all the copy-book flourishes he could master, telling of Aunt Jimmy's
strange will, of how he was going to work all summer at the fruit farm,
and ended up by telling her of the preparations he had made for the
Fourth, never dreaming it possible that, the matter of tickets disposed
of, Bird should refuse his invitation.
At first the thought of getting away from the city, and being among
friends again quite overcame her. She began to wonder if Twinkle would
be glad to see her, and if the ferns met over the brook as they did last
year, and if Mrs. Lane would have the white quilt on the best-room bed,
or the blue-and-white patch with the rosebuds. Then she realized that
if she met the Laurelville people face to face, she would surely break
down, while the saying "good-by" again would be harder than not going.
Then, too, there was little Billy. How could she leave him at the very
time when, in spite of continued hot weather, he seemed to be gaining?
No--she sat down resolutely and wrote a short note that wrung her heart
and kissed it passionately before she mailed it, for was it not going to
the place that now seemed like heaven to her?
But the letter that arrived as the Lanes sat on porch after supper said
no word of all this, and seemed but a stiff, offish little note to
warm-hearted Mrs. Lane and Lammy who, having now quite earned the ticket
money, was cut to the quick when he found that it was all in vain.
"She's gone to the city and forgotten us," he gulped in a quavering
voice, as he read the letter, coming as near to letting a tear run down
his nose as a sturdy New England boy of fourteen could without losing
his self-respect.
"It doos _appear_ that way," said Mrs. Lane, who was gazing straight
before her out of the window with an abstracted air; "but, after all,
what's in appearances, Lammy Lane? Don't your copy-book say that they
are deceitful? Well, that's what I think of 'em. Likely 'nough it
appears to Bird that I didn't want to keep her, 'cause owing to this
other mix-up, I couldn't divide the share of you boys without thinking
it over, and 'dopt her then and there. But my intentions and them
appearances is teetotally different.
"No, Lammy, I'm goin' straight on lovin' Bird and trustin' her and
keepin' a place in my heart for her, besides havin' the best-room bed
always aired and ready, and jest you keep on lovin' and trustin' her,
too, and like as not the Lord will let her know it somehow, for I do
believe kind feelings is as well able to travel without wires to slide
on as this here telegram lightnin' that hollers to the ships that's
passin' by in the dark. 'Think well and most things 'll come well,' say
I."
"How about Aunt Jimmy's will? Yer always thought well enough o' her,"
said Joshua, who had laid down his paper and folded his spectacles to
listen to the reading of the letter.
"An' I do still," Mrs. Lane averred stoutly; "it doos _appear_
disappointing, but I allers allowed that if we was only able to read
her meanin', 'twould be a fair and kindly one."
VIII
THE FLOWER MISSIONARY
It was the last day of June when one morning, before the sun had a
chance to turn the pavements into ovens, Bird, having finished some
marketing for her aunt, was leading Billy slowly in and out along the
shady sides of the streets toward Madison Square, where they were
watching the lotus plants in the fountain for the first sign of an open
flower, for already buds were pushing their stately way through the
great masses of leaves.
Chancing to glance at the window of a newly finished store that was not
yet rented, Bird read the words, "Flower Mission." As she paused to look
at the sign, wondering what it might mean, an express wagon stopped at
the curb and several slat boxes and baskets filled with flowers, for
sprays peeped from the openings, were carried into the building, a wave
of moist coolness and perfume following them.
Bird's heart gave a bound of longing, for the fragrance of the flowers
painted a picture of her little straggling garden and held it before her
eyes for a brief moment.
"Oh, look, Bird, come quick and look; it's all full of pretty flowers in
there! Do you think they would let Billy go in and smell close?" Billy
was standing by the open door, and, as Bird glanced over his shoulder,
she saw that one side of the store was filled by a long counter,
improvised by placing boards upon packing cases, which was already
heaped with flowers of every description in addition to those that the
expressman had just brought.
An elderly lady, with a big, white apron tied over a cool, gray, summer
gown, was sorting the flowers from the mass, while a tall, slender young
girl, of not more than sixteen, dressed all in white, was making them
into small bouquets and laying them in neat rows in an empty hamper.
