TANIA, A PRINCESS
"Madge, do you think there is any chance that Tom won't meet us?"
inquired Eleanor Butler nervously. "I do wish we could have come on to
New York with Lillian, Phil, and Miss Jenny Ann instead of making that
visit to Baltimore. It seems so funny that they have been in New York two
whole days before us. I suppose they have seen Madeleine's presents, and
our bridesmaids' dresses--and everything!"
Eleanor sighed as she leaned back luxuriously in the chair of the Pullman
coach, gazing down the aisle at her fellow passengers.
Madge was occupied in staring very hard at her reflection in the small
mirror between her seat and Eleanor's. She had wrinkled her small nose
and was surreptitiously applying powder to the tip end of it.
"Of course Tom and the girls will meet us, Eleanor," she replied
emphatically. "Tom would expect us to be lost forever if we were to be
turned loose in New York by ourselves. Oh, dear me, isn't it too splendid
that we are going to be Madeleine's bridesmaids? I wonder if we shall
look very 'country' before so many society people?"
"Of course we shall," returned Eleanor calmly. "You need not look at
yourself again in that mirror. You are very well satisfied with yourself,
aren't you?" teased Eleanor.
Madge blushed and laughed. "I _do_ like our clothes, Nellie," she
admitted candidly. "You know perfectly well that we have never had
tailored suits before in our lives. You do look too sweet in that pale
gray, like a little nun. That pink rose in your hat gives just the touch
of color you need. I am sure I don't see why you are so sure we shall
seem countrified," ended Madge. She had liked her reflection in the
glass. She wore a light-weight blue serge traveling suit without a
wrinkle in it, a spotless white linen waist, and her new hat was
particularly attractive. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed and her eyes
glowed with the excitement of arriving for the first time in New York
City.
"We are almost in Jersey City now, aren't we, Madge?" exclaimed Eleanor,
making a leap for her bag, which promptly tumbled out of the rack above
and fell directly on the head of a young man who was walking down the
aisle of the car.
Madge giggled. Eleanor, however, was crimson with mortification. The
young man did not appear to be pleased. The girls had a brief glimpse of
him. He had blue eyes and sandy hair and was exceedingly tall. Eleanor's
bag had knocked his glasses off and he was obliged to stoop in search of
them in the aisle.
"Oh, I am so sorry," apologized Eleanor in her soft, Southern voice, as
she picked up the glasses and restored them to their owner. "I am glad
they were not broken."
The young man paid not the slightest attention to her apology.
"Hurry, Nellie," advised Madge, "it is nearly time for us to get off the
train and your hat is on crooked. Don't be such a timid little goose! You
are actually trembling. Of course Tom or some one will meet us, and if
they don't I shall not be in the least frightened." Madge announced this
grandly. "That whistle means we are entering Jersey City. We will find
Tom waiting for us at the gate."
Eleanor obediently followed Madge out of their coach. The little captain
seemed older and more self-confident since she had been graduated at Miss
Tolliver's, but Nellie hoped devoutly that her cousin would not become
imbued with the impression that she was really grown-up. It would spoil
their good times.
The two girls had never seen such a headlong rush of people in their
lives. They clung desperately to their bags when a porter attempted to
carry them. A man bumped violently against Madge, but he made no effort
to apologize as he rushed on through the crowd.
"I never saw so many people in such a hurry in my life," declared Nellie
pettishly. "They behave as though they thought New York City were on fire
and they were all rushing to put the fire out. I shall be glad when Tom
takes charge of us."
Once through the great iron gates the girls looked anxiously about for
Tom, but saw no trace of him.
"I suppose Tom must have missed the ferry," declared Madge with pretended
cheerfulness. "We shall have to wait here for only about ten minutes
until the next ferry boat comes across from New York."
When fifteen minutes had passed and there was still no sign of Tom, Madge
began to feel worried.
"Madge, I am sure you have made some kind of mistake," argued Eleanor
plaintively. "I know Mrs. Curtis would not fail to have some one here on
time to meet us for anything in the world. Perhaps Tom wrote for us to
come across the ferry, and that he would meet us on the New York side.
Where is his letter?"
"It is in my trunk, Nellie," replied Madge in a crestfallen manner. She
was not nearly so grown-up or so sure of herself as she had been half an
hour before. "I know it was silly in me not to have brought Tom's letter
with me, but I was so sure that I knew just what it said. Perhaps we had
better go on over to New York. Let's hurry. Perhaps that boat is just
about to start."
