, I might let one the younger ones do them and
+see. They’re always teasing to, you know. Strange, how human nature
+loves to mess in a pail of soap and water.”
+
+“Who’ll mind the baby, if I go?”
+
+“I will, Mary Jane Bump! Seem to think the precious youngster ain’t
+hardly safe in his own mother’s hands, do you? Run along, run along,
+girlie, and fix yourself fine.”
+
+Away up the narrow stair swung happy Mary Jane; and in a very few
+moments down she swung again. She had exchanged her blue gingham for
+her pink print, had dusted off the shoes which, alas! were so useless
+that they rarely wore out! and had brushed her dark wavy hair till
+it floated about her sweet face, as fine and fleece-like as it was
+possible for hair to be. In her hands she carried two hats; her own
+little plain “sailor,” and the gift of Bonny-Gay.
+
+“Oh! I wouldn’t wear--” began Mrs. Bump, answering the question in Mary
+Jane’s eyes; then seeing the disappointment which crept into them,
+hastily altered her original judgment to fit the case. “I wouldn’t
+wear that old ‘sailor’ if I was a little girl that owned feathers like
+those. Indeedy, that I wouldn’t.”
+
+Mary Jane’s face rippled with smiles and for almost the first time in
+her life she did a coquettish thing. Standing upon her crutches before
+the tiny looking-glass, hung at an angle above the mantel, she adjusted
+and readjusted the pretty leghorn, until she had placed it as nearly in
+the position it had occupied on Bonny-Gay’s yellow curls as she could.
+Then she wheeled about and asked:
+
+“Does it look right, mother? Just as right as she would like to have
+it, when she sees me?”
+
+“Perfect, honey! And though I maybe oughtn’t to say it before you,
+you’re the very sweetest little girl in Baltimore city!”
+
+“Ah! but, mother Bump, you haven’t seen all the others!” laughed the
+child.
+
+“Now, here’s your money. Two nickels, dear. I’ve just given them a bit
+of a polish in the suds while you were up-stairs. One is to go with,
+and one to come home. I’ve been puzzling it out, and the best thing is
+for you to go to the nearest car-line you find; then ask the conductor
+how nigh it will take you to the Place. He’ll be kind to you, I know.
+They’re always obliging, the conductors are, and when it’s anybody
+like you, why they just seem to tear themselves to pieces to be nice.
+You’ll have no trouble, honey, not a mite. And when you get there,
+don’t forget to make your manners, pretty, like I’ve taught you. Say
+everything to cheer the lady up, if she seems down-hearted a bit, and
+good-by, good-by. Bless you, Mary Jane!”
+
+Mrs. Bump stood at her doorway and Mrs. Stebbins at hers, to watch
+the little figure hop away, and when it turned at the corner and they
+caught a glimpse of the radiant face beneath the picture-hat, they
+smiled upon each other well satisfied.
+
+“No harm’ll happen to her!” said Mrs. Stebbins, confidently. “She’s one
+of the Lord’s own.”
+
+“I’m not fearing! though I’m going to miss her powerful,” answered the
+mother, and retired to her tub.
+
+Mary Jane’s heart beat so with excitement that she could hardly
+breathe. Here she was, going alone on an unknown journey, to ride in
+a car quite by herself, and to pay her own fare exactly as if she
+were a grown-up. She had to tightly clutch that corner of her little
+handkerchief wherein the nickles were tied, to make herself realize the
+delightful fact; and already, in her dutiful heart, she was planning
+how she could save, by not eating quite so much of her portion of food,
+and so, in time, make up to her mother for this unwonted extravagance.
+
+Indeed, she thought so fast and deeply, that she stood on the corner
+and let the first car go by without signalling it. Then she brought her
+wits to the present and when the next one whizzed up she was ready for
+it, raising her hand and motioning it to stop, as she had seen other
+people do.
+
+It did stop, of course, and to such a little passenger, also, of
+course, the conductor was quite as kind as Mrs. Bump had prophesied he
+would be. He lifted Mary Jane into the very front seat of all and he
+would have been glad not to take a fare from her. But this his duty
+compelled him to do, and when he had received it he paused a moment
+beside her to inquire:
+
+“Taking a ride, are you? Well, it’s a nice morning.”
+
+“Isn’t it! Just beautiful. Yes, I’m going to Mt. Vernon Place.”
+
+“Whew! you are? Well, this is the wrong car--Never mind. You can
+transfer. Mt. Vernon Place is a long way from here and quite the
+swellest part of the town; you know that, I suppose.”
+
+“It’s where Bonny-Gay lives.”
+
+“Oh! indeed. Well, don’t you worry. I’ll look out for you and pass you
+along. Company allows only one transfer, now, but I’ll fix it. It’ll be
+all right. Don’t worry.”
+
+Mary Jane had not the slightest intention of worrying. That was
+something she had never done until the night before, and then about
+her missing father. But in this brilliant sunshine, with the world all
+her own, so to speak, even that anxiety had disappeared. He would be
+sure to return and very soon. He loved them all so dearly, and even
+for herself, if there were none others, he would come. He couldn’t
+live without her; he had often told her so. Therefore she merely hoped
+he was having as good a time, at that moment, as she was; and settled
+herself serenely in her place to enjoy everything.
+
+She never forgot the first part of that day’s ride. There were few
+passengers in the car and these were all men, quite able to look out
+for themselves; so the conductor remained near her and talked of the
+places they passed, pointing out this building and that, for Mary
+Jane’s enlightenment. She bestowed upon each an attention that was
+quite flattering to her entertainer, till the car turned another corner
+and he had to move away. People came more frequently now and at every
+block of their advance, the men and women seemed to Mary Jane to crowd
+and hurry more and more. They almost crushed her own small person,
+climbing past her, but she still clung sturdily to the outer corner of
+her seat, as her friend, the conductor, had bidden her.
+
+“No need for you to move up, little girl. You’ll be changing after a
+bit, and it’ll be easier for them than you.”
+
+Right in the very business part of the city the car stopped and he came
+back to her, thrusting a pale green slip of paper into her hand, and
+hurriedly lifting her out.
+
+“That’s your transfer. Yonder’s your car. Give that paper to the
+other conductor. He’ll help you on. Say, Snyder!” he called to his
+co-laborer. “This kid’s for Vernon Place. Put her off at Charles
+street, will you? and pass her along. I’ll make it right with the
+company.”
+
+Then he was gone and Mary Jane stood bewildered in the midst of a
+throng of vehicles, and street cars, and busy, rushing people. For
+an instant her head whirled, then she saw the impatient beckoning of
+conductor Snyder, and swung herself toward the waiting car. A man,
+into whose path she had hopped, caught her up and placed her on the
+platform, and again she was off.
+
+But this time she was merely one of a crowd and the ticket collecting
+kept Mr. Snyder too busy to bother with any single passenger. Indeed,
+some slight hindrance just as they reached Charles street put Mary Jane
+and her destination quite out of mind, and it was not until they had
+gone some blocks beyond and he had chanced to come near her again that
+she ventured to ask:
+
+“Are we almost there?”
+
+“Where’s there?”
+
+“He--he said--Charles street,” she answered abashed by his brusque
+manner.
+
+“Charles street! Why, that’s long back. Did you want to get off there?
+Oh! I forgot. You’re the child--Well, such as you ought not to be
+traveling alone. Here. I’ll put you off now, you can walk back. Ask
+anybody you meet, and they’ll direct you. Wait. I’ll give you another
+transfer. It’s against rules, but the other fellow’s responsible.”
+
+This time it was a yellow slip Mary Jane received and again she was
+set down in the midst of a confusing crowd. She was in imminent
+danger of being run over, and saw that; so promptly retreated to the
+curbstone and from thence watched the unending procession of cars,
+which followed one another without a moment’s break. For just there it
+happened that many railway lines used the same tracks and it would have
+puzzled a much more experienced person than Mary Jane to distinguish
+between them.
+
+Finally, she grew so tired and confused with the watching and the
+racket that she resolved to walk; and set out boldly in the direction
+from which she had come, scanning the street name-signs upon the
+corners. It seemed to her she would never come to that she sought, but
+she did, at last; and here a new difficulty presented.
+
+“Which way shall I go? this--or that? Oh! dear! The time is going so
+fast and I don’t get there. I’ll have to ask somebody the way.”
+
+But though she made several shy little efforts to attract attention,
+not a passer-by paused to answer her low question. Almost all fancied
+her an unfortunate, petitioning alms; and some thought her a street
+merchant with something to sell. Many and many an one had gone by, till
+in the midst of all these men she saw a woman.
+
+Only a scrub-woman, to be sure, on her way to some office to her daily
+labor; but she paused when the cripple spoke to her and looked with
+feminine curiosity at the plainly clothed child in her expensive hat.
+
+“Mt. Vernon Place! Why, child alive, it’s miles from here! Away up
+yonder. This is Charles and it does run straight enough, that’s so, to
+where you want to go. But it’s so far, little girl. And you a cripple.
+You’d much best go back home and let some older person do your errand.
+Whatever was your ma thinkin’ of, to send you such a bout?”
+
+“She didn’t send me, I came because I wished. Can you tell me which car
+is right? and will this yellow ticket pay my way?”
+
+The woman examined the transfer-slip, glanced at a clock on a near-by
+building, and shook her head.
+
+“That’s the car, all right, but that transfer’s no good. After fifteen
+minutes they won’t take ’em, and it’s half an hour or more. No. You’ll
+have to pay a second fare. I’ll help you on, if you like. Where do you
+live?”
+
+“Ninety-seven, Dingy street.”
+
+“The land! That’s almost the jumping off place of the city. Did they
+give you only money enough to ride twice.”
+
+“My mother gave me ten cents,” answered Mary Jane, proudly, yet
+somehow, the fortune which had seemed so big, a little while before,
+now appeared very small and inadequate.
+
+“Pshaw! If I had a cent I’d give it to you. I don’t know what you’d
+better do.”
+
+“I know. I’ll walk. And thank you for telling me the way. If I keep
+right on this street, and go up and up, will I surely, surely get
+there.”
+
+“Sure. I know, ’cause I used to clean up in that neighborhood. I hope
+you’ll have luck. Good-by.”
+
+“Good-by,” answered Mary Jane, smilingly.
+
+The momentary pause and conversation had rested her and she now felt
+wholly equal to any demands upon her strength. If she had merely to
+follow this one avenue till she came in sight of the monument and the
+lion, why! that was as easy as A, B, C! So she set out with fresh
+courage and full enjoyment of every novel sight or sound by the way;
+though, all the while, watchfully reading the street sign at every
+corner she reached.
+
+It was almost two hours later that she came in sight of the Place.
+She knew it in a moment, even though she had had but the one brief
+description of it from Bonny-Gay’s lips, and she felt as if she had
+come into a new and wonderful world.
+
+“How big and still and--and--finished it looks! And, oh! how tired I
+am. My arms ache like they never did before, and I can hardly hold my
+crutches. I’ll get to that low stone round the monument--that’s where
+she sits with the Gray Gentleman--and I’ll get rested. Then I’ll look
+all around and pick out her house. I shall know it because she said it
+was all covered with vines and there was a big yard behind, with trees
+and things. Oh! how good it is to sit down.”
+
+So good, indeed, that before she knew it the exhausted little maid had
+dropped her head upon the curbing and fallen fast asleep.
+
+There Mr. Weems discovered her and would have roused her to send her
+home. But a second glance at her convinced him that this was no child
+of that locality, and that she seemed a very weary little girl, indeed.