It was the young girl who overheard Billy's question to Bird and
answered it, saying, "Of course Billy may come in and smell the flowers
as much as he pleases, and have as many as he can carry home."
"Oh, can we?" said Bird, clasping her hands involuntarily with her old
gesture that expressed more joy than she could speak.
At the sound of the second voice, the young girl pushed back the brim
of her drooping, rose-trimmed hat and looked up with clear, gray eyes.
As she did so Bird recognized her as Marion Clarke, the daughter of the
man who spent his summers in the stone house on the hillside beyond
Northboro, and it was she who had passed Bird and Lammy on the roadside
the day when she had left her old home and, carrying Twinkle, was going
to Mrs. Lane's.
But if Bird recognized Marion, the memory was on one side, as it is apt
to be where one sees but few faces and the other many. This however
did not prevent Marion from holding out her free hand to the younger
girl, as she made room for her to pass between the boxes, saying, in a
charming voice, low-keyed and softly modulated, yet without a touch of
affectation: "If you are fond of flowers and can spare the time, perhaps
you would help us this morning; so many of our friends have left the
city that we are short-handed. Here is a little box your brother can sit
on if he is tired." Oh, that welcome touch of companionship, and that
voice,--it made Bird almost choke, as she said:--
"Billy is my cousin, and I should love to tie the flowers, for Aunt Rose
does not expect us back until noon."
It was one of Marion Clarke's strong points, young as she was, that she
had insight as well as tact. She saw at a glance that these children
were not of the ordinary class that play about the streets, interested
in every passing novelty, merely because it is new, so she had given
Bird a friendly greeting and asked her to help, instead of merely
offering the children a bouquet and letting them pass on as objects of
charity, no matter how light the gift.
When Bird replied in direct and courteous speech, Marion knew that she
had read aright. An ordinary street child of that region would have
said, "I dunno 's I will," or "What 'll ye give me 'f I do?" or perhaps
declined wholly to answer and bolted off after grabbing a handful of
flowers.
"Aunt Laura, will you let us have some string? There, see, it is cut in
lengths, so that you can twist it around twice and tie it so. I do wish
people would tie up their flowers before they send them, they would keep
so much better; but as they do not, we have to manage as best we may.
"Oh, how nicely you do it," she continued, as Bird held up her first
effort for approval,--a dainty bouquet of mignonette, a white rose, and
some pink sweet-william, with a curved spray of honeysuckle to break the
stiffness.
"So many people put the wrong colours together, and tie the flowers
so tight that it seems as if it must choke the dear things,--see, like
this," and Marion held up a bunch in which scarlet poppies and crimson
roses were packed closely together without a leaf of green.
"Yes, I understand; those colours--hurt," Bird answered, groping for a
word and finding exactly the right one.
"You must have lived in the country and been a great deal with flowers
to touch them so deftly and know so well about the colours."
"I always lived in the country until this summer, and Terry taught me
all about the colours and how to mix them."
"Who was Terry?" asked Marion, much interested, and not knowing that she
was treading upon dangerous ground.
"He was father," and Bird, remembering where she was, stopped abruptly,
and Marion, who had noticed the rusty black gown, understood that there
was a story in its shabby folds and forbore to intrude.
Miss Laura Clarke, who was the lady in gray, gave Billy a pasteboard box
lid of short-stemmed blossoms to play with, and he sat quite content,
while the others kept on tying the flowers until only one basketful was
left.
"The flowers come in every Wednesday morning, and I ask people to send
them in as early as possible, so that they may be sorted and tied
up by ten o'clock when the ladies come to distribute them," Marion
explained as they worked. "They are Miss Vorse, the deaconess from the
mission, beside two workers from the College Settlement, and half a
dozen district visitors. Those two hampers go direct to hospitals, but
the ladies take the flowers about to the sick in the tenements and to
special cases.
"I have come here from the country place where I live every week all
through May and June, but this is my last day this season, because I'm
going to Europe next week with my aunt, and Miss Vorse will take my
place."
Another disappointment for Bird. At last she had met some one to whom
she had felt drawn, and whom she thought she might see occasionally, and
almost in the same breath learned that she was going away.
"Do you know of any children who would like some flowers, or any one who
is ill?" she added, as she noticed that Bird was silent and loath to go,
even though all the bouquets were ready and Miss Laura was packing them
in the baskets and boxes for distribution.