The two young women hurried aboard the boat, which left the dock a moment
later, just as a tall, fair-haired young man, accompanied by two girls,
hurried upon the scene. The young man was Tom Curtis and the young women
were Phyllis Alden and Lillian Seldon.
In the meantime Madge and her cousin had crossed the river and had landed
on the New York side. What was the dreadful roar and rumble that met
their ears? It sounded like an earthquake, with the noise of frightened
people shrieking above it. After a horrified moment it dawned on the two
little strangers that this was only the usual roar of New York, which Tom
Curtis had so often described to them.
"There isn't any use of our staying here very long, Eleanor," declared
Madge, feeling a great wave of loneliness and fear sweep over her. "An
accident must have happened to Tom's automobile on his way to the train
to meet us. I am afraid we were foolish not to have stayed at the Jersey
City station. I am sure Tom wrote he would meet us there. I have behaved
like a perfect goose. It is because I boasted so much about not being
frightened and knowing what to do. But I _do_ know Mrs. Curtis's address.
We can take a cab and drive up there."
Eleanor would fall in with Madge's plans to a certain point; then she
would strike. Now she positively refused to get into a cab. Her mother
and father and Miss Jenny Ann had warned her never to trust herself in a
cab in a strange city. New York was too terrifying! Eleanor would search
for Mrs. Curtis's home on foot, in a car, or a bus, but in a cab she
would not ride.
Madge was obliged to give in gracefully. A policeman showed the girls to
a Twenty-third Street car. He explained that when they came to the Third
Avenue L they must get out of the car and take the elevated train uptown,
since Madge had explained to him that Mrs. Curtis lived on Seventieth
Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues.
There was only one point that the policeman failed to make clear to
Eleanor and Madge. He neglected to tell them that elevated trains, as
well as other cars, travel both up and down New York City, and the way to
discover which way the "L" train is moving is to consult the signs on the
steps that lead up to the elevated road. The policeman supposed that the
two young women would make this observation for themselves. Of course,
under ordinary circumstances, Madge and Nellie would have been more
sensible, but they were frightened and confused at the bare idea of being
alone in New York and consequently lost their heads, and they dashed up
the Third Avenue elevated steps without looking for signs, settled
themselves in the train and were off, as they supposed, for Seventieth
Street.
They were too much interested in gazing into upstairs windows, where
hundreds of people were at work in tiny, dark rooms, to pay much
attention to the first stops at stations that their train made. They knew
they were still some distance from Mrs. Curtis's. Madge was completely
fascinated at the spectacle of a fat, frowsy woman holding a baby by its
skirt on the sill of a six-story tenement house. Just as the car went by
the baby made a leap toward the train. Madge smothered her scream as the
woman jerked the child out of danger just in time. Then it suddenly
occurred to her that this was hardly the kind of neighborhood in which to
find Mrs. Curtis's house. The sign at the next stop was a name and not a
street number. It could not be possible that she and Eleanor had made
another mistake!
Madge hurried back to the end of the car to find the conductor.
"We wish to get out at the nearest station to Seventieth Street and
Lexington Avenue," she declared timidly.
The man paid not the slightest attention to her. Madge repeated her
question in a somewhat bolder tone.
"You ain't going to get off near Seventieth Street for some time if you
keep a-traveling away from it," retorted the conductor crossly. "You've
got on a downtown 'L' 'stead of an up. Better change at the next station.
You'll find an uptown train across the street," the man ended more
kindly, seeing the look of consternation on Madge's white face.
The girls walked sadly down the elevated steps, dragging their bags,
which seemed to grow heavier with every moment. They found themselves in
one of the downtown foreign slums of New York City. It was a bright,
early summer afternoon. The streets were swarming with grown people and
children. Pushcarts lined the sidewalks. On an opposite corner a hand
organ played an Italian song. In front of it was a small open space,
encircled by a group of idle men and women. Before the organ danced a
little figure that Madge and Eleanor stopped to watch. They forgot their
own bewilderment in gazing at the strange sight. The dancer was a little
girl about twelve years old, as thin as a wraith. Her hair was black and
hung in straight, short locks to her shoulders. Her eyes were so big and
burned so brightly that it was difficult to notice any other feature of
her face. The child looked like a tropical flower. Her face was white,
but her cheeks glowed with two scarlet patches. She flung her little arms
over her head, pirouetted and stood on her tip toes. She did not seem to
see the curious crowd about her, but kept her eyes turned toward the sky.
Her dancing was as much a part of nature as the summer sunshine, and
Madge and Eleanor were bewitched.
