“They’ve come! They’ve come!” shrieked Migwan, running into the
dining-room where the rest of the family were peacefully finishing their
breakfast.
“Who’ve come?” said Nyoda, excitedly, “the Mexicans?”
“The bean weevils,” said Migwan, tragically. “Mr. Landsdowne said to
watch out for them, although they were hardly ever found up north, but
they’re here. He just found a bush with them on.”
“To arms!” cried Sahwah, springing up. “The Flying Column to the rescue!
“Forward the Bug Brigade,
Is there a leaf unsprayed?”——
Here she tripped over the carpet and her Amazonian shout came to an
abrupt end.
“Where are the weevils?” she asked, when they had all gathered around
the bean patch.
“On here,” said Migwan, indicating a hill of beans.
“Oh,” said Sahwah, in a disappointed tone.
“Where did you think they were?” asked Migwan.
“From the noise you were making,” said Sahwah, “I expected to find them
drawn up in battle lines, waiting to charge the garden with fixed
bayonets.”
“They’ll do just as much damage as if they had bayonets,” remarked
Farmer Landsdowne.
“Do be cautious in approaching such deadly foes,” said Sahwah in a tone
of mock anxiety, as Migwan came along with the sprayer, “take careful
aim, and don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”
“I’ll spray you in a minute if you don’t keep still,” said Migwan.
“What must it feel like to be a weevil,” said Gladys, musingly, “and be
hunted down remorselessly wherever you went?”
“Gladys has gone over to the side of the enemy,” said Sahwah, teasingly.
“There is the subject for your next book, Migwan, ‘Won by a Weevil’, by
the author of ‘Enthralled by a Thrip’! It must have been weevils
Tennyson meant when he wrote ‘The Lotus Eaters.’”
“Battle over?” asked Hinpoha, as Migwan laid down the sprayer. “Then
let’s celebrate the victory. Cheer the bean crop.” To the tune of “We
will, We will Cheer,” they sang,
“Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil,
Weevil cheer our bean crop,
Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil,
Weevil cheer our bean crop,
Weevil cheer our bean crop,
Weevil cheer our bean crop,
Weevil cheer our bean crop, O!”
“Don’t crow too soon,” said Farmer Landsdowne, picking up his sprayer
preparatory to taking his departure, “there may be twice as many on
to-morrow.”
“I flatly refuse to worry about to-morrow,” said Nyoda, “‘sufficient
unto the day is the weevil thereof!’”
Calvin Smalley, working in the vegetable patch in front of the Red
House, heard that cheer and paused in his work to look over at the other
garden. He was wondering what was so funny about gardening. “I wish,” he
sighed, as he turned back to his endless task, “that those girls were my
sisters!”
Gladys went into town alone when the last of the strawberries were ripe,
for none of the other girls could be spared that day. The squash bugs
had descended on the garden and all hands were required on deck to save
the squash and melon vines from being eaten alive. On the way she passed
Mr. Smalley, driving the identical wreck of a horse he had tried to hire
out to the girls. He had a heavy load of vegetables, and the poor,
broken down creature would hardly move it from the spot. He started
nervously as the machine passed him on the narrow road, and Mr. Smalley
pulled him up sharply and brought the whip down on his back with a heavy
cut. “Ain’t you used to automobiles yet, you stupid brute?” he growled.
Gladys delivered the eight quarts of extra large berries to Mrs. Davis
first. “Wouldn’t you like to stay in town and have lunch with us and go
to the theatre afterward?” Mrs. Davis said in such a patronizing tone
that Gladys quite started, and then laughed inwardly.
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t sold all of my berries yet,” she answered
soberly, “and I have to hurry back and help pick bugs.”
“Pick bugs?” exclaimed Mrs. Davis, in a horrified tone.
“Yes,” said Gladys, with a relish, “nice juicy, striped bugs that crunch
beautifully when you step on them.”