+So he simply folded his own jacket and placed it under her head and
+left her to recover herself.
+
+She awoke after a little time and sat up, confused and rather
+frightened. Till she suddenly remembered where she was and, seeing a
+gardener at work upon a grass-plot near, decided at once that he must
+be the owner of Max. She saw, too, the coat which had formed her pillow
+and knew that he must have placed it there. With a glad cry she caught
+up her crutches and swung herself toward the keeper:
+
+“Oh! sir, I thank you. I was so tired and the coat was lovely soft. And
+I know you. You’re Mr. Weems, the gardener, and I’ve seen Max. He’s at
+our house, I mean he was--last night. And he will be again, ’cause he’s
+with father, who’ll fetch him back. Father just loves dogs and animals.
+And say, please, which is Bonny-Gay’s house?”
+
+“Bless my soul! You don’t say? Then you must belong around here, though
+I didn’t think it. You’ve seen Max, and you ask for our Bonny-Gay!
+Well, you’ve struck trouble both times. He’s in trouble enough, but she
+in worse. That’s her home, yonder, on the west corner. The green house
+I call it; with those doctors’ carriages in front of it.”
+
+“It is? Why, how funny. What’s all that straw for?”
+
+The gardener shook his head, sadly, and hastily flicked away at his
+eyes.
+
+“That’s to deaden all the noise. Bonny-Gay is a very, very sick little
+girl and there’s about one chance in a thousand, folks think, for
+her to get well. She was in an accident, yesterday. Got thrown out a
+carriage. The gentleman that took her driving is almost crazy with
+grief about it and--What’s that? What’s that you say? You was with her?
+You? And that’s her hat--Upon my word, it is. She showed it to me, the
+very first day she had it, while she was out here waiting to go driving
+with her folks. And she’s the only one they’ve got. I reckon her poor
+father would give all his millions of dollars and not stop a minute to
+think about it, if he could make her well by doing it. Poor man, I pity
+him!”
+
+“It was Max did it, you know. I’ve come to see her, and you mustn’t
+tell me she’s so sick as that. Why, she was that beautiful to
+me--I--I--”
+
+Waiting not an instant longer, and despite the gardener’s warning, Mary
+Jane clicked across the smooth path, over the street, and up to the
+very front door of the mansion, wherein lay a precious little form,
+incessantly watched by a crowd of nurses and friends.
+
+The outer door was ajar, a footman standing just within, keeping guard
+and ready to answer in a whisper the constant string of inquiries which
+neighbors sent to make. Past him, while he was talking to another,
+slipped Mary Jane, her crutches making no sound upon the thick carpet.
+One thought possessed her, one only; and made her almost unconscious
+of the novel scenes about her. Bonny-Gay was ill. Bonny-Gay might die.
+Well, she would have one more glimpse of that beloved face, no matter
+who tried to stop her.
+
+Her brain worked fast. Sick people were generally up-stairs; up-stairs
+she sped. Sick folks had to be quiet. She paused an instant and peered
+down the dim corridor. She saw that as the people passing along
+this hall approached a distant door they moved even more gently and
+cautiously. In that room, then, lay her darling!
+
+It seemed like the passage of some bird, so swift she was and so
+unerring, for before even the most watchful of the nurses could
+intervene she had entered the darkened chamber and crossed to a white
+cot in the middle of it. By that time it was too late to stop her. Any
+noise, any excitement, however trivial, might prove fatal, the doctors
+thought.
+
+Bonny-Gay lay, shorn of her beautiful curls, almost as white as her
+pillows. But the small head moved restlessly, incessantly, and the
+silence of the night had given place to a delirious, rambling talk. All
+her troubled fancies seemed to be of the last scenes she had witnessed:
+the “Playgrounds,” with the eager children crowding them. She was
+see-sawing with Jimmy O’Brien, and hoeing cabbages with the baby. She
+laughed at some inner picture of his absurd accidents, and finally, as
+some peril menaced him, raised her shoulders slightly and shrieked:
+
+“Mary Jane! Oh! Mary Jane--come quick!”
+
+All the watchers caught their breath--startled, fearful of the worst.
+Yet upon the silence that followed the cry, there rose the sweetest,
+the gladdest of voices:
+
+“Why, yes, Bonny-Gay! I’ve come!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE FLIGHT AND FRIGHT OF MARY JANE
+
+
+Again Mary Jane’s thoughts had been swift. She recalled the fact that
+“when Joe Stebbins had the fever and talked crazy-like, the doctor said
+we must answer just as if ’twas the way he said. ’Twould have made
+him worse to argue him different,” and with this reflection made her
+instant response.
+
+Now Bonny-Gay had either been less ill than they fancied, or the crisis
+had been reached; for at that cheerful reply she opened her blue eyes
+and looked into the eager face so near them. For a brief time she said
+no more, seeming to seek for some explanation of those troubled dreams
+from the steadfast smile of her new friend; then she stretched out her
+hand and Mary Jane caught it rapturously between her own palms.
+
+“You--you look nice in my hat. But I thought--I thought--I was at your
+park. Yet it’s home, isn’t it, after all. How dark it is, and how tired
+I am. I guess I’ll go to sleep a few minutes. Though I’m very pleased
+to see you, Mary Jane.”
+
+Through the hearts of all in the room shot a thrill of thankfulness,
+yet nobody moved as the injured child dropped at once into a quiet
+sleep which meant, the doctors knew, the saving of her life and reason.
+
+Mrs. McClure had kept up bravely, till that moment, but now her
+strength was leaving her in the shock of her sudden relief and joy.
+
+“Tell the girl not to move nor draw her hand away--till Bonny herself
+releases it;” she whispered, as an attendant led her noiselessly out of
+the chamber.
+
+She did not know how long and difficult a task she had set the
+unwelcome visitor; for while she herself sank into a much needed rest
+the sick child still slept that deep, refreshing slumber which was to
+restore her to health.
+
+The hours passed. The doctors went silently away. One nurse took up a
+watchful position near the bed and remained almost as motionless as the
+chair she occupied. A gray-haired man appeared at the doorway, took
+one long, delighted look at the small figure on the cot, barely seeing
+the other child beside it, and went away again. This was the anxious
+father and he moved with the lightness of one from whom an intolerable
+burden has been removed.
+
+Meanwhile, a second nurse took observation now and then of Mary Jane.
+The position into which the cripple had sprung, in her eager clasp of
+Bonny-Gay’s hand, was a trying one. Half-bent forward, with no support
+for any portion of her body save that sidewise seat upon the foot
+of the cot, it was inevitable that muscles should stiffen and limbs
+ache, even in a stronger frame than Mary Jane’s. Besides that, she was
+very hungry, almost faint. Her slight breakfast had been taken very
+early, and since then she had not tasted any food, though it was now
+midafternoon. Presently, she felt her head grow dizzy. Bonny-Gay’s face
+upon the pillow appeared to be strangely contorted and the clasp of
+the small hand within her own to become vise-like and icy in its grip.
+She began to suffer tortures, all over, everywhere. Even her useless
+legs were prickling and “going to sleep,” like any overtaxed limb. She
+feared she would fall forward, in spite of all her will, and that
+might mean--death to Bonny-Gay! She knew, of her own intuition, that
+she must not move, even without the whispered command of Mrs. McClure,
+and in her heart she began to say a little prayer for strength to hold
+herself steady till her task was at an end.
+
+Then, all at once, she felt that the crutches resting against her side
+were being noiselessly lifted away. Somebody, who moved as if on air,
+was putting a rolled up pillow under her own tired chest; another at
+her side--her back; and beneath the heavy feet a great soft cushion
+that was like her own mother’s lap, for restfulness.
+
+She turned her head and looked up into the kind face of the trained
+nurse and smiled her most grateful smile, for she dared not speak.
+The white-capped woman smiled back and silently held forward a plate
+on which was some carefully cut up food. Then she forked a morsel and
+held it to Mary Jane’s lips, which opened and closed upon it with an
+eagerness that was almost greedy, so famished was she.
+
+“How queer it is!” thought the little girl, “that anybody should bother
+that way about just me!” then swallowed another mouthful of the
+delicious chicken. A bit of roll followed the chicken, and after that a
+glass of milk. With every portion so administered, Mary Jane’s fatigue
+and dizziness disappeared till, by the time the nurse had fed her all
+that the plate contained, she felt so rested and refreshed she fancied
+that she could have sat on thus forever, if Bonny-Gay had so needed.
+
+“Oh! how good I feel!”
+
+Bonny-Gay was awake at last, and, of her own accord, withdrew her hand
+from Mary Jane’s clasp.
+
+“Why--why, is that you, Mary Jane? Why doesn’t somebody make it light
+in here? How came you--Oh! I remember. You came to see me and I went to
+sleep. I don’t know what made me do that. Wasn’t very polite, was it?
+Now, I’ll get up and be dressed and then we’ll play something.”
+
+But as she tried to rise she sank back in surprise.
+
+“That’s queer. There’s something the matter with me. One of my legs
+feels--it doesn’t feel at all. Seems as if it was a marble leg, like
+‘Father George’s.’ Whatever ails me?”
+
+Mary Jane’s answer was prompt enough, though the nurses would have
+suppressed it if they had had time.
+
+“I guess it’s broken. That’s all.”
+
+“Broken! My leg? What do you mean?”
+
+“Oh! I forgot. You haven’t been real awake since it happened. Max--”
+
+“Child!” interposed the nurse who had fed her.
+
+“Oh! mustn’t I tell?”
+
+The two white-capped women exchanged glances. After all, their patient
+would have to learn about her own condition; and children had often
+ways of their own which proved wiser than grown folks thought.
+
+“Ye-s, you may tell.”
+
+“You were thrown out the carriage. Don’t you remember? Max had run
+away to find you, and when he did, he didn’t stop to think of anything
+else. He just jumped right into the carriage, where you and the Gray
+Gentleman and the baby and I were all riding splendid. That made the
+horses afraid and they acted bad. You got tumbled out and broke your
+leg. That’s all.”
+
+“That’s--all! Why, Mary Jane! You say it as if--as if--you didn’t care!”
+
+Bonny-Gay began to cry, softly.
+
+“Yes I did say that’s all, because that isn’t much. It’s a good job
+it wasn’t your head. A broken leg gets well quick; quicker’n ever if
+it’s only a little leg like yours. If it was your mother’s now, or
+your father’s, you might worry. But, my sake! I wouldn’t mind a little
+thing like that if I were you. To lie in this heavenly room, with all
+the pictures and pretty things, and folks to wait on you every minute,
+why--I’d think I was the best off little girl in the world if I were
+you.”
+
+“But I can’t walk on it, nobody knows when. Nor go out-doors,
+nor--nor--I think you’re a mean girl, Mary Jane Bump!”
+
+The cripple was too astonished to reply. She had pushed herself from
+her hard position upon the cot’s foot to a chair which the nurse had
+placed for her, and was leaning back in it with supreme content. In
+all her little life she had never sat upon anything so luxurious and
+restful. How could any child mind anything, who was as fortunate as
+the daughter of such a home? Astonishment, also, at finding that her
+new friend was not wholly the “angel” she had hitherto supposed her to
+be, kept her silent. But she was rather glad to find this out. It made
+the other girl seem nearer to her own level of imperfection, and she
+speedily reflected that sick people were often cross, yet didn’t mean
+to be so.
+
+Bonny-Gay herself swiftly repented her hard speech and looking around
+the room, inquired:
+
+“Did I sleep very long?”