A rough woman came out of a nearby doorway. She stood with her hands on
her hips looking in the direction of the music. "Tania!" she called
angrily. Elbowing her way through the crowd, she jostled Madge as she
passed by her. "Tania!" she cried again. The men and women spectators let
the woman make her way through them as though they knew her and were
afraid of her heavy fist. Only the child appeared to be unconscious of
the woman's approach. Suddenly a big, red arm was thrust out. It caught
the little girl by the skirt. With the other hand she rained down blows
on the child's upturned face. One blow followed the other in swift
succession. The little dancer made no outcry. She simply put one thin arm
over her head for protection.
The music went on gayly. No one of the watching men and women tried to
stop the woman's brutality. But Madge was not used to the indifference of
the New York crowd. Like a flash of lightning she darted away from
Eleanor and rushed over to the woman, who was dragging the child along
and cuffing her at each step.
"Stop striking that child!" she ordered sharply. "How can you be so
cruel? You are a wicked, heartless woman!"
The woman paid no attention to Madge. She did not seem even to have heard
her, but lifted her big, coarse arm for another blow.
Madge's breath came in swift gasps. "Don't strike that child again," she
repeated. "I don't know who she is, nor what she has done, but she is too
little for you to beat her like that. I won't endure it," the little
captain ended in sudden passion.
The woman turned her cruel, bloodshot eyes slowly toward Madge. She was
one of the strongest and most brutal characters in the slums of New York,
and few dared to oppose her. She was even a terror to the policemen in
the neighborhood.
"Git out!" she said briefly.
Her arm descended. It did not strike the child. Quick as a flash, Madge
Morton had flung herself between the woman and the child. For a moment
the blow almost stunned the girl. The East Side crowd closed in on the
girl and the woman. If there was going to be a fight, the spectators did
not intend to miss it. Eleanor was numb with fear and sympathy. She did
not know whether to be more frightened for Madge than sorry for the
child.
The woman's face was mottled and crimson with anger. Madge's face was
very white. She held her head high and looked her enemy full in the
face.
"Git out of this and stop your interferin'!" shouted the virago. "This
here child belongs to me and I'll do what I like with her. If you are one
of them social settlers coming around into poor people's places and
meddlin' with their business, you'd better git back where you belong or
I'll social-settle you."
At this moment a thin, hot hand caught hold of Madge's and pulled it
gently. Madge gazed down into a little face, whose expression she never
forgot. It was whiter than it had been before. The scarlet color had gone
out of the cheeks and the big, black eyes burned brighter. But there was
not the slightest trace of fear in the look. Instead, the child's lips
were curved into an elf-like smile.
"Don't stay here, lady, please," she begged. "The ogress will be horrid
to you. She can't hurt me. You see, I am an enchanted Princess."
An instant later the child received a savage blow from the woman's hard
hand full in the face without shrinking. It was Madge who winced. Tears
rose to her eyes. She put her arms about the child and tried to shelter
her.
"Don't be calling me no names, Tania," the woman cried, dragging at the
child's thin skirts. "Jest you come along home with me and you'll git
what is comin' to you, you good-for-nothin' little imp."
"Is she your mother?" asked Madge doubtfully, gazing at the brutal woman
and the strange child.
Tania shook her black head scornfully. "Oh, dear, no," she answered. "It
is only that I have to live with her now, while I am under the
enchantment. Some day, when the wicked spell is broken, I shall go away,
perhaps to a wonderful castle. My name is Titania. I think it means that
I am the Queen of the Fairies."
The woman laughed brutishly. "Queen of gutter, you are, Miss Tania. I'll
tan you," she jeered, as she dragged the little girl from Madge's arms.
The little captain looked despairingly about her. There, a calm witness
of the entire scene, was a big New York policeman. "Officer," commanded
Madge indignantly, "make that woman leave that child alone."
The big policeman looked sheepish. "I can't do nothing with Sal," he
protested. "If I make her stop beating Tania now, she'll only be meaner
to her when she gets her indoors. Best leave 'em alone, I think. I have
interfered, but the child says she don't mind. I don't think she does,
somehow; she's such a queer young 'un'."
Sal was now engaged in shaking Tania as she pushed her along in front of
her. Madge and Eleanor were in despair.
Suddenly a well-dressed young man appeared in the crowd. There was
something oddly familiar in his appearance to Eleanor, but she failed to
remember where she had seen him before. "Sal!" he called out sharply,
"leave Tania alone!"
Instantly the woman obeyed him. She slunk back into her open doorway. The
crowd melted as though by magic; they also recognized the young man's
authority. A moment later he was gone. Madge, Eleanor, and the strange
little girl stood on the street corner almost alone.