unalarming personage, with stiff hair arranged _a la_ door-mat. "And not
only so: we have been searching for the miniature for almost a year.
Almost a year ago a boy was stolen from a castle in the northern part of
Russia. He was five years old, and the owner--since the assassination of
his father--of what would make a whole state in this country of yours.
The Nihilists were suspected, this time with some reason, as it
transpired that one of their important members--a woman--had obtained
employment in the castle. She and the child vanished together. There was
little hope that the young Prince would escape his father's fate, but in
the absence of any proof of his death the whole Russian secret service
and the Consular Service were notified. It was just possible, you see,
that his captors would try to use him as a hostage or as the price of
some concession. The woman was stopped at the frontier. Unfortunately
she was--accidentally, you understand--killed before she had accounted
for the boy, who was not then with her. As I have said, all this
occurred a year ago, and nothing has been heard of the child. You can
imagine the distracted grief of this fair lady, his mother, touching the
miniature."
"And you think," cried Miss Bailey, "that my little Fire-lighter----"
"Is the owner of one of the most exalted titles in Russia, and one of
the richest estates. He wore this locket when he was abducted. But we
are letting time pass. May I ask you"--this to the Consul--"to order my
car? His Highness must be removed at once into suitable surroundings."
"Then my mission is accomplished," said Miss Bailey, and rose to take
her leave. But never had she encountered cordiality so insistent as
these courteous gentlemen then exhibited. She must, she really must, go
to the hospital with them and see the end of the affair. In vain she
pleaded other engagements, and promised to telephone later in the
evening to hear whether the Prince's interview with the waif had
corroborated the evidence of the locket. She was offered the use of the
official telephone for the breaking of her engagements, and when her
hosts left her alone to achieve this purpose, they quite calmly locked
her in.
She telephoned some trivial sounding excuse to her long-suffering
friend. Every one who knew her well was accustomed to interruptions by
her school interests. And as she listened to that friend's wailing
remonstrance she was tempted to tell the truth. "Locked up in the
Russian Consulate! Prisoner! Involved in Court mystery. Obliged to
produce a Prince of the blood royal or take the consequences." Truly,
she told herself as she hung the receiver on its hook, things were
getting rather uncommon and going rather quickly. And in that moment of
apprehension she strangely drew comfort from the undeniable fit and
texture of her new tailor-made suit, as shown forth in a large mirror
between the window and the door. The contemplation of these
encouragements fortified her until the return of her jailors, and
during the ordeal of being swept through congested traffic by the side
of a Nicolai Sergieevitch Epifanoff, in a bright red motor car.
Arriving at Gouverneur Hospital, she left her companions in consultation
with the Matron and the House Surgeon, while she went up to the
Children's Ward to prepare the mind of her friend and sometime
co-laborer, Miss McCarthy, the Nurse-in-Charge. There was generally a
First Reader or so under Miss McCarthy's care, and the two young women
were great friends.
"I was going to send for you," Miss McCarthy began when they had moved a
little away from the door. "You've sent us a good many queer cases, but
_what_ do you call your latest?"
"That's a Russian Prince of high degree," said Teacher.
"Yes, he looked like one," laughed the nurse. "But you should see him
now that he's washed. He's really not burned at all," she amplified.
"Shock, a little; hunger, more; dirt, most."
"But do you realize what I tell you? He's a Russian Prince. An
Ambassador and a Consul or two have come to fetch him. They're down in
the reception room, and I came up to make sure that you had him. I don't
know what they would have done to me if I had lost him again."
"Oh! we have him," Miss McCarthy assured her when she had heard a few
more details of Miss Bailey's story, and had been properly impressed
thereby. "He's there in the third bed on the left. You go right on in.
I'll go down-stairs. They'll want me if he's going to be transferred."
Upon the smooth pillow of the third bed there lay a mass of bright gold
hair, gleaming even in the faint light of the shaded electric lamp. And
the hair surrounded a little face whose every line and contour was
beautified, exalted. Teacher turned, incredulous, to make sure that she
was right, but the neighboring beds were empty. Only up at the far end
of the ward were there other shaded lights and a gently watchful nurse.
Teacher sat upon the chair by the bedside and watched the sleeping
Fire-lighter. He moaned a little moan. Such a tired little moan! Ah,
this everlasting barrier of speech! Oh, to have been able, now at the
very last, to explain that she was not a demon actuated by cruelty! But
she did not dare to wake him. She knew the effect which the mere sight
of her would produce. And so the little Prince slept on until the big
Prince came softly to his bedside.