+
+“Yes, dear, a long time. We are all so glad of that,” answered the
+nurse, holding a spoon to the patient’s lips, just as she had done to
+Mary Jane’s, who laughed outright exclaiming:
+
+“That was the funniest thing! When I was holding your hand, Bonny-Gay,
+she fed me just that way, too! Me! Mary Jane Bump! Chicken, and biscuit
+and milk! ’Twas prime, I tell you!”
+
+“Fed you? Why?”
+
+“’Cause I was holding your hand and couldn’t feed myself. I s’pose she
+thought, maybe, I was hungry. I was, too.”
+
+“Did you hold it all the time I was asleep, Mary Jane?”
+
+“Yes. Course. You wasn’t to be waked up till you did it yourself.”
+
+A moment’s silence; then said Bonny-Gay:
+
+“I am too ashamed of myself to look at you. What must you think of me,
+Mary Jane?”
+
+“I think I love you, dearly.”
+
+“I don’t see how you can, but I’m glad of it. Where is my mother,
+nurse?”
+
+Mrs. McClure bent over the cot and kissed her daughter, murmuring
+tender words of love and delight; and for a space neither remembered
+Mary Jane.
+
+However, she had just remembered her own mother and the fact that she
+had been long from home. Also, that that home lay at the end of a long,
+strange and distracting journey, for one so ignorant of travel as she,
+and that through the window she could see that it was already twilight.
+She waited a bit, for a chance to bid good-night to Bonny-Gay and to
+say how glad she was that she was better, and to thank the nurse for
+being so kind to herself. But nobody seemed to have any thought for her
+just then.
+
+The gray-haired father had come into the room and bent beside his wife
+over the cot where lay their one darling child; and, seeing the parents
+thus occupied with their own feelings, both nurses had considerately
+turned their backs upon the scene and were busying themselves in
+arranging the chamber for the night’s watch.
+
+“I dare not wait a minute longer! I should be afraid, I think, to get
+in the car alone at night. I was hardly ever out after dark. I’d like
+to make my manners pretty, as mother said, but I can’t wait.”
+
+Moved by the same delicacy which had made the nurses turn their
+backs upon the group at the bedside, Mary Jane silently picked up
+her crutches and hopped away. Finding the way out was easier, even,
+than finding it in. The halls were now all lighted by wonderful lamps
+overhead and the same stately footman stood just within the outer
+entrance.
+
+“However did such a creature as this get in and I not see her?” he
+wondered, as the little hunchback came swiftly toward him. “Well,
+better out than in, that’s sure. No knowing what harm it would do the
+little missy if she caught sight of an object like that!”
+
+Which shows how little the people who live in one house may understand
+of each other’s ideas; and explains the rapidity with which he showed
+Mary Jane through the door and closed it upon her.
+
+After the lighted hallway the outside world seemed darker than ever,
+even though the days were yet long and twilight lingered. But to-night
+the sky was clouded and a storm impending. Already in the west there
+were flashes of lightning, and though, in ordinary, Mary Jane delighted
+in an electric storm, just then it made her think the more longingly of
+home and its security.
+
+“Besides, if I should get my fresh clean dress all wet, that would make
+work for mother. I’m glad I forgot that hat, though. That’ll have to be
+dry, anyway, now; and maybe after all, when Bonny-Gay gets well she may
+want it herself. It was her mother gave it to me, not her. Now which
+way--I guess this. Oh! I know! I’ll find that gardener, Mr. Weems, and
+he’s so nice and kind he’ll show me the way to go. Maybe, after all,
+there is another car goes nearer to Dingy street than that one I took
+first and--There’s a man. It might be him. I’ll run and see.”
+
+But when she had clicked across the path to where the man stood he had
+already begun to move away, and she saw that he was not at all like the
+gardener. So she paused, irresolute, trying to recall by which of the
+several avenues leading from it she had entered the Place.
+
+There were people hurrying homeward in each direction, and a few smart
+equipages were whirling past; but nobody paused to glance at her, save
+with that half-shudder of repugnance to which she was quite accustomed
+when she met strangers, and that had rarely wounded her feelings as it
+did just then and there.
+
+“Well, I can’t help that. And I don’t mind it for myself, not now at
+all, since I know about poor father. He’s the one feels worst for it.
+And that I shall tell him the very minute I see him. So let them look
+and turn away, if they wish. Looks don’t hurt, really, and oh! dear! if
+I only could remember the street I ought to take. Charles, of course. I
+know that and there it is; but whether to go to that side or this--”
+
+In the midst of her perplexity the electric current was turned on and
+the Place was suddenly and noiselessly flooded with a light as of day.
+Courage came back and after another hasty scrutiny of the streets, to
+discover some landmark that she could recall, she saw the monument and
+the lion, and ran toward them as if they had been old friends.
+
+“Bonny-Gay loves them, and so does the Gray Gentleman, and they do look
+as quiet and peaceful as can be. I stopped there, I know, and maybe
+I’ll think it out better there.”
+
+Yet even in that reposeful place Mary Jane could gain no new ideas as
+to her course, nor was anybody near to whom she could apply.
+
+The gardener had long since gone home for the night, and in
+desperation, Mary Jane determined to appeal to the very first person
+who came by. This proved to be a young man, with a cane and eyeglasses;
+and he appeared to be extremely busy. The little girl thought he
+must also be one of the “aristocratics” of whom her father spoke so
+contemptuously, because when she had asked him to “please tell me the
+way to Dingy street?” he had scarcely glanced at her but had haughtily
+replied: “Never heard of such a place.”
+
+“Hmm. Too bad. Father says they don’t any of them know very much, and
+I’m sorry. Don’t know where Dingy street is, indeed! when I know it
+myself, even a little girl like me and have lived there always. I mean
+ever since I was a baby and we left the country. That, mother says,
+was the mistake we made. In the country father didn’t drink and lose
+his work. Well, we’ll go again, some day, when I get big and strong,
+and can help more with the wash. We could earn a lot, mother and me
+together, if I was big.”
+
+She lost herself in her day dreams for a little and awoke from them
+with a start, to find the twilight altered to real night, while the
+electric gleams from the lamps overhead were brighter than ever and
+their shadows more like ink upon the pavement. Mary Jane had never seen
+such brilliancy as this, and again she forgot herself in studying her
+surroundings and enjoying the vivid green of the grass and shrubs.
+
+A certain clump of flowers, glowing in the radiance, attracted her
+especially and she felt that she must put her face down on them, to
+smell them, before she lost sight of them forever.
+
+“For I don’t s’pose I’ll ever come this way again. I couldn’t expect
+it. Mother couldn’t spare the money even if she could me and--even if
+I ever get back to her again!” she concluded, with a frightened sigh.
+But the beautiful blossoms enticed her, and in her own down town park,
+which had been thrown open to whoever of the poor would enjoy them,
+there were few “Keep off” signs and the few quite disregarded. This she
+had explained to Bonny-Gay; and what was true of one park in the city
+should be true of all.
+
+So she hopped nimbly over the velvet lawn to where the flowers gleamed
+scarlet and white and wonderful, and bending above them thrust her face
+deep down into their loveliness. Oh! how sweet they were! and so crisp
+and almost caressing in their touch upon her cheek.
+
+“Dear flowers! I wouldn’t hurt you, you know that, don’t you! I
+wouldn’t break a single one of you, no, not for anything. Seems like
+you’d feel it if your stems were broken, poor things. But I’ll not harm
+you. No, indeedy. Only I wish--I wish I could just take one tiny, tiny
+piece home to mother. But I wouldn’t break you, even for her!”
+
+“Well, I guess you’d better not! What are you doing here? How dare you
+come on this grass? Can’t you read the signs?”
+
+Mary Jane looked up, and was immediately terrified. It was a policeman
+who held her arm, and all the wild stories she had heard of arrests and
+imprisonment flashed into her mind.
+
+In Dingy street there was, also, a policeman; but a friendly soul whom
+all the children loved, and whose own home was close to theirs. It was
+he who had saved many a baby’s life, from careless passing vehicles,
+when busy mothers had not the time to watch them as they should; and
+his blue uniform represented to Mary Jane’s mind an all-powerful
+guardian, to whom appeal was never made in vain.
+
+But this six-foot officer, with his glitter and dignity, his harsh
+voice and vise-like clutch--this was the majesty of law outraged.
+
+“Oh! what have I done! I didn’t mean it--I didn’t--” gasped the
+frightened child, and wrenching herself loose swung away upon her
+crutches, faster even than the officer could have pursued her, even if
+he had been so minded.
+
+He did not even attempt to follow her, but watched her flight, with a
+chuckle of amusement.
+
+“Scared her well, that time, the little vagrant. Well, it’s right a
+lesson was given ’em. If every child who wanted to smell the bushes was
+let, what would our parks look like!”
+
+“Like bits of Paradise, as they should;” answered a voice behind him,
+so suddenly that the policeman wheeled about to find himself face to
+face with a resident of the Place himself.
+
+As for Mary Jane she neither saw whither she fled nor scarcely breathed
+before she had collided with a swiftly advancing figure, and found both
+herself and it thrown down. Captured after all! Her eyes closed with
+a snap, as there seemed to rise before them the vision of a station
+house, filled with frowning policemen, and herself in the midst, a
+helpless prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ON THE WAY HOME
+
+
+“Well, upon my word!”
+
+Mary Jane opened her eyes. Then she rubbed them to see more clearly.
+Indeed, she rubbed them twice before she made out her mistake and was
+able to say:
+
+“Oh! I am so sorry! I--I didn’t mean--but I can’t be arrested! I
+can’t--my mother--I--.”
+
+She scrambled up somehow, picked her crutches from the ground and set
+off again. She dared not look behind her but was quite sure that the
+hard-faced policeman was in full pursuit. Off she was, indeed, only to
+be brought to a sudden stop, while a shiver of fear ran through her.
+But she made no further outcry and rested quietly upon her wooden feet,
+to hear her doom.
+
+“Why, you poor little girl! You look scared. You haven’t done any harm,
+not a bit. In fact, you’ve saved me quite a chase. I’m not so swift as
+you are, hard as I tried to catch you.”
+
+Mary Jane shivered and still said nothing, nor could she lift her eyes
+from the ground. Their gaze rested idly upon the man’s feet and she
+fancied that the gloss upon his shoes equalled the radiance of the
+electric light.
+
+“And now that I have caught you, I want to thank you, with all my
+heart, for your kindness to my precious child. I believe the good Lord
+sent you, just in the nick of time, with your ready answer and your
+readier sympathy. Yet to think that, after all this, you should run
+away, at night and alone. You poor, brave little child.”
+
+Then she heard, through her puzzled understanding, another voice
+speaking in jesting surprise.
+
+“Turn your back on an old friend, would you, Miss Bump! Well, we will
+have to see about that, indeed!”
+
+Those were tones to banish fear! and now, in truth, Mary Jane’s eyes
+were raised and she saw standing there and smiling down upon her none
+other than the Gray Gentleman.
+
+The revulsion of feeling was too much for her self-control, and
+dropping her face against his hand she began to cry, with all the
+abandon of those who seldom weep.
+
+“Why, little girl! What is it? Were you so badly frightened as all
+that? There, there. You’re with friends now, child, who love you and
+will take care of you.”