“Oh, oh,” said Mrs. Davis, putting her hands over her ears. “Give my
love to your poor, dear mamma,” she said gushingly, when Gladys was
departing. “Tell her she has my fullest sympathy.” As Gladys’s poor,
dear mamma was, at that moment, seated on the observation platform of a
luxurious railway coach, speeding through the mountains of Washington
while Mrs. Davis was obliged to stay in town for the time being, she was
not really in as much need of Mrs. Davis’s sympathy as that lady fondly
imagined.
Gladys disposed of the remaining berries to other amused or patronizing
friends, and then decided to look up a laundress she knew of and get her
to come out to Onoway House once in a while to do the heavy washing. The
street where the laundress lived was narrow and crowded with children
playing in the middle of the road, and progress was rather slow. One
little girl in particular made Gladys extremely nervous by running
across the street right in front of the machine and daring her to run
over her, shaking her fists at her and making horrible grimaces. She got
across the street once in safety and then started back again. Just then
a small child sprang up from the ground right under the very wheels of
the machine and Gladys turned sharply to one side. The fender struck the
saucy little girl who was daring her to run over her and she rolled
under the car, screaming. Gladys jammed down the emergency brake with a
jerk that almost wrenched the machinery of the automobile asunder. White
as a sheet she jumped out and picked the girl up. In an instant an angry
crowd of women and children had surrounded the machine. “Darn yer!”
cried the child shrilly, shaking a dirty fist in Gladys’s face, while
the other arm hung limp. “I thought yer didn’t dast run into me.”
“Get into the car,” said Gladys, terrified, “and I’ll take you home.”
“I dassent go home,” shrieked the child, “Old Grady’ll lick the tar out
of me if I go home without sellin’ me papers.”
“Then let me take you to the hospital, or somewhere,” said Gladys,
anxious to get away from the threatening crowd.
“What’s the matter?” asked one voice after another, as the tenements
poured their human contents into the street.
“Ophelia’s run over,” explained a powerful Irish woman, with a shawl
over her head, who kept her hand on the handle of the car door. “Lady
speedin’ run her down like a dog.” An angry murmur rose from the crowd.
Gladys shook in her shoes and wondered if she dared start the car with
all those children hanging on the front of it. She looked around
helplessly for someone who would help her out of her difficulty. Just
then a policeman turned into the street, attracted by the crowd.
“Cheese it, de cop!” screamed a ragged gamin, who stood on the step of
the car, and the women and children began to slink into the doorways.
Gladys waited until he came up, and then explained the whole matter and
asked where the nearest hospital was.
“Can’t blame you for hitting that brat,” said the policeman, “she’s the
terror of drivers for two blocks.” Ophelia stuck out her tongue at him.
Gladys drove her to the hospital where it was discovered that the left
arm was broken below the elbow. Painful as the setting may have been
there was “never a whang out of her,” as the doctor remarked, although
she hung on tightly to Gladys’s white sleeve with her dirty hand. Her
waist was taken off to find the extent of the damage, and Gladys was
frightened to see that the other arm was fearfully bruised and
scratched, and there was a ring of purple and green blotches around her
neck like a collar.
“She must have been thrown down harder than I thought,” said Gladys to
the nurse.
“Thrown down nothin’,” answered Ophelia, “Old Grady did that the other
day when I threw a stone through the winder.” And she held up the
mottled arm where all might see.
“Oh,” said Gladys, with a shudder, “cover it up.” Putting Ophelia into
the machine again she drove back to the scene of the accident and
entered the squalid tenement in which the child said she lived.
“Won’t Old Grady beat me up though, when she finds I’ve busted me wing,”
said Ophelia, as they mounted the rickety stairs. Hardly had she spoken
when the door at the head of the stairs flew open and a large,
red-faced, coarse-looking woman strode out and shook her fist over the
banisters.
“I’ll fix ye fer stayin’ out afther I tell ye ter come in, ye little
devil,” she shouted. “I’ll break every bone in yer body. Gimme the money
for the papers first.”
“Go chase yerself,” said Ophelia, standing still on the stairs with a
spiteful gleam in her eye, “there ain’t no money. I ain’t had time ter
peddle this afternoon.”
“What yer mean, no money?” screamed the woman. “Just wait till I get me
hands on yer!”