Miss Bailey rose and relinquished her chair. The big man noiselessly
took her place, and she stood at the bed's foot. The man looked long and
earnestly at the little sleeping face, then laid his hand on the soft
hair and uttered a short name.
Still asleep, the child answered. And very gently the man asked a
question. Then the baby turned and opened his eyes. The man spoke again.
The little voice answered him, and Miss Bailey left them alone together.
She waited in the hall, and presently Prince Nicolai Sergieevitch
Epifanoff joined her there.
"You have been instrumental, under God," said he, "in preserving the
succession of one of our noblest houses. That is the boy. From what he
tells me I judge that the woman who stole him was of the Jewish race.
That she intrusted him to the care of a friend who, with children of
her own, was coming to America. I suppose she was to have reclaimed him
here. We know why she did not. And we can only surmise that the other
woman, not knowing the value of her hostage, either lost or deserted
him. Of course he spent all his time and his baby ingenuity in trying to
get away from her. We shall never know quite definitely. However, my
dear young lady, we have him! And in the name of the great country for
which I am authorized to speak, I thank you. Russia will remember your
name and your great service when other gratitude which now protests
itself to you more vehemently has quite died away."
"But," said Constance Bailey, "I have not yet heard the true name of my
little Fire-lighter."
"Ah! that," said suave Prince Sergieevitch, "is a thing of which even I
am not authorized to speak. Your service was to the Nation."
Some months later Miss Bailey visited the Russian Consulate again. Her
presence had been formally requested, and the Consul was formally
awaiting her. The friendly Vice-Consul was in attendance, and Madame
Consul lent her genial presence to the occasion.
They purred congratulations; the whole staff was summoned, and the
Consul made a short address, which produced great enthusiasm in the
audience. He then pinned a scrap of red ribbon into the button-hole of
Miss Bailey's jacket, and handed her a small white leather box. Inside
was a gem-encircled miniature--gorgeous and blazing as the sunshine
broke upon it. The gentle-faced Empress of all the Russias smiled sadly
out at Constance Bailey, and on the reverse, still in diamonds, was the
inscription: "For Service."
FRIENDS
"My mamma," reported Morris Mowgelewsky, choosing a quiet moment during
a writing period to engage his teacher's attention, "my mamma likes you
shall come on mine house for see her."
"Very well, dear," answered Miss Bailey with a patience born of many
such messages from the parents of her small charges. "I think I shall
have time to go this afternoon."
"My mamma," Morris began again, "she says I shall tell you 'scuse how
she don't sends you no letter. She couldn't to send no letter the while
her eyes ain't healthy."
"I am sorry to hear that," said Teacher, with a little stab of regret
for her prompt acceptance of Mrs. Mowgelewsky's invitation; for of all
the ailments which the children shared so generously with their teacher,
Miss Bailey had learned to dread most the many and painful disorders of
the eye. She knew, however, that Mrs. Mowgelewsky was not one of those
who utter unnecessary cries for help, being in this regard, as in many
others, a striking contrast to the majority of parents with whom Miss
Bailey came in contact.
To begin with, Mrs. Mowgelewsky had but one child--her precious, only
Morris. In addition to this singularity she was thrifty and neat,
intensely self-respecting and independent of spirit, and astonishingly
outspoken of mind. She neither shared nor understood the gregarious
spirit which bound her neighbors together and is the lubricant which
makes East Side crowding possible without bloodshed. No groups of
chattering, gesticulating matrons ever congregated in her Monroe Street
apartment. No love of gossip ever held her on street corners or on
steps. She nourished few friendships and fewer acquaintanceships, and
she welcomed no haphazard visitor. Her hospitalities were as serious as
her manner; her invitations as deliberate as her slow English speech.
And Miss Bailey, as she and the First Readers followed the order of
studies laid down for them, found herself, again and again, trying to
imagine what the days would be to Mrs. Mowgelewsky if her keen, shrewd
eyes were to be darkened and useless.
At three o'clock she set out with Morris, leaving the Board of Monitors
to set Room 18 to rights with no more direct supervision than an
occasional look and word from the stout Miss Blake, whose kingdom lay
just across the hall. And as she hurried through the early cold of a
November afternoon, her forebodings grew so lugubrious that she was
almost relieved at last to learn that Mrs. Mowgelewsky's complaint was a
slow-forming cataract, and her supplication, that Miss Bailey would keep
a watchful eye upon Morris while his mother was at the hospital
undergoing treatment and operation.