+
+With that she felt herself lifted in the Gray Gentleman’s arms, and
+her head forced gently down upon his shoulder, while her crutches fell
+noisily to the stones. However, they were promptly picked up again by
+the other gentleman, who was also gray--as to hair and beard--and who
+made almost as much noise as the crutches, because he kept blowing
+his nose so vigorously. Then she heard him softly slap her own Gray
+Gentleman’s free shoulder and exclaim, in a husky voice:
+
+“It’s all right, neighbor! The Lord has been good to us. Bonny-Gay
+is almost herself again and was laughing--actually laughing--to see
+me, her dignified daddy, run out of her room to try a race with Miss
+Mary Jane here. Oh! it’s too good to be true!” and again there was a
+tremendous flourish of handkerchief, and a sound like a small fog horn.
+
+“Thank God!” murmured the Gray Gentleman, and Mary Jane felt him
+tremble. Instinctively she raised her head to comfort him and touched
+his thin cheek timidly with her lips.
+
+But there was no timidity in the kiss he returned her as he set her
+upon the ground, and with all his usual cheerfulness, demanded:
+
+“Well, little traveler, how do you propose to get home again?”
+
+“I don’t know!” The tone was a happy one and seemed to mean: “And I
+don’t care! You are to find the way for me!”
+
+“You don’t, eh? But I’m thinking that good mother of yours will be
+hungry for a sight of your face, and it’s time we remembered her.
+Mothers are queer bodies. They like to have their youngsters around
+them, be they never so bothersome. Yet, since she’s waited so long,
+I think it will do no harm for her to wait a while longer. I’d like
+to have you pay me a little visit, as well as Bonny-Gay, and I’ll
+invite you to my house to take supper with a lonely old fellow who’ll
+entertain you as well as he can.”
+
+It was hard to refuse, she would so much have liked to see the home of
+her friend, of the friend of all the children whom she knew. But the
+vision of her mother, waiting and anxious, was too much for her loyal
+heart, so she declined as prettily as she knew how, only requesting:
+
+“Now, please, you are to tell me the quickest way home to Dingy street
+and I’ll go. You must know it, for you’ve been there so often.”
+
+“Yes, I know it, and I’ll take you at once. I’ll do more. I’ll invite
+myself to supper with you after I get there, since you can’t stop with
+me.”
+
+“Very well,” said Mary Jane, though not with much enthusiasm. She was
+afraid he would think her mother’s supper a poor one. However, he was
+quite welcome to what they had, and she added more cordially: “I know
+mother’d think it an honor, only I’d have to stop at the baker’s on the
+way.”
+
+She didn’t quite understand why both gentlemen laughed so heartily.
+They now seemed in a mood, each one of them, to laugh at any and
+everything which happened, and Bonny-Gay’s father teased the other
+a little about his great appetite, which required the contents of a
+bake-shop to satisfy. Then he added, with a manner that admitted of no
+denial:
+
+“But you’ll have to defer your visit, neighbor, till another time. I
+claim the privilege of conveying this young lady to her destination,
+and my man has already summoned a cab. Here it comes, now; for I’d
+rather trust a city cabby to find out odd places than my own coachman.”
+
+Here came the cab, indeed, and from the vine-clad mansion on the corner
+also came a liveried servant bearing a big basket tightly covered.
+
+“With the mistress’ compliments, and Miss Bonny-Gay is sending this to
+the baby.”
+
+“Good enough!” answered the happy father, and took Mary Jane from
+the Gray Gentleman’s arms; who handed her crutches in after her, and
+himself closed the door of the cab with a cheerful snap.
+
+“Some other time, then, Mary Jane, I’ll expect a visit from you. My
+regards to your mother and I will be down your way before long.
+Good-by.”
+
+Mary Jane’s head whirled with the strangeness of it all. What a day
+it had been! And how simple and kind was this gray-haired father, who
+didn’t look half so strong as her own absent one, but who talked so
+fast and asked so many questions that, before she at all realized what
+she was doing, the cripple had given him their whole family history.
+Save and excepting, of course, anything which related to her own
+affliction and its cause, or any possible fault of her beloved father.
+
+“He works--I mean, he did work--for the B. & B. railroad folks.
+He--he--isn’t working just now. He went away, for a little while, but
+I guess he’s back again. Won’t he be surprised to hear all that’s
+happened to me? He’ll be glad, after all, that she didn’t--Oh! my sake!
+what am I saying!”
+
+At mention of the Company, the gentleman beside her had given a little
+start of surprise, but Mary Jane fancied that the jolting of the cab
+had moved him. She expressed her regret for the accident and added:
+
+“But I like it. I never rode in a carriage but once before. That was
+yesterday when Bonny-Gay was hurt. But she’ll soon be well, now, I
+think. Don’t you?”
+
+“So I trust. So I trust and believe. But, tell me a little further of
+your father. What sort of work did he do? I happen to know something
+about that company and am interested in the details of all its
+concerns.”
+
+“Sometimes he was helping along the tracks; straightening them,
+changing the ties, and such things. Sometimes he was over at the great
+sheds they’re building--monstrous ones, they are, almost all of steel.
+You ought just to see them by daylight. Though I guess I can show them
+to you even to-night, ’cause they’re not so very far from our house.”
+
+“Indeed! Did you say what street it was? I heard my neighbor give some
+directions to the driver for us, but paid little attention.”
+
+“Dingy street, number 97.”
+
+“Dingy street! You don’t say! Why, I know that locality well. Very
+well, indeed. A great many of--of the Company’s employees live around
+there.”
+
+“Most all of them do, I guess.”
+
+“So your father’s out of work, just now?”
+
+“Yes. But he’ll soon be ‘on’ again, I think. When he does work he gets
+real good wages. That is, if he isn’t ‘docked.’ I reckon the Company is
+pretty strict. My mother says they don’t allow for anything. A man must
+do his task or leave it, and that’s the end.”
+
+“But that is quite right and just, is it not?”
+
+“I--suppose--it is. Though poor men can’t always--I mean, they get
+discouraged sometimes. That makes them do and say things they wouldn’t
+else. It’s queer and unjust, my father says, for the Company to have so
+much money and their men so little. That’s what made him glad--I mean
+not so sorry--when--when--things happen.”
+
+Mary Jane paused, confused. Twice she had nearly told this other father
+that her own father had been glad when Bonny-Gay had been hurt. She
+knew William Bump would not have said anything so cruel if he had not
+been drinking; she was sure of that, for he was generally so kind of
+heart. But even yet she did not imagine that her companion was himself
+the president and head of that Company whose wages her father gladly
+accepted even when he talked against it most fiercely.
+
+However, Mr. McClure greatly enjoyed listening to this frank story
+of the underworkings of his vast enterprises. He was not only a very
+wealthy and powerful man, he was also a wise and just one. He felt the
+responsibilities of his position, and made it his business to know all
+employees by name and character, so far as that was possible. Over this
+particular portion of his affairs, right in his own city, he had an
+almost daily supervision, and he knew William Bump, in some respects,
+much better than this loyal little daughter did. His opinion of the
+father was very poor, and he had himself given orders, on the previous
+day, that the said William was never again to be taken on by his
+managers, “not in any capacity whatsoever.”
+
+For some distance the gentleman made no response to Mary Jane’s last
+remark, and the silence was broken only by the roll of their own
+wheels, the ordinary sounds of the streets through which they passed,
+and the increasing rumble of the thunder. The storm was drawing nearer
+and he wished to escape it, if possible. He signalled the driver, after
+a while, and seeming to rouse himself from some deep thought, to: “Make
+haste!”
+
+The cabman lashed his horses into a gallop, and remembering the
+accident of her one other ride, Mary Jane began to grow afraid. She was
+afraid now, also, of this silent gentleman beside her and longed for
+her journey to end. To pass the time she tried to count the lamps on
+the street corners as they flew past her in the gloom, and to watch for
+the illuminating flashes of lightning, which came faster and faster.
+
+Suddenly, into this silence, Mr. McClure hurled a stern question, that
+compelled a truthful reply, whether she liked to give it or no.
+
+“Mary Jane, of what was your father glad when that accident occurred?”
+
+She caught her breath in alarm; then answered, frankly:
+
+“He was glad because--because Bonny-Gay was hurt.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Oh! I don’t know. I mean--I guess he was so sorry about me--being like
+I am--and he thought it wasn’t fair. She was as beautiful and perfect
+as I was--was ugly; and her father had all the money and he had none.
+But it wasn’t right and it wasn’t him. Indeed, indeed, it wasn’t. He
+didn’t know you, of course, and he didn’t dream that you could love
+her same as he loves me. But he’d be the first--the very first--to be
+sorry, after he came to himself.”
+
+“Hmm. No man, rich or poor, has a right ever to be other than himself.”
+
+“I suppose not. But things haven’t gone right with father since we came
+from the country.”
+
+“Humph!” was the contemptuous comment, and the little girl said no more.
+
+Oh! if they would only ever get to 97 Dingy street! Twice, now, she had
+been allowed the luxury of a carriage ride and each time how wretched
+she had been. At first she had liked Bonny-Gay’s father almost as much
+as she had the Gray Gentleman, when she first knew that good friend.
+She had chattered away to him almost as freely; yet after awhile he had
+allowed her to keep up the chatter rather for his own information than
+because he had seemed interested in her affairs. He was now become so
+stern and indifferent that she realized she had deeply offended him.
+To her relief, the cab turned sharply around the next corner and there
+she was, at last, in dear, familiar Dingy street, with its tiny houses
+that were yet homes; in one of which was mother Bump, her four sisters,
+and the wonderful baby! Possibly, also, her father; though of him she
+thought less, just then, than of the motherly face which was, to her,
+the comeliest in all the world.
+
+The cab stopped with a jerk. The cabman leaped down and opened the
+door. Then he lifted out the covered basket, and afterward swung Mary
+Jane to the ground and supported her till the gentleman who remained
+inside the vehicle handed out her crutches.
+
+The house door flew open, also, at the sound of wheels, and Mrs. Bump
+peered out into the night.
+
+“What is it?” she called, her voice trembling with anxiety. That a
+carriage should stop before her humble home foreboded harm to some of
+her loved ones, and her first thought was of her crippled daughter.
+
+“Here am I, Mother! Home at last;” answered that daughter’s voice,
+cheerily.
+
+Then she turned to thank Mr. McClure for his kindness to her, but he
+did not hear her, apparently. The cab was already being whirled around,
+and the driver lashing his horses. A brilliant gleam of lightning,
+followed instantly by a terrific clap of thunder, startled them into a
+thought of shelter only. Mrs. Bump saw through the cab window that the
+gentleman raised his hat, then she seized the basket from the ground,
+and hurried Mary Jane indoors, just as the first great drops of a heavy
+shower came dashing down.
+
+“Oh! mother Bump! I never saw such a lovely place as this dear old
+home! How glad I am to be here. Has father come yet?”
+
+“Not yet, dearie. But he will soon, no doubt.”
+
+“I hope he isn’t anywhere out in this storm; poor father.”
+
+“Bless you, child! The man has sense, hasn’t he? Even dumb creatures
+know enough to go in when it rains. But tell me fast, darling, all
+that’s happened to you since you went away. My heart! this has been the
+longest day I ever knew! have you had anything to eat? What made you
+so late? How came you to be riding home in such grand style? and where
+got you this basket?”
+
+“It’s the baby’s, mother. Bonny-Gay sent it to him;” cried the happy
+girl, running to seize that crowing infant from his trundle-bed and to
+cover his face with kisses. Then she dropped her crutches and herself
+upon the floor, drew the baby to her lap, and from that lowly position
+began a swift, but rather mixed history of events since she had said
+good-by and hopped away in the morning.
