Carolyn May slept the sleep of the wearied, if not of the carefree. The
noises of the street did not disturb her, not even the passing of the
fire-department trucks some time after midnight.
Nor did nearer sounds arouse her. She had no knowledge of the fact that
a procession of A.D.T. boys and messengers from the railroad company
came to ring the bell of the Prices' apartment. Later the janitor's
family was aroused, but the little lame boy thought it would be better
for him to say nothing about having seen Carolyn May and of having given
her the keys.
So when, in the early morning, a taxicab stopped at the street door and
a bushy-haired, troubled-looking man got out and helped a woman clad in
brown to the sidewalk, the janitor had no knowledge of the fact that
Carolyn May and Prince were upstairs in the apartment that had been so
long empty.
"And the Prices are away," said Uncle Joe in a troubled voice. "What do
you think of that, Mandy?"
"Oh, Joe! where could the dear child have gone?"
"I haven't seen her," declared the janitor. "But I can let you into the
flat. There's been lots of telegrams to Mr. Price in the night--and they
weren't all yours. You're Carolyn May's uncle, ain't you?" he asked Mr.
Stagg.
Uncle Joe acknowledged the relationship. "Let's go upstairs," he said to
Amanda. "Now that I'm here--"
"Oh, dear, Joe!" almost wept Amanda, "could anything have happened to
her in this big city?"
"'Most anything, I s'pose," growled Joseph Stagg, following close on the
janitor's heels.
The janitor's passkey grating in the lock of the private hall door
started something that none of them expected. A startling bark echoed in
the rooms which were supposed to be empty.
"Whatever is that?" gasped the janitor.
"It's Prince! It's her dog!" shouted Uncle Joe.
"The child is here!" cried Amanda Parlow, and she was the first to enter
the apartment.
Prince bounded wildly to meet her. He leaped and barked. A cry sounded
from a room beyond. Miss Amanda and Uncle Joe rushed in.
Sleepily, her face flushed, rubbing her blue eyes wide open, Carolyn May
sat up in bed.
"Oh, Uncle Joe! Oh, Miss Amanda!" she said. "I--I was just dreaming my
own papa and mamma had come home and found me here."
"My dear! My _dear_!" sobbed Amanda Parlow, dropping to her knees beside
the bed.
"You're a great young one!" growled Uncle Joe, blowing his nose
suspiciously. "You've nigh about scared ev'rybody to death. Your Aunty
Rose is almost crazy."
"Oh--I'm--sorry," stammered Carolyn May. "But--you--see--Uncle Joe! you and
Miss Amanda are going to be happy now. Aunty Rose says 'two is comp'ny.'
So you wouldn't have room for me."
"Bless me!" gasped the hardware dealer. "What do you know about this
child's feeling that way, Mandy?"
"I am afraid we have been selfish, Joe," the woman said, sighing. "And
that is something that Carolyn May has never been in her life!"
"I dunno--I dunno," said Uncle Joe ruefully, and looking at the little,
flowerlike face of the child. "How about Aunty Rose? How d'you s'pose
she feels about Hannah's Car'lyn running away?"
"Oh!" ejaculated the little girl.
"It may be that 'two's company and three's a crowd,' but you and Aunty
Rose would be two likewise, wouldn't you, Car'lyn May?"
"I--I never thought of that, Uncle Joe," the child whispered.
"Why, your running away from The Corners this way is like to make both
Mandy and me unhappy, as well as Aunty Rose. I--I don't b'lieve Mandy
could get married at all if she didn't have a little girl like you to
carry flowers and hold up her train. How about it, Mandy?"
"That is quite true, Carolyn May," declared Miss Amanda, hugging the
soft little body of the child tightly again.
"Why, I--I----"
Carolyn May was, for once, beyond verbal expression. Besides, there was
a noise in the outer hall and on the stairway. The door had been left
open by the surprised janitor.
A burst of voices came into the apartment. Uncle Joe turned wonderingly.
Miss Amanda stood up. Carolyn May flew out of bed with a shriek that
startled them both.
"My papa! My mamma! I hear them! They're not drownd-ed! God didn't let
'em be lost at sea!"
She was out of the room in her nightgown, pattering in bare feet over
the floor. A brown man, with a beard and twinkling blue eyes, caught her
up in strong arms and hugged her swiftly--safely--to his breast.
"Snuggy!" he said chokingly. "Papa's Snuggy!"
"My baby! My baby!" cried the woman at whom Joseph Stagg was staring as
though he believed her to be the ghost of his lost sister Hannah.
It was several hours later before there was a really sane thing said or
a sane thing done in that little Harlem flat.
"It's like a lovely fairy story!" cried Carolyn May. "Only it's better
than a fairy story--it's _real_!"
"Yes, yes, it's real, thank God!" murmured the happy mother.
"And I'm never going away from my little girl again," added the father,
kissing her for at least the tenth time.
"But what Aunty Rose is going to do, I don't see," said Uncle Joe,
shaking his head with real commiseration. "I've sent her a despatch
saying that the child is safe. But if we go back without Hannah's
Car'lyn----"
"The poor soul!" said his sister. "I can believe that in her secret,
subdued way Aunty Rose Kennedy is entirely wrapped up in Carolyn May.
She will suffer if they are separated for long--and so abruptly."
"That is true," Miss Amanda said gently. "And Joe will feel it, too."
"I bet I will," agreed Joseph Stagg. "But I have you, Mandy. Aunty Rose
isn't going to have anybody. And for her to go back alone into her old
house--for she won't stay with us, of course--" he shook his head
dolefully.
"Let me write to Aunty Rose," said Hannah Cameron briskly. "We want her
here. Why, of course, we do! don't we, Carolyn May?"
"Why!" cried the child delightedly, "that's just the way out of it,
isn't it? My! how nice things do come about in this world, don't they?
Aunty Rose shall come here. You'll like her ever so much, papa. And
Prince will be glad to have her come, for she always _has_ treated
Princey real well."
Prince, who had been standing by with his ears cocked, yawned, whined,
and lay down with a sigh, as though considering the matter quite
satisfactorily settled.
Carolyn May, having climbed up into her father arms, reached out and
drew her mother close beside her.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Carolyn of the Corners, by Ruth Belmore Endicott