"But of course," Miss Bailey agreed, "I shall be delighted to do what I
can, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, though it seems to me that one of the
neighbors----"
"Neighbors!" snorted the matron; "what you think the neighbors make mit
mine little boy? They got four, five dozens childrens theirselves. They
ain't got no time for look on Morris. They come maybe in mine house und
break mine dishes, und rubber on what is here, und set by mine furniture
und talks. What do they know over takin' care on mine house? They ain't
ladies. They is educated only on the front. Me, I was raised private and
expensive in Russia. I was ladies. Und you ist ladies. You ist
Krisht--that is too bad--but that makes mit me nothings. I wants _you_
shall look on Morris."
"But I can't come here and take care of him," Miss Bailey pointed out.
"You see that yourself, don't you, Mrs. Mowgelewsky? I am sorry as I can
be about your eyes, and I hope with all my heart that the operation will
be successful. But I shouldn't have time to come here and take care of
things."
"That ain't how mine mamma means," Morris explained. He was leaning
against Teacher and stroking her muff as he spoke. "Mine mamma means the
money."
"That ist what I means," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, nodding her ponderous
head until her quite incredible wig slipped back and forth up on it.
"Morris needs he shall have money. He could to fix the house so good
like I can. He don't needs no neighbors rubberin'. He could to buy what
he needs on the store. But ten cents a day he needs. His papa works by
Harlem. He is got fine jobs, und he gets fine moneys, but he couldn't to
come down here for take care of Morris. Und the doctor he says I shall
go _now_ on the hospital. Und any way," she added sadly, "I ain't no
good; I couldn't to see things. He says I shall lay in the hospital
three weeks, maybe--that is twenty-one days--und for Morris it is two
dollars und ten cents. I got the money." And she fumbled for her purse
in various hiding-places about her ample person.
"And you want me to be banker," cried Miss Bailey; "to keep the money
and give Morris ten cents a day--is that it?"
"Sure," answered Mrs. Mowgelewsky.
"It's a awful lot of money," grieved Morris. "Ten cents a day is a awful
lot of money for one boy."
"No, no, my golden one," cried his mother. "It is but right that thou
shouldst have plenty of money, und thy teacher, a Christian lady, though
honest--und what neighbor is honest?--will give thee ten cents every
morning. Behold, I pay the rent before I go, und with the rent paid und
with ten cents a day thou wilt live like a landlord."
"Yes, yes," Morris broke in, evidently repeating some familiar warning,
"und every day I will say mine prayers und wash me the face, und keep
the neighbors out, und on Thursdays und on Sundays I shall go on the
hospital for see you."
"And on Saturdays," broke in Miss Bailey, "you will come to my house and
spend the day with me. He's too little, Mrs. Mowgelewsky, to go to the
synagogue alone."
"That could be awful nice," breathed Morris. "I likes I shall go on your
house. I am lovin' much mit your dog."
"How?" snorted his mother. "Dogs! Dogs ain't nothing only foolishness.
They eats something fierce, und they don't works."
"That iss how mine mamma thinks," Morris hastened to explain, lest the
sensitive feelings of his Lady Paramount should suffer. "But mine mamma
she never seen _your_ dog. He iss a awful nice dog; I am lovin' much mit
him."
"I don't needs I shall see him," said Mrs. Mowgelewsky, somewhat tartly.
"I seen, already, lots from dogs. Don't you go make no foolishness mit
him. Don't you go und get chawed off of him."
"Of course not, of course not," Miss Bailey hastened to assure her; "he
will only play with Rover if I should be busy or unable to take him out
with me. He'll be safer at my house than he would be on the streets, and
you wouldn't expect him to stay in the house all day."
After more parley and many warnings the arrangement was completed. Miss
Bailey was intrusted with two dollars and ten cents, and the censorship
of Morris. A day or so later Mrs. Mowgelewsky retired, indomitable, to
her darkened room in the hospital, and the neighbors were inexorably
shut out of her apartment. All their offers of help, all their proffers
of advice were politely refused by Morris, all their questions and
visits politely dodged. And every morning Miss Bailey handed her Monitor
of the Gold Fish Bowl his princely stipend, adding to it from time to
time some fruit or other uncontaminated food, for Morris was religiously
the strictest of the strict, and could have given cards and spades to
many a minor rabbi on the intricacies of Kosher law.