"There's Tessie; oh, I know that Tessie would love to have some!" cried
Bird, eagerly; "she has not waved to us for nearly a week, and I was
going to see her this afternoon when Billy takes his nap, if Aunt Rose
will let me," and Bird told what she knew of the little cripple who
"kept house" by herself while her mother and sister worked.
Then a happy idea came to Marion Clarke. Handing out a flat wicker
basket, that held perhaps twenty-five bouquets, to Bird, she said:
"Would you like to be one of the Flower Missionaries this summer and
carry bouquets? Yes?" as she saw the glad look in her eyes; "then you
may fill this basket, and here is a big bouquet for you and something
extra sweet to add to the basket,--see, a bunch of real wallflowers,
such as grow over seas, some foreign-born body will go wild with joy
over it, and here is a fruit bouquet a youngster has evidently put
together,--big strawberries on their stalks set in their own leaves.
"Miss Vorse is coming now. I will introduce you and tell her to give
you the flowers. What is your name? Bird O'More. I'm glad of that; it
seems to fit you. I should have been disappointed if it had been Jane
Jones," she continued, as a sweet-faced, tall young woman, dressed in a
dark blue gown and bonnet, entered, saying: "I'm afraid that I am late,
but there is so much illness among the little children in the district
now that I could not get away. A new Flower Missionary! That is good;
children can reach those whom we cannot."
Presently Bird found herself walking along the street, Billy's hand in
one of hers, and the basket of flowers in the other. Billy was prattling
happily, but for once she scarcely heard what he said, the flower voices
were whispering so gently and saying such beautiful things.
"Take us to Tessie," whispered one. "God lets us bring sunlight to
dark places," said another--"You can do the same." "Be happy, you have
something to give away," breathed another, and this flower was a spray
of cheerful honeysuckle that blooms freely for every one alike.
Yes, Bird was happy, for Marion Clarke had held her by the hand and
called her a Flower Missionary; she had flowers to give away and flowers
to take home. Oh, joy! she could try to paint them, and she pushed the
bouquet that held the old garden flowers, the mignonette, sweet brier
and honeysuckle under the others to keep for her own.
If she waited to go home first, the flowers might fade, so an impulse
seized her to give Tessie her flowers first, and then turned into the
street below their own, trying to remember Mattie's directions--"Count
six houses from the butcher's, and then go through the arch, and up two
pairs of stairs to the top."
Before she had gone a block, two little girls had begged her for
flowers, one rosy and sturdy chose red and yellow zenias; the other,
who, like Billy, had a "bad leg" and hopped, chose delicate-hued sweet
peas. Bird had never seen a lame child in Laurelville, but now she met
them daily, for such little cripples are one of the frequent sights of
poorer New York.
At the first corner a blind woman, selling the mats she herself
crocheted, begged for "a posy that she could tell by the smell was
passing." To her Bird gave the bunch of mignonette. A burly truckman,
who thought she was selling the flowers, threw her a dime and asked for
a "good-smellin' bokay for the missis who was done up with the heat,"
so she tossed him back the coin and a bouquet of spicy garden pinks and
roses together, while Billy called in his piping voice, "We're a Flower
Mission--we gives 'em away," so that the man drove off laughing, his fat
face buried in the flowers.
When Bird had counted the "six houses from the butcher's" and found the
archway, which was really the entrance to a dismal alley, her basket was
almost empty. She hesitated about taking Billy into such a place, and in
fact but for her great desire to give Tessie the flowers, she would have
turned back herself. As she looked up and down the street, a policeman
passing noticed her hesitation and stopped.
"Sure it's the plucky girl from Johnny O'More's beyond that tried to
catch the thief,--and what do you be wantin' here?"
Bird recognized the policeman and explained, and he said, "Ye do right
not to be pokin' in back buildings heedless; it's not fit fer girls like
you, but this same is a dacent place, though poor, and as I'm not on me
beat, only passin' by chance, I'll go through to the buildin' with ye,
and the kid can stay below with me while ye go up, for stairs isn't the
easiest fer the loikes av him."