+
+The mother listened, losing never a word, and deftly simplifying
+matters now and then by a leading question, while at the same time she
+explored the big basket. It had evidently been filled in haste, and by
+the direction of Bonny-Gay, herself.
+
+“This is for the _baby_, is it?” laughingly demanded Mrs. Bump, lifting
+out a great loaf of rich cake, carefully wrapped in waxed paper. “Fine
+food for a year-old, that is. And this? and this? My heart, but whoever
+filled this basket had a generous streak!”
+
+A fine roasted chicken, mate to that of which Mary Jane had already
+partaken, it might be, followed the cake. Then came a picture-book,
+a jumble of toys, a box of candy, and an odd mixture of the things
+nearest at hand, and of which the sick child could think.
+
+But crowning all these gifts, and the only one packed with any attempt
+at care, was the beautiful leghorn hat, with its nodding ostrich plumes
+and its general air of elegance.
+
+“The darling, the darling! She did mean me to keep it, then!” cried
+Mary Jane, so delightedly that the baby immediately pat-a-caked with
+noisy vigor.
+
+Of course, even though they had long since enjoyed their ordinary
+supper, the watchful children were not to be put off without at least
+a taste of the baby’s good things; so the mother cut and divided with
+exact equality; and after a feast so hilarious that it brought Joe
+Stebbins in from next door to see what was the matter, everybody was
+sent to bed; even the tired Mary Jane, whose heart seemed brim full of
+both joy and anxiety.
+
+She had explained to her mother how she had chattered to Mr. McClure,
+hiding nothing, even her unwise statement of William Bump’s animosity
+toward the other, happier father.
+
+Mrs. Bump had listened quietly, and she had pooh-poohed the little
+girl’s regrets! but her heart sank. Mr. McClure was the name of the
+head of the Company. She knew that, though Mary Jane did not; and
+she realized that her husband’s last chance of reinstatement in the
+Company’s employ had been ruined by the very one who would have
+sacrificed her very self to do him good.
+
+“Poor little daughter! But she must never know. Never. It would break
+her loving heart! And it matters little now whether William comes home
+or not!” sighed the troubled wife and mother, as she laid her own weary
+head on her pillow for the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CONFIDENCES
+
+
+“Oh! I am so tired! If I could only just get up once!” sighed Bonny-Gay.
+
+“Sick folks always have to stay in bed. How’d they look, sitting up,
+I’d like to know?” answered Mary Jane.
+
+“But I’m not sick. I’m not sick one bit. I’m just as well as--as that
+parrot, yonder.”
+
+“Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth!” shrieked Polly.
+
+Mary Jane laid down the thirteenth doll and clapped her hands to her
+sides. “That bird is the absurdest thing. He makes me laugh till I
+ache.”
+
+“That’s a story, that’s a story!” corrected Poll.
+
+“No, it isn’t! No, it isn’t! No, it isn’t!” mocked Mary Jane, gaily.
+
+Bonny-Gay laughed, too, and cried out:
+
+“Mary Jane, you’re the very nicest girl I know!”
+
+“Thank you. That’s a dear thing for you to say. But you’re partial,
+like mother. Besides, there isn’t any other girl here, just now.”
+
+“But I mean it. There isn’t another girl in the world would come here
+and be shut up in the house, day after day, just to amuse me, ’cause my
+leg’s broken, except you.”
+
+“Yes, there is,” said Mary Jane, confidently.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“You!”
+
+“Oh! you funny child!”
+
+“Wouldn’t you? If you and I were each other--I mean changed places and
+I was the sick one, wouldn’t you?”
+
+“Maybe. I don’t know. I never did like indoors and would never stay in
+if I could help it. Do you s’pose it will be very long now?”
+
+“No, I guess not. Not if you’re good and lie still. Wait. I’ll bring
+all the playthings around to that other side the bed and that will rest
+you. You’ve been looking out this way a good while now.”
+
+So Mary Jane industriously hopped around and transported the thirteen
+dolls, the bird cages, and the parrot stand to a new position, and
+leaning on her crutches gently helped the sick child to turn about as
+far as she was permitted to do. A trained nurse was still always in the
+room, and Mrs. McClure herself passed in and out very frequently; but
+it was Mary Jane who did most for her friend; Bonny-Gay declaring that,
+“Next to Mamma” there was nobody who understood her whims and desires
+without being told them, as the little cripple did.
+
+“That’s because we’re just an age, I guess. Queer, wasn’t it? That you,
+up in this big house, and me down in my dear little one, should both
+be sent to our folks the very same day that ever was? ‘Sunday bairns’
+should be the best ones in the world, my mother says. Only, I wasn’t in
+my Dingy street house when I came. I was in the country;” and for some
+unexplained reason Mary Jane’s sunny face clouded suddenly.
+
+For weeks now, and because Bonny-Gay had “taken such an extreme fancy
+to her”--as Mrs. McClure had herself explained to Mrs. Bump, when she
+herself went to ask the favor of Mary Jane’s attendance in the sick
+room--the helpful child had spent the greater portion of each day
+there. It had become quite a matter of habit in Dingy street that a
+carriage should roll up to the door of 97 and that Mary Jane should
+go away in it; to be returned at six o’clock precisely, of the same
+afternoon. Dingy street felt itself proud of this state of things, and
+every householder held her head a bit higher because of it. Who’d ever
+have dreamed that their own small hunchback would get to be “carriage
+folks?” Well, there was no telling when such glory might not fall to
+their own lot, and she’d do them all credit wherever she went, she had
+such pretty, loving ways with her. That she had.
+
+Now, it was sometimes an inconvenience to the McClure household that
+this trip must be made twice a day; and that very morning Mrs. McClure
+entered the chamber to speak with Mary Jane about it. She had now
+overcome her first repugnance at sight of the deformed little body and
+saw only the sweet face and helpfulness. She had, also, offered Mrs.
+Bump some compensation for her daughter’s “services; just the same as
+any other nurse’s;” but the poorer mother gently declined.
+
+“If the dear Lord has given her a chance to do something for your girl,
+whom she so loves, I guess He means it as a sort of compensation to her
+for her own afflictions. No, indeed, Mrs. McClure, I wouldn’t like to
+taint the sympathy between those two by any thought of money.”
+
+To this there could be no answer, and so the matter rested.
+
+“Mary Jane, we begin to feel almost as if you belonged with us, you
+have been so kind and good to Bonny-Gay; and what do you say to staying
+up here at night, now? At least for a few nights together, with then
+one at home?” asked the lady, as she sat down beside the cot and
+watched the undressing of the china seventh doll, preparatory to its
+bath.
+
+Mary Jane looked up quickly, with a sort of fear coming into her
+telltale face.
+
+“Oh! I shouldn’t like that. I mean--of course, you’re very kind--but
+I’d have to go home. I would, indeed.”
+
+“It’s not kindness on my part, especially. I thought it might save
+trouble to both sides; but, never mind. We’ll go on as usual, for the
+present; though I wish you would speak to your mother about it, when
+you see her, this evening. Now, Bonny-Gay, I have to go out. Is there
+anything you fancy, that I can bring you? I shall be at market and do
+some shopping. Think and see, darling.”
+
+Bonny-Gay’s eyes had rested searchingly upon Mary Jane’s face. She
+would have been delighted herself if her playmate could have remained
+all the time in the Place, but she saw the sudden fear and was puzzled
+by it. Yet she did not urge the matter, and the only request she made
+of her indulgent mother was:
+
+“Just bring something new for the baby.”
+
+Again Mary Jane’s face was troubled and she exclaimed:
+
+“Please, Bonny-Gay don’t! He has too many things already, that you have
+sent him. I’d rather not, please.”
+
+“Very well,” said Mrs. McClure, as she kissed her little girl and went
+away. But she was considerably annoyed. She felt that she did not
+exactly “know how to deal with that class of people,” to which Mary
+Jane belonged. She wished that Bonny-Gay had not taken this absurd
+fancy of hers. She wished that the Gray Gentleman had never done that
+unwise thing of carrying her daughter into the region and knowledge of
+Dingy street. It was all very well for him to devote his time still,
+as he had all his life and fortune, toward making the lives of poor
+children brighter. Everybody must have a hobby, and that was his, she
+supposed. Of course, he was a noble man, and his name was known far
+and wide as that of a philanthropist. Still--Hmm. It would soon end,
+anyway. Bonny-Gay was improving rapidly, and was so perfectly healthy
+that there was nothing to fear. And if she needed her own carriage that
+evening, and Mary Jane remained still obstinate, she must be sent home
+in a cab. That was all.
+
+With these thoughts she departed, but she had in some way left an
+altered atmosphere behind her. Her difficulty in understanding “that
+class of people” arose from the simple fact that she had, as yet, no
+real sympathy with them. It seemed to her that they were altogether
+different from herself; that they were duller, less capable of any true
+nobility. But she was, in reality, kind and good at heart, with many
+social cares to tax her nerves, and she was one day to have her present
+ignorance enlightened.
+
+In the silence that followed her exit, Bonny-Gay’s hand stole softly
+out and touched Mary Jane’s cheek, down which a tear was rolling. And
+in the child’s touch was that perfect sympathy which the mother’s tone
+had lacked.
+
+“Don’t cry, Mary Jane. He’ll come back.”
+
+Mary Jane’s head lifted instantly and her face brightened.
+
+“How’d you know ’twas that I was thinking about?”
+
+“Oh! I knew. After a minute. Not just at first. Mother didn’t
+understand. I don’t s’pose she’s heard yet that he was gone. Move up
+nearer. Fix yourself comf’table. Let’s talk, instead of play dolls,
+now.”
+
+Mary Jane pushed her low chair to the side of the cot, so close now
+that she could rest her head against Bonny-Gay’s own pillow.
+
+“Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth!” admonished Polly,
+and in their laughter at his opportune command they failed to hear
+that somebody had entered the room and sat down quite near them. This
+was Bonny-Gay’s father, and he liked sometimes to surprise her by an
+unexpected visit of this sort, as well as to listen to the innocent
+chatter of this pair of “Sunday bairns.”
+
+“How long is it, Mary Jane?”
+
+“It was the very day you were hurt. Two whole weeks.”
+
+“Well. That’s all right. Max is with him, isn’t he?”
+
+“I don’t know. He went away with him. They both felt bad, I guess. That
+made them like to be together. Father’s powerful fond of dogs, any way.”
+
+“And of the country, you said, too. I s’pose he’s in the country
+somewheres.”
+
+“But where! I do want to see him so much. There is something I must
+tell him. Something he thinks is wrong, something that made him feel
+bad but should not. Something--Oh! I’ve seen all through things so
+clear, since he went. Every time he saw me I s’pose he was reminded
+that--My sake! What am I saying. But I’m so sorry about your mother not
+liking to send for me. I must have bothered her no end. I wouldn’t have
+come only--”
+
+“You wouldn’t have come? Why, it was I who wanted you, who must have
+you. Don’t you know, you are my ‘twin sister?’ It’s all right. Mother
+would give me anything to have me pleased. Don’t think a thing about
+that. Let’s talk about the rest. Say, Mary Jane, say!” Excitedly.
+
+“There you are. Off you go! Have a care!” warned Polly.
+
+“Oh! keep still, you bird. Listen, Mary Jane. You know I’m going to the
+country, don’t you? We all are, just as soon as I get well.”
+
+“Yes. I think it will be just lovely for you.”
+
+“For you, too, you go with me and--find him!” almost shouted Bonny-Gay.