Gladys shrank back against the wall in terror, then collecting herself
she thrust Ophelia behind her and faced the angry woman. “Ophelia has
had an accident,” she explained. “I ran over her with my machine and
broke her arm.” The woman brushed past her and grabbed Ophelia by the
shoulder. Overcome with fury at the thought that her household drudge
would be of no use to her for several weeks, she boxed her ears again
and again, calling her every name she could think of. Finally she let go
of her with a push that sent Ophelia stumbling down half a dozen stairs.
“Get out o’ my sight!” she shrieked. “Do yer think I’m going ter house
an’ feed a worthless brat that ain’t doin’ nothin’ fer her keep? Get out
an’ live in the streets yer like ter play in so well!” With a final
exclamation she strode back into the room and slammed the door after
her. Ophelia picked herself up from the step, shaking her one useful
fist at the closed door at the head of the stairs.
Gladys was inexpressibly shocked at this heartless treatment of an
injured child. “Come—come home with me,” she said faintly. Seated beside
her in the big car, Ophelia ran out her tongue and made faces at the
jeering children who watched her ride away.
“This is the life!” she exclaimed, as she settled herself comfortably in
the cushioned seat. People in the streets turned to stare at the dirty
little ragamuffin riding beside the daintily gowned young girl, shouting
saucily at the passers-by, or making jeering remarks in a voice audible
above the noise of traffic.
The girls were all out in front watching for her as Gladys drove up. It
was past supper time and they were wondering what had become of her.
What a chorus of surprised exclamations arose when Ophelia was set down
in their midst! Gladys explained the situation briefly and asked Migwan
if they could not keep her there awhile. Migwan consented hospitably and
went off to find a place for her to sleep, while Gladys proceeded to
wash the accumulated layers of dirt from Ophelia’s face and divest her
of her spotted rags. She came to the table in a kimono of Gladys’s, for
there were no clothes in the house that would fit her. She was nine
years old, she said, but small and thin for her age, with arms and legs
like pipe-stems which fairly made one shiver to look at. She had a
little, pinched, sharp featured face, cunning with the knowledge of the
world gained from her life on the streets, big grey-green eyes filled
with dancing lights, and black hair that tumbled around her face in
tangled curls, which Gladys was not able to smooth out in her hasty
going over before supper.
Not in the least shy in her new surroundings, nor complaining of
discomfort from the broken arm, she sat at the table and kept up a
cheerful stream of talk, racy with slang and the idiom of the streets.
Hinpoha was instantly dubbed “Firetop.” “Is it red inside of yer head?”
she asked, after gazing steadfastly at Hinpoha’s hair for several
minutes. To all questions about her father and mother she shrugged her
shoulders. “Ain’t never had any,” she replied. “I was born in the Orphan
Asylum. Old Grady got me there.” Here a spasm of rage distorted her face
at the remembrance of Old Grady’s ministrations, followed by a wicked
chuckle when she thought how that tender guardian’s plan for turning her
out homeless into the street had been frustrated by this lucky stroke of
fate. What her last name was she did not know. “I guess I never had
one,” she said cheerfully. “I’m just Ophelia.” Gladys was much
distressed because she would not drink milk. “No,” she said, shoving it
away, “that’s for the babies. Gimme coffee or nothin’.” Disdaining the
aid of fork or spoon, she conveyed her food to her mouth with her
fingers. “Say,” she said, after staring fixedly at Nyoda in a
disconcerting way she had, “are yer teeth false?”
“Certainly not!” said Nyoda indignantly. “What made you think so?”
“They’re so white and even,” said Ophelia. “Nobody ever had such teeth
of their own.”
“Did you bleach yer hair?” she asked next, turning her attention to
Gladys’s pale gold locks. Gladys merely laughed.
Ophelia waxed more loquacious as she filled up on the good things on the
table. “Did yer husband leave yer?” she inquired sociably of Mrs.
Gardiner. Gladys rose hastily and bore Ophelia away to her room, where a
cot had been set up for her.
“Three flies in the spider’s parlor,” said Migwan.
“And one in the ointment, or my prophetic soul has its signals crossed,”
said Nyoda.