The Saturday after his mother's departure Morris spent in the enlivening
companionship of the antiquated Rover, a collie who no longer roved
farther than his own back yard, and who accepted Morris's frank
admiration with a noble condescension and a few rheumatic gambols. Miss
Bailey's mother was also hospitable, and her sister did what she could
to amuse the quaint little child with the big eyes, the soft voice, and
the pretty foreign manners. But Morris preferred Rover to any of them,
except perhaps the cook, who allowed him to prepare a luncheon for
himself after his own little rites.
Everything had seemed so pleasant and so successful that Miss Bailey
looked upon a repetition of this visit as a matter of course, and was
greatly surprised on the succeeding Friday afternoon when the Monitor of
the Gold Fish Bowl said that he intended to spend the next day at home.
"Oh, no!" she remonstrated, "you mustn't stay at home. I'm going to take
you out to the Park and we are going to have all kinds of fun. Wouldn't
you rather go and see the lions and the elephants with me than stay at
home all by yourself?"
For some space Morris was a prey to silence, then he managed by a
consuming effort:
"I ain't by mineself."
"Has your father come home?" said Teacher.
"No, ma'am."
"And surely it's not a neighbor. You remember what your mother said
about the neighbors, how you were not to let them in."
"It ain't neighbors," said Morris.
"Then who--?" began Miss Bailey.
Morris raised his eyes to hers, his beautiful, black, pleading eyes,
praying for the understanding and the sympathy which had never failed
him yet. "It's a friend," he answered.
"Nathan Spiderwitz?" she asked.
Morris shook his head, and gave Teacher to understand that the Monitor
of the Window Boxes came under the ban of neighbor.
"Well, who is it, dearest?" she asked again. "Is it any one that I
know?"
"No, ma'am."
"None of the boys in the school?"
"No, ma'am."
"Have you known him long?"
"No, ma'am."
"Does your mother know him?"
"Oh, Teacher, _no_, ma'am! mine mamma don't know him."
"Well, where did you meet him?"
"Teacher, on the curb. Over yesterday on the night," Morris began,
seeing that explanation was inevitable. "I lays on mine bed, und I
thinks how mine mamma has got a sickness, und how mine papa is by
Harlem, und how I ain't got nobody beside of me. Und, Teacher, it makes
me cold in mine heart. So I couldn't to lay no more, so I puts me on mit
mine clothes some more, und I goes by the street the while peoples is
there, und I needs I shall see peoples. So I sets by the curb, und mine
heart it go und it go so I couldn't to feel how it go in mine inside.
Und I thinks on my mamma, how I seen her mit bangages on the face, und
mine heart it goes some more. Und, Teacher, Missis Bailey, I cries over
it."
"Of course you did, honey," said Teacher, putting her arm about him.
"Poor, little, lonely chap! Of course you cried."
"Teacher, yiss, ma'am; it ain't fer boys they shall cry, but I cries
over it. Und soon something touches me by mine side, und I turns und
mine friend he was sittin' by side of me. Und he don't say _nothings_,
Teacher; no, ma'am; he don't say nothings, only he looks on me, und in
his eyes stands tears. So that makes me better in mine heart, und I
don't cries no more. I sets und looks on mine friend, und mine friend he
sets und looks on me mit smilin' looks. So I goes by mine house, und
mine friend he comes by mine house, too, und I lays by mine bed, und
mine friend he lays by mine side. Und all times in that night sooner I
open mine eyes und thinks on how mine mamma is got a sickness, und mine
papa is by Harlem, mine friend he is by mine side, und I don't cries. I
don't cries never no more the whiles mine friend is by me. Und I
couldn't to go on your house to-morrow the whiles I don't know if mine
friend likes Rover."
"Of course he'd like him," cried Miss Bailey. "Rover would play with him
just as he plays with you."
"No, ma'am," Morris maintained; "mine friend is too little for play mit
Rover."
"Is he such a little fellow?"
"Yiss, ma'am; awful little."
"And has he been with you ever since the day before yesterday?"
"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."
"Does he seem to be happy and all right?"
"Teacher, yiss, ma'am."
"But," asked Miss Bailey, suddenly practical, "what does the poor little
fellow eat? Of course ten cents would buy a _lot_ of food for one boy,
but not so very much for two."
"Teacher, no, ma'am," says Morris; "it ain't so very much."
"Well, then," said Miss Bailey, "suppose I give you twenty cents a day
as long as a little strange friend is with you."
"That could to be awful nice," Morris agreed; "und, Missis Bailey," he
went on, "sooner you don't needs all yours lunch mine friend could eat
it, maybe."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she cried; "it's ham to-day."