So through they went, the big policeman leading the way, and entering
the back building Bird began to grope upward. When the house had stood
by itself in the middle of an old garden, the sun had shone through and
through it, but now the windows on two sides were closed, and the halls
were dark, and the bannister rails half gone.
At the first floor landing she paused a moment. What was that tap,
tapping? It came from a small room made by boarding off one end of the
broad, old-fashioned hallway. The door was open and a single ray of sun
shot across from an oval window that had originally lighted the stairs
and was high in the wall.
In the streak of sun was a cobbler's bench and on it sat a man busily at
work fastening a sole to a shoe, so old that it scarcely seemed worth
the mending.
Then she went on again and, after knocking at two wrong doors, finally
found the right one.
"Come in," piped a shrill, cheery voice; "I can't come to open it," and
in Bird went.
"I hoped that you would come to-day," said the small figure, sitting
bolstered up in a wooden rocking-chair with her feet on a box covered
with an end of rag carpet, by way of greeting. No introduction was
necessary, for the two girls knew each other perfectly well, although
their previous acquaintance had merely been by waving rags across the
yards.
"My legs haven't felt as if they had bones in 'em in a week," Tessie
continued, "so's I couldn't reach up high enough to wave, and it seemed
real lonesome, but I've got a new pattern for lace, and there's a man in
the store where Mattie works who says he'll give me half-a-dollar for
every yard I make of it,--what do you think of that?" and she spread
out proudly a handsome bit of Irish crocheted lace upon which she was
working. It was four inches wide, a combination of clover leaves, and
very elaborate, of the kind that is so much sought now and costs many
dollars a yard in the shops.
"It is beautiful," explained Bird; "how do you know how to do it?"
"My mother learned long ago in the Convent in the old country, but her
hands are too stiff to make it now, and besides she says it wouldn't pay
her. So she showed me the stitch and some of the old patterns, and one
night last week, when I couldn't sleep very good, I was thinkin' of the
lace work, and I guess I must have dreamed the new pattern, for the next
morning I worked it right out. Those leaves is like some that came in a
pocketful of grass Mattie fetched me home; one day they were cutting it
over in the square, and the man let her take it. I just love the smell
o' grass, don't you? And now's I can't get out, Mattie brings me some in
her pocket every time she can. I guess she will to-night if they've cut
it to-day."
All this time Bird held her basket behind her, but now she wheeled
about and rested it on the arm of Tessie's chair. The joy of the child
was wonderful, almost startling. Her dark eyes dilated and she looked
first at Bird and then at the flowers, as she almost whispered in the
excitement of her surprise, "Ye ain't got 'em to keep, have ye?" Then as
Bird tipped them into her lap, "They ain't fer me, fer sure?"
[Illustration: "'_They ain't fer me, fer sure?_'"]
"Yes, they are, and I'm going to bring you some every Wednesday," said
Bird, joyfully, and then she told about Marion Clarke and the Flower
Mission.
"Ain't it jest heavenly to think of,--me with a whole winder to myself
that opens out and the crochet to do and real flowers, new ones that
ain't been used at all," and Tessie leaned back and closed her eyes in
perfect content.
Then suddenly Bird's sorrow seemed to grow lighter and life a little
brighter, and the sunlight as it were crept in to sweeten them both--she
had something to give away, and lo, it was good.
Tessie was down handling the blossoms again and discovered the berry
bouquet beneath. "Oh, but here's growing strawberries on a bush like!
Well, I never, never! But they're handsome! Maybe I could make a pattern
from them, too. Oh, surely there's angels about somewhere doin' things.
You know Father John, he says I've got a Guardian Angel looking out
after me, and St. Theresa my name saint chose her, and that everybody
has, though for a long spell I didn't know it. You see it's been easier
for her to look after me since we've got a room with an opened-out
winder. I reckon if I was an angel, I wouldn't care to poke around
air-shafts much. Oh, what's these browny-yeller flowers that smell so
elegant?" and Tessie held up the wallflowers.
When Bird told their name, Tessie gave a little cry and said, "They're
what mother talks about that grew up in the wall below the big house
at home where her father was a keeper, and the smell of them came in
the cottage windows in the night air right to her, and she's often said
she'd cross the sea again to smell them if she had the price, and now
she won't have to take that trouble. That angel has found our winder for
sure. Would you get me the little pitcher and some water in it yonder?"