+
+“Oh! you darling! Might I?”
+
+“Course. Why shouldn’t you? My father owns a lot of country. Ever and
+ever so much. He has so much he says it’s a sin and shame it isn’t
+doing anybody any good. But he’s too busy to tend to it himself and he
+can’t trust many folks. They would waste his money, dreadful. There’s
+our big house and park, and all the gardens and things; and then there
+are fields and fields and fields. Miles of them, I guess. Just as like
+as not he’s gone around there some place. Just supposing! If he has,
+why, pooh! You could find him in a minute. Oh! you must go with me and
+look. It won’t be so long, maybe. If this old leg would only get itself
+well. I love the country. It’s all out-doors there.”
+
+Mary Jane said nothing, but her face was rapturous with anticipation.
+Finally, Bonny-Gay announced:
+
+“I guess that’s all settled, then. There’s nothing to do about it only
+ask our folks. Let’s make believe things. Let’s pretend we had all the
+money in the world and could do just what we wanted to with it; what
+would you do, first?”
+
+“Why, I wouldn’t dare think. ’Cause it couldn’t ever come true, you
+know.”
+
+“Supposing it couldn’t? The things that don’t come true are the
+sweetest things there are, I think. You begin.”
+
+Mary Jane drew a deep breath. Under the inspiration of this other more
+imaginative child, she was fast forgetting the hard, dry facts of life;
+and whether this were best or no, it was, at least, delightful.
+
+“Well, I’d go to your father and I’d pay him money, and I’d get all
+those miles and miles of country to do with exactly as I pleased. Then
+I’d take some more of the money and I’d get the men that build houses
+to make a house, right in the very prettiest spot there ever was. Where
+there was water if I could, ’cause my father, he’s so fond of fishing.
+He’s quit work, lots of times, to go fishing down the bay. I’d buy him
+a fish-pole and lines and hooks. I’d buy him and mother a cow and a
+horse and a market-wagon. They had a market-wagon once, but a man came
+along and told him he could make more money in the city; and he sold
+their things and lost the little farm and came. He’d be all right if he
+was back in that country, I guess. I’d like to see it, myself.”
+
+The eager speaker stopped short. Again she had almost revealed what
+no loyal daughter should,--a parent’s fault. But Bonny-Gay was so
+interested, she seemed so to know beforehand what was in a body’s mind
+that words slipped out of themselves.
+
+“Have a care. Tell the truth!” adjured Polly.
+
+“Of course I will,” answered the cripple. “Now, Bonny-Gay, it’s your
+turn. What would you do if you had all the money and could?”
+
+The unseen father leaned forward a little. He was profoundly interested
+in any possible desires his darling might express, and, for the matter
+of that, she rarely did ask for anything. Maybe, because almost all
+desirable things came to her without the asking.
+
+“I hardly know. Yes, I do, too. I’d buy all the parks in this city and
+in every other one. I’d hunt up all the little children in the cities.
+I’d make free ‘Playgrounds’ for them, every one. Even the little girls
+should have their little cunning ‘farms,’ just the same. I guess they’d
+want to plant flowers, though, wouldn’t they? instead of cabbages
+and limas. Then I’d take all the grown-ups who wanted to go into the
+country and couldn’t, and I’d send them. And I’d let them stay a whole
+week, I guess. If I could. If there was room enough. And when Christmas
+came I’d have everybody that was poor come to my house, just like the
+Gray Gentleman does to the halls he hires, and I’d make them as happy
+as--I am. I wouldn’t let anybody in the whole wide world be sick nor
+sorry; I wouldn’t let anybody hurt nice dogs or turn them out of their
+own parks; and--Oh! Mary Jane, do you s’pose we’ll ever see dear old
+Max again?”
+
+“Why, Bonny-Gay? Didn’t you just make me feel ’t he was right with
+father? Course, then, when father comes he’ll come; and if you aren’t
+well by that time I’ll coax father to lead him up here to see you. If
+he’ll be coaxed;” she added gravely.
+
+The child on the cot glanced through the window. “There goes the Gray
+Gentleman, to see ‘Father George’ and the lion. I wish he’d come to
+see me; but he’s afraid my mother blames him for taking me that day, I
+think, though nobody ever said so.”
+
+“I’ll go ask him!”
+
+Before she could be stopped, Mary Jane hopped across the room and down
+to the door. Mr. McClure rose with considerable noise and approached
+the cot. He had been deeply touched by the fact that neither of the
+two innocently dreaming “Sunday bairns” had planned anything for her
+own especial gratification. The witness of such unselfishness was
+refreshing in a world such as that wherein most of his waking hours
+were passed.
+
+“Well, little woman, how goes it? Getting well, fast?”
+
+Bonny-Gay held up her arms to be loved.
+
+“Fine, father dear. It won’t be long before I’m out in the park again,
+watching for you to come home from business.”
+
+They found so much to say to each other that they quite forgot Mary
+Jane; who had, indeed, swung across the square to intercept the path of
+her friend. She had something of her own to say to the Gray Gentleman
+besides delivering her playmate’s message. She was in trouble and knew
+that he would help her in some way too wise for her to think of.
+
+“Well, upon my word! If here isn’t Mary Jane! I thought I heard a
+cheerful little clicke-e-ty-click, such as only one small energetic
+body could make. What’s it now, Miss Bump?”
+
+“I’d like to talk to you, please.”
+
+“Don’t doubt I need it. Yet if the ‘talking to’ is to be very severe,
+I’d like to have the support of the lion. Let’s rest against him.
+That’s comfortable. Now, my child--talk!”
+
+“First off, Bonny-Gay wants you to come and see her.”
+
+“Shall be delighted, I’m sure. Please make my regards to Miss McClure
+and I will wait upon her at any hour she designates.” Which dignified
+yet whimsical remark set Mary Jane to smiling.
+
+“I’m glad that’s fixed before I forgot. Because I’m in dreadful
+trouble, myself.”
+
+“You look it!” he exclaimed, smiling into her confiding face; then
+dropped his playful manner as he saw that she was really in earnest.
+
+Whereupon she promptly told him about Mrs. McClure and why, in
+anticipation of her father’s possible return, she must, she must go
+home every night. “And how can I? I mustn’t put them out--they are so
+good to me. I mustn’t stay away, if Bonny-Gay needs me. There’s all the
+dolls to be dressed, you see; and the canaries must be fed, or they’d
+die; and Polly is about as much care as the baby. She’s always dropping
+things and squawking till she gets them picked up for her--though she
+throws them right straight down again. I don’t see how Bonny-Gay can be
+so patient with that bird, do you?”
+
+“I’m sure I shouldn’t be.”
+
+“So, I couldn’t not come, course. And what I want you to tell me,
+please, is there a shorter way I could come? So I could walk here?
+’Cause I couldn’t ride in the car. We couldn’t afford that.”
+
+“If you would ride in the car I know, without asking, that Mrs. McClure
+would be more than glad to bear the expense.”
+
+“But father wouldn’t like that. He never likes me to have rich folks
+do things for me. He--he seems to about hate them. He wouldn’t let me
+go to the Empty Stocking Trees, ’cause he does. You’re the only one
+he doesn’t mind. And he likes the ‘Playgrounds’ ’cause they’re not
+charity. They belong to the city and we do, same’s the rich ones. They
+teach the children to work and learn farming, too. He likes that. But I
+couldn’t take the money from her. I wouldn’t so displease him, even if
+I had to stay away.”
+
+The Gray Gentleman pondered deeply. He would not offend the confiding
+child by offering himself to pay her car fare. He too greatly respected
+her honest pride and her loyalty to her father to do that. But, after a
+moment, he looked up.
+
+“Miss Mary Jane Bump, once before I invited you to call at my house
+and you declined. Now, I invite you again. I think I have something
+there that will solve your difficulties--and my own. May I have the
+pleasure? I’ll detain you from the Poll parrot but a few moments.”
+
+“Oh! I’d love it!”
+
+It was a very cheerful click the crutches gave now. The mere telling
+of her perplexities had half-banished them, and Mary Jane had implicit
+faith in the wisdom of this simple, true-hearted gentleman, who was,
+as Mrs. McClure had reflected, “the friend of all poor children
+everywhere.”
+
+The Gray Gentleman’s big, empty, plainly furnished house, seemed very
+lonely to the little girl, whose own small home was so crowded; and
+she wondered at the slowness of the one colored “boy”--as gray as his
+master--who answered that master’s ring.
+
+“Boy, go up-stairs, please, to my bedroom. Open the top drawer of the
+chiffonier and bring me all the socks you find there. You’d better use
+a basket--they are many in number.”
+
+The “Boy” half fancied that his master had lost his common sense, then
+leaped to the conclusion that this was probably one of their many
+pensioners upon whom the articles demanded were to be bestowed. He
+obeyed without comment, however, save by a respectful bow; and soon
+returned. Meanwhile Mary Jane had been shown the few pictures upon the
+walls and told their stories, and the place had begun to seem more
+cheerful to her.
+
+The “Boy” was dismissed; the basket heaped with fine hosiery placed on
+the table beside the visitor, and herself bidden to look the contents
+over.
+
+“What do you think of them, Mary Jane?”
+
+“I never knew one person have so many stockings; and, my sake, there
+isn’t a single pair but has a hole in it--not one single sock, even. I
+know. I guess you want me to mend them for you, don’t you? I often help
+mother with the darning. She thinks I can do it quite well.”
+
+“I’m sure you can, and that is just what I do want. I cannot put on a
+ragged garment, poor old fellow though I am. They always come from the
+laundry, broken somewhere, and I am always buying new. That’s how I
+have so many. If you want to save my money for me you can do it.”
+
+“I’d love to! I’ll take them home and fix them nights, after Bonny-Gay
+is through with me.”
+
+“Let’s be business like, Miss Bump. What would be your charges, per
+pair?”
+
+“My--charges? Nothing. I’d be so _glad_ to do something for you, who
+have always been doing things for me.”
+
+“I’ve known you a few weeks, little girl, and I’ve done very little.
+Will five cents a pair be satisfactory?”
+
+“I couldn’t take so much. I couldn’t take anything.”
+
+“That or nothing. I’m business. That would make you quite independent
+of all help except your own, and be a great benefit to me.”
+
+“Of course, then. And oh! thank you!”
+
+“Now, pack up your work, little bread-winner, and let’s back to
+Bonny-Gay.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BY THE STRENGTH OF LOVE
+
+
+The days sped by. The summer heat deepened and there were thankful
+hearts in the vine-covered mansion in Mt. Vernon Place. For Bonny-Gay
+was well again; able to run about her beloved park, and to play in the
+shadow of the lion with the few children left still in that part of the
+city.
+
+Nearly all the big houses were now closed, however, and their owners
+departed to seashore or mountain. The McClures themselves were making
+preparations for their own summer flitting to the great country house
+of which the little girls had talked. They would have still enjoyed
+being together, but that could no longer be.
+
+A very few days after Mary Jane had made her business contract with
+the Gray Gentleman, and he had himself spoken to the conductors of
+the cars upon which she would have to take her daily ride--so that
+everything was made easy and safe for her--those rides had ceased.
+William Bump returned as suddenly as he had departed, and, with all his
+old enmity against more fortunate folk, had immediately forbidden them.
+
+But Mrs. Bump had herself gone to Mrs. McClure and explained enough of
+matters to prove that Mary Jane was neither ungrateful nor forgetful;
+and Mrs. McClure had accepted the explanation with great cheerfulness.
