THE RING ON MISS OLAINE’S FINGER
Tom Moran read the besmirched letter Dorothy had received through her
advertisement in the paper. Then he made Poke Daggett give up the reply
he had taken addressed to “John Smith.”
“Explanation’s easy,” he said, bluntly. “These Daggetts knew me. Why, I
fed ’em for a whole month this winter when Jane Daggett was sick. Ain’t
that so, Poke?”
Poke whined: “Wal, ’twarn’t none o’ my doin’s, Tom. I tole ma how
’twould be. But she seen the notice in the Salvation Army paper. One o’
them Salvation Anns was round ter see us an’ lef’ the paper; maw said
mebbe there was money in it for us ef we played our cards right----”
“And all we were trying to find Mr. Moran for was because of his
little sister--and she wanting him so!” ejaculated Tavia. “My! but you
Daggetts must be mean sort of folks.”
This frank statement drew no comment from Poke. He was too meek now.
“Well, I reckon you can get out,” said Tom Moran, grimly. “And tell
your maw to bring around to the place where I’ve been boarding Miss
Dale’s hat and coat, the watch, the pocket-book and the ring--and
anything else they took from Miss Dale. If she doesn’t do it I’ll
see that she and you and that Munsey woman all go to jail, where you
belong. Believe me, I’ll do it!”
Tom Moran, although he had been only working at odd jobs about Dalton,
was a person of intelligence and seemed to feel sure of his ability to
do as he said. When Poke was out of the way, he turned back to Dorothy
and smiled broadly.
“I get it that you have been interesting yourself in my affairs, Miss,
and I thank you. If you can tell me anything about poor little Cely----”
“I can tell you all about her, Mr. Moran,” cried Dorothy, eagerly. “And
you really couldn’t find her?”
“I’ll tell you how it was,” said Tom Moran. “I went away to get work
that would pay me better. I was going to send money to Auntie every
month. I went with a gang to Mexico, and the very first week we were at
work a crowd of rebels came and drove us away from the job, and I got
shot.
“I was in a hospital in Texas. Then I came East, after writing and
getting no answer from Auntie. When I got home the very house we lived
in was torn down and there wasn’t a soul in the neighborhood remembered
my aunt, or little Cely, or knew what became of them.
“I hunted around and advertised in the papers, but didn’t get any news.
I had to go to work again, and I got a job on the Adrian Building, that
was put up right next to the old Rector Street School. I guess you read
about that school being burned?” he asked, with a sidelong glance at
Dorothy, that reminded the girl very much of Celia herself.
“We looked it up,” said Dorothy.
“Oh, and there’s Miss Olaine!” interposed the deeply interested Tavia.
“Did you know Miss Rebecca Olaine?”
“Hush, Tavia!” admonished Dorothy.
But Tom Moran flushed up to the very roots of his red hair, and his
blue eyes opened wide.
“Guess I do know her,” he said. “Why--why, we boarded at the same house
together, for a while. On Morrell Street. Of course--of course, Miss
Olaine was too high-toned a lady for me----”
Tavia sniffed. “I don’t know, Mr. Moran. She’s one of our teachers now
at Glenwood. Aren’t you just as good as anybody else?”
“Well! I dunno. I ain’t eddicated, as ye might say. When I get re’l
excited I drop inter the brogue, too,” and he shook his head with a
grin.
“Howsomever, no need to speak of that fire--or Miss Olaine----”
“But we want to know,” began the eager and curious Tavia.
“Hold on, now!” cried Ned White. “Let’s have things on order. All
this search of Dorothy’s was taken on because of the little girl, I
understand?”
“I promised Celia I’d find her brother,” said Dorothy, gravely. “And I
believe you are he, Mr. Moran. She says her brother is Tom Moran, and
that he is very big and strong, and--that his hair is red----”
“That’s me!” cried Tom Moran, slapping his knee, and bursting into
laughter. “The little dear! She used ter pull my hair when she was a
baby. She ain’t forgot.”
“No,” said Dorothy, quietly. “She hasn’t forgotten. ‘He builds bridges,
and things,’ Celia says. And she prays for you to come for her every
night, Tom Moran. She--she is just wearing her little heart out for
you,” and Dorothy hid her eyes and sobbed aloud.
“Oh, my dear!” cried Tavia, coming to hug her.
“You tell me all about her, Miss,” urged the red-haired man. “I’ll sure
go after her if she’s a thousand miles away.”
“Oh, she’s not,” replied Dorothy, through her tears. “She’s only eight
miles from Glenwood, on Mrs. Hogan’s farm.”