"That don't make nothings mit mine friend," said Morris; "he likes ham."
"Now, Morris," said Miss Bailey very gravely, as all the meanings of
this announcement spread themselves before her, "this is a very serious
thing. You know how your mother feels about strangers, and you know how
she feels about Christians, and what will she say to you--and what will
she say to me--when she hears that a strange little Christian is living
with you? Of course, dearie, I know it's nice for you to have company,
and I know that you must be dreadfully lonely in the long evenings, but
I'm afraid your mother will not be pleased to think of your having
somebody to stay with you. Wouldn't you rather come to my house and live
there all the time until your mother is better? You know," she added as
a crowning inducement, "Rover is there."
But Morris betrayed no enthusiasm. "I guess," said he, "I ain't lovin'
so awful much mit Rover. He iss too big. I am likin' little dogs mit
brown eyes, what walks by their legs und carries things by their mouths.
Did you ever see dogs like that?"
"In the circus," answered Teacher. "Where did you see them?"
"A boy by our block," answered Morris, "is got one. He is lovin' much
mit that dog und that dog is lovin' much mit him."
"Well, now, perhaps you could teach Rover to walk on his hind legs, and
carry things in his mouth," suggested Teacher; "and as for this new
little Christian friend of yours----"
"I don't know _be_ he a Krisht," Morris admitted with reluctant candor;
"he ain't said nothin' over it to me. On'y a Irisher lady what lives by
our house, she says mine friend is a Irisher."
"Very well, dear; then of course he's a Christian," Miss Bailey assured
him, "and I shan't interfere with you to-morrow--you may stay at home
and play with him. But we can't let it go on, you know. This kind of
thing never would do when your mother comes back from the hospital. She
might not want your friend in the house. Have you thought of that at
all, Morris? You must make your friend understand it."
"I tells him," Morris promised; "I don't know can he understand. He's
pretty little, only that's how I tells him all times."
"Then tell him once again, honey," Miss Bailey advised, "and make him
understand that he must go back to his own people as soon as your mother
is well. Where are his own people? I can't understand how any one so
little could be wandering about with no one to take care of him."
"Teacher, I'm takin' care of him," Morris pointed out.
All that night and all the succeeding day Miss Bailey's imagination
reverted again and again to the two little ones keeping house in Mrs.
Mowgelewsky's immaculate apartment. Even increasing blindness had not
been allowed to interfere with sweeping and scrubbing and dusting, and
when Teacher thought of that patient matron, as she lay in her hospital
cot trusting so securely to her Christian friend's guardianship of her
son and home, she fretted herself into feeling that it was her duty to
go down to Monroe Street and investigate.
There was at first no sound when, after climbing endless stairs, she
came to Mrs. Mowgelewsky's door. But as the thumping of the heart and
the singing in her ears abated somewhat, she detected Morris's familiar
treble.
"Bread," it said, "iss awful healthy for you, only you dasn't eat it
'out chewin'. I never in my world seen how you eats."
Although the words were admonitory, they lost all didactic effect by the
wealth of love and tenderness which sang in the voice. There was a note
of happiness in it, too, a throb of pure enjoyment quite foreign to
Teacher's knowledge of this sad-eyed little charge of hers. She rested
against the door frame, and Morris went on:
"I guess you don't know what iss polite. You shall better come on the
school, und Miss Bailey could to learn you what iss polite and healthy
fer you. No, you couldn't to have no meat! No, _sir_! No, _ma'am_! You
couldn't to have no meat 'til I cuts it fer you. You could to, maybe,
make yourself a sickness und a bashfulness."
Miss Bailey put her hand on the door and it yielded noiselessly to her
touch, and revealed to her guardian eyes her ward and his little friend.
They were seated _vis-a-vis_ at the table; everything was very neat and
clean and most properly set out. A little lamp was burning clearly.
Morris's hair was parted for about an inch back from his forehead and
sleeked wetly down upon his brow. The guest had evidently undergone
similar preparation for the meal. Each had a napkin tied around his
neck, and as Teacher watched them, Morris carefully prepared his guest's
dinner, while the guest, an Irish terrier, with quick eyes and one
down-flopped ear, accepted his admonishings with a good-natured grace,
and watched him with an adoring and confiding eye.
The guest was first to detect the stranger's presence. He seized a piece
of bread in his teeth, jumped to the ground, and walking up to Teacher
on his hind legs, hospitably dropped the refreshment at her feet.