+It was a much easier way out of a difficult position than she had
+anticipated; because Bonny-Gay still talked about inviting Mary Jane
+with them to the country, and this her mother did not at all desire.
+
+However, a compromise was effected. Mary Jane was to be asked to care
+for the thirteen dolls, the two canaries, the aquarium, and Polly; only
+the pony being allowed to accompany his little mistress on her summer
+outing. So, one morning, the carriage came around again and all these
+creatures were stowed in it, along with Bonny-Gay and a maid. They had
+been taken straight to Dingy street, where they were left with many
+injunctions and much sage advice, as to their proper care. Then the two
+little “Sunday bairns” had kissed each other many times, and had torn
+themselves weeping from each other’s embrace, while the dignified maid
+looked coldly on, urging:
+
+“If you please, Miss McClure, you would much better be going. The train
+goes at two o’clock and there’s much to pack, still.”
+
+“Very well, Hawkins. I’m coming. Good-bye, Mary Jane, dear, dear Mary
+Jane! I’ll write you as soon as I get there and maybe, maybe, your
+father and my mother will let you come out to our house and make me a
+beautiful long visit. I’d teach you to ride on the pony just the same
+as if your legs were good, or in the goat cart or--”
+
+“Come, come, Miss Bonny-Gay!” called Hawkins.
+
+The coachman cracked his whip, there was a last glimpse of a bare sunny
+head thrust from the carriage window, the tossing of ecstatic kisses,
+and Bonny-Gay had passed out of Mary Jane’s life, probably forever.
+That is, if the intentions of her parents could be carried out. When
+they returned, in the autumn, a man could be dispatched for the dolls
+and things, if their owner still desired them. If not, they might
+remain the property of the small Bumps, and so well rid of them. The
+parrot had been misbehaving of late, and using expressions not wholly
+suited to the proprieties of Mt. Vernon Place. Originally owned and
+trained by a man of the “slums,” she was returning to the rude speech
+of earlier years.
+
+But she was well received in the Bump household, save by William,
+its head. He had frowned upon the coming into it of Bonny-Gay’s
+treasures and only consented to the arrangement because of Mary Jane’s
+disappointment. For ever since his return the father and daughter had
+been always together and each seemed doubly anxious to do nothing that
+would give the other pain. And after a time, even he became interested
+in the queer bird and joined his children in inciting it to talk;
+though his interest was not fully won until there sounded along the
+street a familiar cry, to which nobody paid much heed except Polly.
+
+She was suddenly transformed. She fluttered her feathers, stretched
+her neck, cocked her head on one side, and in a tone that was almost
+human in its mimicry burst forth:
+
+“Crab-crab-crab-crab--crab-crab-crab! Devil-devilled-devil-devilled-crabs!
+Heah’s-de-crab-man! Is yo’ hongry? Crab-man-goin’-to-baid-now! Dis yo’
+las’ chance for yo’ nice-fried-hot-fried-devil-devilled-crabs! C-R-A-B-S!
+OU-OU-OUCH!”
+
+After which remarkable exploit mistress Polly became the idol of Dingy
+street and even of William Bump.
+
+The disposition of her new charges, so that they should not take up
+too much space in her little home, and the careful packing away in the
+top-cupboard of the food Bonny-Gay had provided for her pets, kept Mary
+Jane busy all morning; and her mother had dinner on the table before
+she observed how the time had flown. But when she heard the cheerful
+summons:
+
+“Come, father. Come children!” and smelled the freshly cooked fish, she
+realized that she had given more attention than she meant to her new
+cares.
+
+“Oh! mother, I didn’t think I was so long! And I wanted to get my part
+of the ironing done; because I promised Bonny-Gay that I’d go to the
+park, if you could spare me, and watch her train go by. It’s that fast
+express, that whizzes so; but she’s to sit on the park side the parlor
+car, she called it, and she’s to watch for me and I for her. She’ll
+wave and I’ll wave and that will be our really last good-by. Till she
+comes home again.”
+
+“That would be how-de-do? Wouldn’t it, child? And the ironing’s all
+right. I’ve done that so, if father wants to go watch the men this
+afternoon, you can go with him. Now eat your dinner and be thankful for
+all your blessings.”
+
+Everybody was always hungry at that table and the dinner was soon over.
+Then William Bump arose, put on his hat, whistled to a big black dog
+who lay on the doorstep and started off for his afternoon of loafing.
+
+Mary Jane watched the pair with a pitying love.
+
+“Those two seem just alike, some ways, don’t they mother? Father lost
+his home and his work and so did Max. Dearly as Bonny-Gay loves that
+dog, ever since he got her hurt, he doesn’t want to be with her like
+he used. Didn’t you notice, this morning? When she hugged him and bade
+him good-by, he was just a little pleased; yet he kept one eye on
+father and soon’s he could walked back and lay down beside him. Father
+is dreadful good to Max, isn’t he? He often says he’d never have come
+back if it hadn’t been for--for us--”
+
+“For you, daughter. Mostly for you, it was, dear.”
+
+“Well, Max helped. He staid right close and coaxing like. Oh! I do wish
+the Company would give father another try.”
+
+“It won’t. But I’m in hopes, after awhile, he’ll find something else
+to do. Meanwhile you stay close to him. Don’t give him a chance to get
+down-hearted again and--you know. Didn’t you say your Gray Gentleman
+was coming to the park to look at the ‘farms’ this very day? Why,
+maybe, child, maybe he’d know of a job somewhere. You might ask him.”
+
+“Yes, I might. I will. What’s father going to do now? he’s taken to the
+track.”
+
+“He says that, though he has no work there, there isn’t any law forbids
+him sitting round, watching his old friends who have. He likes to talk
+with men, you know; and if you’re handy by he’s quite satisfied. Father
+doesn’t like to go wrong any better than we like to have him. He trusts
+you to watch out for him, honey. So, if I were you, instead of taking
+the baby and going along the street to the gate I’d go to the park by
+the railroad. You can climb up the embankment at an easy place, and
+stay near father. Then you’d be able to see everything. The children
+in the ‘Playgrounds,’ and the Gray Gentleman if he goes to them, and
+Bonny-Gay’s train when it comes, and all. Only--only, Mary Jane--take
+care to give the cars plenty of room.”
+
+“Course I will. ‘Look out for the cars when the bell rings!’”
+laughingly quoted the child. “And you look out for the parrot when the
+crab-man comes! I guess you’re right. I’d better not take the baby. If
+I climb up the bank I might let him slip. Good-by. I’ll make father all
+right and happy, don’t you fear.”
+
+The mother watched her darling out of sight, thinking how sunshiny and
+helpful she was, then settled the baby safely among his new playthings
+and resumed her endless toil. But she was wholly happy and contented
+now. They were poor, indeed, but they were not suffering, and her
+hopeful heart was sure that in some way a task would be found for her
+husband which would keep him out of idleness and evil company. She
+began her one hymn of cheerfulness: “Lord, in the morning Thou shalt,
+Thou shalt, Lord, in the morning Thou shalt hear, my voice ascending
+high.”
+
+Meanwhile, Mary Jane had hopped along the road till she came to a part
+of the railway embankment which she could climb, then scrambled to its
+top. Just before her the rails were laid over a long trestle above the
+deep bed of a stream, now almost dry. A little water still ran among
+the stones below but Mary Jane did not look down upon that. She made
+her way swiftly, yet cautiously, beside the track, pushed rapidly along
+the trestle, and reached her father’s side, at the further end of it.
+
+“Here am I, father. I’m going to watch for the train from here.”
+
+“All right, daughter.”
+
+A fellow workman looked up and remonstrated:
+
+“You oughtn’t to let that girl walk that trestle, Bump. If her crutches
+slipped it--the bottom’s rough and deep down.”
+
+“Oh! I’m not afraid. I don’t often, either, though I’ve played about
+this railroad ever since I was born. All the Dingy street children play
+there. How pretty the park looks, down yonder;” interrupted Mary Jane,
+anxious that her father should not be blamed, especially for what was
+not his doing.
+
+“That’s right. You oughtn’t, daughter,” he said.
+
+“I won’t again, then, father, if you don’t like. But I was safe enough.
+What’s that team for, that’s coming?”
+
+“They’re going to haul off that pile of ties that have been taken up.
+Company gives ’em for the hauling. Only things it ever does give, too.”
+
+“They ought to work faster. See. They keep dropping them on the track.
+If a train should come by it would get thrown off. Don’t they know
+that?”
+
+“Oh, they know it all right, but they’ll be in time. They’re used to
+it.”
+
+It was in this very hardihood of custom that the danger lay. A beginner
+at such a task would have watched constantly for the approach of a
+train, but this “gang” did not. For the greater ease of handling they
+rolled the heap of heavy ties over upon the track, as the anxious
+girl had observed, and two men lifting leisurely placed the weighty,
+worn out timber upon the wagon. The mule team before the wagon stood
+half-over the edge of the embankment, heads dropped, themselves
+enjoying the rest regardless of position.
+
+The men laughed and talked. William Bump joined in the chatter and
+forgot Mary Jane. The talk grew more interesting, to the speakers, and
+became a torture to the listening girl, though she paid no attention to
+the words. She realized, merely, that they were growing more and more
+indolent; the pile of ties upon the rails lessened very, very slowly.
+It was already long past noon, she knew that. She was familiar enough
+with the running of trains to know, also, that the through express
+was the next one due. It was upon this through express that Bonny-Gay
+would travel. She began to feel cold with her anxiety. She must speak
+to those men, even if it should displease her father, who hated
+interference of that sort.
+
+So she moved forward a little way and touched the arm of the foreman.
+
+“Will you tell me the time, please?”
+
+“Ten minutes to two, little girl. Pretty hot up here, isn’t it?” he
+answered, good naturedly.
+
+“Mary Jane, don’t meddle. Children should be seen not heard.”
+
+“Yes, father. Only ten minutes! Why, you’ve been ever and ever so long
+taking off less than half the ties. Can you finish in ten minutes? Can
+you?” she demanded, eagerly.
+
+“Why, kid, what’s the hurry? Got another job for us, eh?”
+
+“The hurry? The train. The two o’clock express. It’s almost due.”
+
+The foreman’s face paled a trifle. Then he whistled.
+
+“Whew, sis, you’re right! Jim, lead that team off the bank. We’ll just
+roll the rest down to the bottom and drive round there to load up. Now,
+with a will! there ain’t no time to spare! here she goes!”
+
+The mules were led away by one man while the others exerted themselves
+to clear the tracks in any and every manner possible. There was no
+longer any talking. There were no false movements. They knew that
+there was no way of signalling the express, just there, even if there
+should be need. But there must be no need, the tracks must be cleared.
+Must be!
+
+William Bump moved down upon the bank and watching from an apparently
+safe place called upon Mary Jane to follow him.
+
+She did not hear him. She stood, resting upon her crutches, anxiously
+watching the toilers, straining forward, as if in that attitude she
+could help them, and listening--listening--with every nerve at tension.
+She did not see the Gray Gentleman, who had come into the park awhile
+before and having caught sight of his favorite’s pink frock, crossed
+the level space from the “Playgrounds” to the embankment to see what so
+interested her. As he reached the spot below the end of the trestle he,
+also, began to comprehend what was passing in Mary Jane’s mind and his
+own cheek whitened.
+
+“Hark! It’s coming--it’s coming!” cried the girl. “Work--work!”
+
+They did work with a will. There was no need for anybody to urge them.