The larger of the two rooms, the one with the window, had two clean
beds in it, over which a newspaper picture of the Madonna and Child was
pinned to the wall, two chairs, and an old bureau, while the smaller
room, little more than a closet, held a table, a few dishes, and an oil
cooking-stove, all as neat as wax. A pail of water stood on the table,
from which Bird filled the pitcher, and set it on a chair by Tessie
that she might herself arrange the flowers. Then, remembering that the
policeman and Billy were waiting, she picked up her basket and her own
flowers, and, promising to come the next week, groped her way downstairs
again.
Bird did not see the tired mother, when she returned from her day's
scrubbing, enter the dark room and drawing a quick breath say, in an
awe-struck voice, "I smell them--I smell the wallflowers! Sure, am I
dreaming or dying?" or see the way in which she buried her face in the
mass, laughing and crying together, when the lamp was lit and Tessie had
told her the how and why of it.
There were dreary days often after this, when her uncle was away on long
trips and her aunt was cross, but though Bird did not yet give up all
hope of going back some day among her friends, or studying, as she had
promised her father, she was learning the lesson of patience, which,
after all, is the first and last one to know by heart.
Now the morning-glories had reached the window tops, and in the little
bower above the clothes-lines she and Billy often sat as she told him
stories of the real country, of Lammy and Twinkle, the old white horse,
and the red peonies, and flew there in imagination. Then the child's big
eyes would flash as he gazed at her, and he always ended by asking,
"When we stop being birds in this cage, we'll fly right up there to
your country and be real birds and see Lammy and Twinkle, won't we?"
And Bird always answered, "Yes," to please him, but it was a word that
meant nothing to her. So the summer wore on, and Bird did not go back to
Laurelville.
IX
'RAM SLOCUM'S TAUNT
While Bird was putting away from her all thought of going back to
Laurelville for a summer visit, Lammy Lane was trying in every way to
bring about her return.
His mother was the only person in the family or village who really read
Lammy aright and valued him at his worth. She never laughed at his
various contrivances and mechanical inventions, and when he appeared to
be star-gazing, she firmly believed that it was not idleness, but that
he was interested in things other than the mere jog-trot work on the
farm.
His brothers had all taken up other occupations in factory and shop,
and Joshua Lane had expected that easy-going Lammy, the youngest by
several years, would naturally drift along into farm work; but the boy
had said, when his father had spoken upon the subject, "Farming is all
right, only this one isn't big enough for mo'n two, and I like to live
in the country for pleasure; but for a trade I'm going into making
somethin' that bugs can't eat, and that won't get dried up, nor drowned
out neither." To Joshua this remark savoured of feeble-mindedness; but
when he repeated it to Dr. Jedd, that keen-eyed person laughed, saying
they need not worry about Lammy, for that some day he might surprise
them all.
All through June he worked diligently at strawberry picking; then
currants and raspberries followed in quick succession, so that it was
nearly August, when, with twenty dollars to his credit in the Northboro
Savings Bank, he took a vacation and went to his old haunts with the
other boys.
Lammy had been bitterly disappointed when he found that Bird could not
return to spend the Fourth of July, but he was not in the least daunted;
for, after all, what was a whole summer even, when some day Bird would
come back for good? The boy firmly believed that something would turn up
to enable his father to buy the fruit farm, or if that was impossible,
he would try to coax his father and mother to get her back without.
There was always plenty to eat, and his home seemed so pleasant to him
that he did not realize how hard his parents had to struggle to make
both ends meet in the bad seasons when the bugs ate and the drought
dried. He did not, of course, know of John O'More's requirement that
if Bird ever returned she must be legally adopted, and share and share
alike with his brothers and himself; but if he had, it would have made
no difference.
Lammy was very fond of prowling in the deep woods and along the
river. He had intimate acquaintances among the gray squirrels, always
knew where fox cubs could be found, and had once reared a litter of
skunk pups under an abandoned barn. Their mother had evidently been
trapped,--for he never saw her,--and he fed the young with milk and
scraps, in the childish belief that they were some sort of half-wild
kittens, and was very much disgusted, when they were old enough to
follow him home, that his father declined to have them about, and that
they disappeared the very same night.