I was going to say--well, you can imagine what I was going to say, and
that I didn't say it or anything like it.
"Well--there she is, Kitty Wilson, over yonder," he said.
I gasped, it was so unexpected. And I turned to look. There on one of
the benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't been blind as a bat and full
of trouble--oh, it thickens your wits, does trouble, and blinds your
eyes and muffles your ears!--I'd have suspected something at the mere
sight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson enthroned, a hatless, lank
little creature about twelve, and near her, clustered thick as ants
around a lump of sugar, was a crowd of children, black and white, boys
and girls. For Kitty--that deplorable Kitty--had money to burn; or
what was even more effective at her age, she had goodies to give away.
Her lap was full of spoils. She had a sample of every good thing the
fruit-stand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with candy. Her
dress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered still on her
chin and apron. And Kitty--I love a generous thief--was treating the
gang.
It helped itself from her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled and
asked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the birds were
hopping about as near as they dared, picking up the crumbs, and the
squirrels had peanuts to throw to the birds.
And all on Nancy Olden's money!
I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn't
accustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree with
her. I strolled over to where my guests were banqueting.
You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the A.D. I'm too
inquisitive. I want to know how the other fellow in the case feels and
thinks. It isn't enough for me to see him act.
"Kitty," I said--somehow a twelve-year-old makes you feel more of a
grown-up than a twelve-months-old does--"I hope you're having a
good--time, Kitty Wilson, but--haven't you lost something?"
She was chewing at the end of a long string of black
candy-shoe-strings, all right, the stuff looks like--and she was eating
just because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows, she was full
enough. Her jaws stopped, though, suddenly, as she looked from the
empty purse in my outstretched hand to me, and took me in.
Oh, I know that pause intimately. It says: "Wait a minute, till I get
my breath, and I'll know how much you know and just what lie to tell
you."
But she changed her mind when she saw my face. You know, Mag, if
there's a thing that's fixed in your memory it's the face of the body
you've done up. The respectables have their rogues' gallery, but we,
that is, the light-fingered brigade, have got a fools' gallery to
correspond to it.
In which of 'em is my picture? Now, Margaret, that's mean. You know
my portrait hangs in both.
I looked down on the little beggar that had painted me for the second
salon, and lo, in a flash she was on her feet, the lapful of good
things tumbled to the ground, and Kitty was off.
I was bitterly disappointed in that girl, Mag! I was altogether
mistaken in my diagnosis of her. Hers is only a physical cleverness, a
talented dexterity. She had no resource in time of danger but her
legs. And legs will not carry a grafter half so far as a good, quick
tongue and a steady head.
She halted at a safe distance and glared back at me. Her hostility
excited the crowd of children--her push--against me, and the braver
ones jeered the things Kitty only looked, while the thrifty ones
stooped and gathered up the spoil.
"Tell her I wouldn't harm her," I said to one of her lieutenants.
"She says she won't hurt ye, Kit," the child screamed.
"She dassent," yelled back Kitty, the valiant. "She knows I'd peach on
her about the kid."
"Kid! What kid?" I cried, all a-fire.
"The kid ye swiped this mornin'. Yah! I told the cop what brought her
back how ye took her jest as I--"
"Kitty!" I cried. "You treasure!" And with all my might I ran after
her.
Silly? Of course it was. I might have known what the short skirts
above those thin legs meant. I couldn't come within fifty feet of her.
I halted, panting, and she paused, too, dancing tantalizingly half a
block away.
What to do? I wished I had another purse to bestow on that sad Kitty,
but I had nothing, absolutely nothing, except--all at once I remembered
it--that little pin you gave me for Christmas, Mag. I took it off and
turned to appeal to the nearest one of the flying body-guard that had
accompanied us.
"You run on to her and tell her that if she'll show me the house where
that baby lives I'll give her this pin."
He sped on ahead and parleyed with Kit; and while they talked I held
aloft the little pin so that Kit might see the price.
She hesitated so long that I feared she'd slip through my hands, but a
sudden rival voice piping out, "I'll show ye the house, Missus," was
too much for her.
So, with Kit at a safe distance in advance to guard against treachery,
and a large and enthusiastic following, I crossed the street, turned a
corner, walked down one block and half up another, and halted before a
three-story brownstone.
I flew up the stairs, leaving my escort behind, and rang the bell. It
wasn't so terribly swagger a place, which relieved me some.
"I want to see the lady whose baby was lost this morning," I said to
the maid that opened the door.
"Yes'm. Who'll I tell her?"
Who? That stumped me. Not Nance Olden, late of the Vaudeville, later
of the Van Twiller, and latest of the police station. No--not Nance
Olden ... not ...
"Tell her, please," I said firmly, "that I'm Miss Murieson, of the
X-Ray, and that the city editor has sent me here to see her."
That did it. Hooray for the power of the press! She showed me into a
long parlor, and I sat down and waited.
It was cool and quiet and softly pretty in that long parlor. The
shades were down, the piano was open, the chairs were low and softly
cushioned. I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted.
And suddenly--Mag!--I felt something that was a cross between a
rose-leaf and a snowflake touch my hand.
If it wasn't that delectable baby!
I caught her and lifted her to my lap and hugged the chuckling thing as
though that was what I came for. Then, in a moment, I remembered the
paper and lifted her little white slip.
It was gone, Mag. The under-petticoat hadn't a sign of the paper I'd
pinned to it.
My head whirled in that minute. I suppose I was faint with the heat,
with hunger and fatigue and worry, but I felt myself slipping out of
things when I heard the rustling of skirts, and there before me stood
the mother of my baby.
The little wretch! She deserted me and flew to that pretty mother of
hers in her long, cool white trailing things, and sat in her arms and
mocked at me.
It was easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about being a
newspaper woman out on a story; how I'd run across the baby and all the
rest of it.
"I must ask your pardon," I finished up, "for disturbing you, but two
things sent me here--one to know if the baby got home safe, and the
other," I gulped, "to ask about a paper with some notes that I'd pinned
to her skirt."
She shook her head.
It was in that very minute that I noticed the baby's ribbons were pink;
they had been blue in the morning.
"Of course," I suggested, "you've had her clothes changed and--"
"Why, yes, of course," said baby's mother. "The first thing I did when
I got hold of her was to strip her and put her in a tub; the second,
was to discharge that gossiping nurse for letting her out of her sight."
"And the soiled things she had on--the dress with the blue ribbons?"
"I'll find out," she said.
She rang for the maid and gave her an order.
"Was it a valuable paper?" she asked.
"Not--very," I stammered. My tongue was thick with hope and dread.
"Just--my notes, you know, but I do need them. I couldn't carry the
baby easily, so I pinned them on her skirt, thinking--thinking--"
The maid came in and dumped a little heap of white before me. I fell on
my knees.
Oh, yes, I prayed all right, but I searched, too. And there it was.
What I said to that woman I don't know even now. I flew out through
the hall and down the steps and--
And there Kitty Wilson corralled me.
"Say, where's that stick-pin?" she cried.
"Here!--here, you darling!" I said, pressing it into her hand. "And,
Kitty, whenever you feel like swiping another purse--just don't do it.
It doesn't pay. Just you come down to the Vaudeville and ask for Nance
Olden some day, and I'll tell you why."
"Gee!" said Kitty, impressed. "Shall--shall I call ye a hansom, lady?"
Should she! The blessed inspiration of her!