“That ogress!” muttered Tavia.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Tom Moran. “What d’ye call her? Isn’t Cely
being treated right by some woman?”
“It’s only that the child wants to be loved--and Mrs. Hogan doesn’t
love her,” Dorothy said, mildly. “She’s never improperly treated--not
really.”
“Just the same, that Hogan is an awful woman,” grumbled Tavia.
Dorothy proceeded to repeat to Tom Moran all the story of little Celia,
as the child had told it to her; and she told, also, of her first
meeting with Celia and her promise, and how she (Dorothy) had been lost
in the snow and had spent Sunday at Mrs. Hogan’s; likewise, how Celia,
“jes’ the cutest little thing,” had longed to see Dorothy so much that
she had run away from the farm woman and found Glenwood Hall all by
herself.
“And if you don’t say she’s the cutest thing you ever saw when you set
eyes on her----” interrupted the exuberant Tavia.
“I want to see her bad enough, the Lord knows. I was going to beat it
away from Dalton this very night. Lucky you boys set that rick afire,
or I’d still been sleeping, and I’d caught the night freight out of
here--that’s right,” said Tom Moran.
“But I’ll get a job now--a steady job. I’ll have an anchor if I have
Cely. That’s what Miss Olaine used to say I needed. Ye see,” said Tom,
again blushing, “she an’ me was awful good friends once.”
“But why did you run away after the schoolhouse fire?” asked Tavia, the
curious.
“Well, ye see,” said Tom Moran, “the newspaper made such a fuss over
it--and folks began to talk about doin’ foolish things----”
“You were a hero!” cried Tavia. “A real hero.”
“Aw, no,” said Moran, blushing again. “That was all newspaper talk.
Anyhow I didn’t want money for saving them kids from being burned up.”
“But you needn’t have run away,” sighed Dorothy. “Your modesty made us
a lot of trouble. You know, we might have found you out a long time
ago----”
“Huh! Everybody didn’t think so much of me,” grinned Tom Moran. Yet he
looked serious the next minute. “You see--Miss--Olaine---- Well, we’d
had some words, and I’d left the Morrell Street house before the fire
happened. I’d have gone away from that town, anyway.”
“And your seeing her at the fire helped to make you decide to leave
town?” demanded the shrewd Tavia.
“Why, Tavia!” murmured Dorothy, rather disturbed because her friend
seemed to pry into Tom Moran’s personal affairs.
“Something like that, I s’pose,” replied the young man, running his
blackened hands through his mop of red hair. “Ye see--Well! we was
engaged.”
“To be married?” queried Ned, open-eyed.
“Of course.”
“Oh, dear me!” whispered Dorothy in Tavia’s ear; “and we treated Miss
Olaine so meanly.”
“Huh! Did _we_ know it?” returned her friend.
“I guess she got sorry right away. Of course I ain’t in her class,”
said Tom Moran, soberly. “She’s got education. I ain’t got nothing but
a little schoolin’ an’ me two hands. But she was willing to wear my
ring, and----”
“Tell me,” interrupted Dorothy, herself getting personal now, “is it a
ring with a diamond in the middle and little chip emeralds around it?”
“Ye--as,” drawled Tom Moran, looking at her again in his sly way.
“She’s wearing it yet,” murmured Dorothy.
“And on her engagement finger,” cried Tavia. “I remember! She--she----”
“Hush!” warned Dorothy. Then she said to Tom Moran: “She must think a
whole lot of you yet, Mr. Moran.”
“Do--do you think so?”
“I am sure.” She whispered in his ear about Miss Olaine coming to
Number Nineteen the night little Celia had slept with Dorothy, and how
the teacher had stooped over and kissed the little girl.
“She did it in memory of you--I am sure,” Dorothy said, earnestly.
The others had stepped aside to look at the woodchucks. Tavia had seen
that Dorothy wished to speak to Tom Moran alone.
“Why was it she wouldn’t let me haul her out of that fire, then, two
years ago?” demanded Tom Moran, in an injured tone.
“Wouldn’t she let you help her?”
“She give me a shove into the fire herself. Guess that was an accident.
But she said, ‘Don’t you touch me!’” declared Tom.
“I wouldn’t let that worry me,” Dorothy said, decidedly. “I am sure
that Miss Olaine has been grieving over your absence all this time. She
was excited at the fire, I suppose. Oh, Mr. Moran! you can’t always
tell what a woman means by what she says.”
“Is that so?” returned Tom Moran, wonderingly.