+They, also, heard the low rumble of wheels along the distant track, the
+shiver and tremble of the rails. The heavy ties rolled down--fast and
+faster. The way was almost clear. There was only one tie left and that--
+
+A man turned to look over his shoulder. “The train! The train! It’s on
+us!”
+
+The whole gang leaped to safety and waited. The one big timber still
+lay crosswise above the trestle. It meant destruction. They knew it,
+Mary Jane knew it. They could not move; but she could. That menacing
+log should not destroy!
+
+Ah! but those long, strong, useful arms of hers stood her in good stead
+just then. All the strength of her body was in them. The crutches went,
+she knew not where. She was lying flat, forcing, pushing, compelling
+that last tie down, over the edge. The train was almost there. She knew
+that, also, but she felt no fear. She must do her task--she must--she
+could!
+
+The men on the bank watched breathless, but not one went to her aid.
+Even William Bump seemed stricken to stone.
+
+There came a crash. The log was over--the track was clear!
+
+But where was Mary Jane?
+
+As he rounded the curve just before the trestle the engineer had seen
+the child upon the track, but though he instantly reversed his engine
+the train could not be brought to a stand-still till it had quite
+crossed the openwork space, and he stepped down from it with horror in
+his heart.
+
+A horror which quickly changed to a shout of joy, though the peril was
+yet not over.
+
+Again these long, strong arms had done their owner good service. As the
+train came upon the trestle she slipped down and dropped between the
+ties, clinging to one for her life. She scarcely heard now that rumble
+and roar above her; all her consciousness was fixed in the clutch of
+her fingers upon that cross-beam.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was the Gray Gentleman who first reached the spot and prostrating
+himself upon the roadbed reached down to clasp her arms and draw her up
+to safety.
+
+“You precious child! You heroine!”
+
+She opened her eyes at that, gave him one radiant smile, and promptly
+fainted away. Which, she afterward declared, was a very foolish thing
+for a sensible girl to do.
+
+She as promptly revived, however, and there was Bonny-Gay hugging
+and thanking her, but not saying good-by, at all! And there was Mrs.
+McClure, that proud and dignified lady, snatching the crooked little
+figure from the Gray Gentleman’s arms, to enfold it in her own and to
+weep and cry over it in the most astonishing fashion.
+
+“Oh! you darling, darling child! You’ve saved our lives, saved
+Bonny-Gay, who’s more than life to us. Little did I guess how noble you
+are. Nobler, Mary Jane, than anybody I ever knew.”
+
+It was like a dream. The people, all the passengers and trainmen,
+crowding round to thank and bless the little hunchback, who now rested
+in her own father’s arms, while he beamed upon her, proud and happy,
+but with soul-cleansing tears streaming down his softened face. And
+there was Mr. McClure, laying his hand kindly upon William Bump’s
+shoulder and begging:
+
+“For any injustice I’ve done you, for any injustice you’ve done me, let
+this hour make amends. As man to man--trust me, William Bump.”
+
+“Aye, Boss. I will, I will and the poor man looked into the face of the
+rich man and behold! it was as that of a brother.”
+
+“What’s all this to-do?” cried Mrs. Stebbins, to Mrs. Bump. “The
+express has stopped and there’s a crowd of people coming this way.”
+
+“I don’t know, I’m sure. I just heard the train go by. I hope nothing’s
+wrong.”
+
+“Not wrong, sure. The men are tossing their hats and cheering and the
+women--they’re laughing and talking like they’d struck a gold mine.
+They’re headed this way.”
+
+But Mrs. Bump was too busy to look. She had a lot of clear-starching to
+do and she was engaged in a new, therefore interesting, task; she was
+teaching Polly to sing a hymn!
+
+“Yes, you smart bird. If you can talk crab-man’s talk, that always
+sounds sort of wicked, though, of course, it isn’t, you can learn
+better things just as easy.”
+
+“So I can, so I can. Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth,”
+answered Polly.
+
+“Oh! I’m telling it, never fear. Learn it you shall. Now begin--”
+
+But the lesson was interrupted. The voices of the crowd were near
+at hand; were at the door; were in the very room! What did it mean?
+William was placing Mary Jane in her mother’s arms, as if she had been
+the baby himself--helpful Mary Jane! And Mrs. McClure was clasping Mrs.
+Bump’s neck, and sobbing and laughing on her shoulder.
+
+Everybody was talking at once, but suddenly somebody cleared a space
+and placed a chair behind the startled mistress of the house. She sank
+into it gratefully, her knees now trembling too much to support her.
+But the facts had penetrated to her consciousness, at last, and with
+a cry that hushed all speech of others, she held her precious “Sunday
+bairn” to her heart with a thankfulness beyond words.
+
+Suddenly, upon this sacred silence, there fell a voice which seemed
+neither bird nor human, yet strangely reverent and opportune:
+
+  “Lord, in the morning Thou shalt, Thou shalt,
+  Lord, in the morning Thou shalt hear
+  My voice ascending high.”
+
+At this interruption there were some who wept--but none who smiled.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+AFTERWARD
+
+
+Of course there was an afterward. There always is.
+
+The fallow fields of the McClure estate no longer lie idle under the
+blue sky, a reproach to their owner. The property was not quite of the
+“miles and miles” in extent which Bonny-Gay had imagined, but it was
+still sufficient to set apart a goodly number of acres as a home for
+Mary Jane, who had never known how beautiful the country was until she
+was driven one day, along a smooth road, under over-hanging trees, and
+over bridges crossing here and there the prettiest trout stream in the
+world. The drive was interrupted, “to let the horses rest,” where there
+was a fine view of a cottage, freshly painted in cream and white, and
+with the most inviting of piazzas extending from its sides.
+
+Mary Jane had been allowed to make a little visit at the home of
+Bonny-Gay, and had been absent from Dingy street for one whole week.
+This day her absence was to end, even with this day; and she thought it
+a little odd that Bonny-Gay should seem so extravagantly happy, as if
+she were glad that the visit were over. Though, of course, the guest
+knew better than that. There was not the slightest doubt in the heart
+of either “Sunday bairn” concerning their mutual love.
+
+“Oh! what a pretty house! We haven’t come this way before, have we? Is
+it on the road to the station, Bonny-Gay? How happy the folks must be
+who live there. But I’m happy, too. Dingy street will seem perfectly
+lovely to me when I get there. Do you suppose the baby has grown much?
+I wonder if Polly has learned any new things. Mother’s a master hand to
+teach, mother is. She taught me my letters while she was working round.
+She thinks I can, maybe, be spared to go to school--sometime. How I
+want to see her. Seems as if I could hardly wait.”
+
+“Oh! I’m so glad, so glad!” laughed Bonny-Gay, and even the old
+coachman’s face beamed with smiles, though in ordinary he felt that it
+was his business, when on duty, to conduct himself like an automaton.
+
+“I s’pose you’ll write to me, won’t you? You promised, that other time,
+before you started, you know.”
+
+“No. I shall do no such thing.”
+
+“Bonny-Gay!” There was a volume of reproach in the tones.
+
+“No. Not a line.”
+
+“Whose house is this, do you suppose?”
+
+“I don’t ‘suppose’ when I know things.”
+
+“Whose, then?”
+
+“Let’s go ask.”
+
+“Why Beulah Standish McClure! What would your mother say? If there’s
+anything she wants you to be it’s a lady. So I’ve heard her say, time
+and again.”
+
+“So have I. I’m tired of hearing it. I mean, I’m trying to be one. She
+wouldn’t care. She’d do it herself, if she were here.”
+
+“Never! She never, never would be so rude.”
+
+Bonny-Gay made a funny little grimace, then leaned sidewise and hugged
+her friend.
+
+“Do the Dingy street folks know better how to behave than the Place
+folks, missy?”
+
+“Yes, Bonny-Gay, I think they do”; answered Mary Jane with dignity. For
+she had now been associated with the McClure household long enough to
+get a fair idea of the proprieties; and she was sure that driving up
+to the doors of strange houses and inquiring their owners’ names, was
+not one. However, she could do nothing further, for it was Bonny-Gay’s
+carriage and not hers.
+
+“Drive in, please.”
+
+So the phaeton turned into the pretty driveway, bordered with shrubs,
+and around the lawn by a freshly prepared curve to the very front door
+itself. Mary Jane had turned her head away and utterly refused to look.
+She was amazed at Bonny-Gay, her hitherto model, but she’d be a party
+to no such impertinence; not she.
+
+Then her head was suddenly seized by her mate’s hands and her face
+forced about toward that unknown doorway.
+
+“Look, Mary Jane Bump! You shall look! You shall. If you don’t, you’ll
+break my heart. Look quick!”
+
+Mary Jane’s lids flew open. Then she nearly tumbled off the seat. The
+Gray Gentleman was coming down the steps, smiling and holding out his
+hand. Smiling and calling, too:
+
+“They’ve come, Mrs. Bump! They’ve come!” Mary Jane, in her newly
+acquired ideas of etiquette, wondered to hear such a quiet person speak
+so loudly or jest upon such themes. She had instantly decided that this
+was some friend’s country house, where he, too, was visiting. Odd that
+his hostess’ name should be like her own.
+
+But all her primness vanished when out from that charming cottage
+flew a woman with a baby in her arms. A woman in a print gown,
+clear-starched as only one laundress could do it, and a baby so big and
+round and rosy he had to be spelled with a capital letter.
+
+“Mother! My mother and the Baby!”
+
+“Welcome home, my child! Welcome home!”
+
+And the Baby cooed and gurgled something that sounded very like “Ome,”
+without an H.
+
+“Has everybody gone crazy?”
+
+“Not quite!” answered William Bump, appearing from another corner.
+He was as washed and starched as his wife, and had done for himself
+even something more, in honor of this great occasion--he was smoothly
+shaved. He looked years younger than his child had ever seen him and
+oh! how much happier and more self-respectful. He had found his right
+place again. He was once more a tiller of the soil; and there is
+nothing so conducive to true manliness as finding one’s congenial task
+and feeling the ability to accomplish it.
+
+Mary Jane’s head buzzed with the strangeness and wonder and delight of
+it all. Yet the explanation was very simple and sensible.
+
+It was impossible but that the McClures should do something to evince
+their gratitude to the little saver of their child’s and their own
+lives and they did that which they knew would be most acceptable to
+her; they gave her this home in the country.
+
+For the house, with its deed was made to Mary Jane Bump, herself; but
+over the wide fields surrounding it her father was made overseer and
+farmer, for his old “Boss,” at good but not extravagant wages. The
+house had long stood empty, ever since the railroad magnate had dropped
+his former scheme of agriculture on a big scale, but it was in good
+repair and quite large enough to accommodate even the household of
+Bump. A coat of paint made it like new and during the cripple’s absence
+from Dingy street the flitting was accomplished.
+
+Bonny-Gay’s own summer home was near at hand, though she had driven
+Mary Jane to the cottage by such a roundabout way; and her delight had
+lain in her knowledge of the happiness that was coming to her friend.
+
+This was a year ago. As yet no cloud has marred the perfect sunshine
+of Mary Jane’s new life. She now rides to school in a smart little
+cart, drawn by the sedatest of piebald ponies. She is apt and ambitious
+and is learning fast. Indeed, she is confidently looking forward to a
+day in the future when, being both old and wise enough, she shall be
+matriculated at a certain famous woman’s college; to don the cap and
+gown whose ample folds shall hide, at last, her physical deformity. God
+speed you, Mary Jane! and all your happy sisterhood!
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
+
+  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+
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