Mrs. Bolan was faintly breathing, as she had been since midnight, but so
cold that she might easily be thought dead. Mrs. Murphy's baby was
asleep.
The babies were crowing and talking in their fashion, unmindful of
sorrow.
"The pore dear," said Mrs. Murphy tenderly, viewing Bess; "I'm thinkin'
we better care for her afore Dil wakes up. An' she never havin' had a
bit o' christenin', along o' Mrs. Quinn not belevin' nothin'. I've heard
her talk a way that wud set yer blood a-chill."
"The Lord took the little ones in his arms and said, 'Forbid them not,'
and I guess he won't mind the christenin'. And this child's been patient
and cheerful beyond common. I think she's had a lot of Christian grace
unbeknownst. She'd look up with her sweet smile that almost broke your
heart, when Dil would be takin' her out. And how she stood everything--"
"Mrs. Quinn's been not so savage as she used. 'Tain't nat'rel for
mothers to be so cruel. But 'twas last March, if I don't disremember--you
were not here then, Mrs. Minch--she made such a nawful 'ruction that the
neighbors called in de cop, and nothin' but her beggin' off an' sayin'
the children wud starve, an' promisin' on her bended knees, which she
never uses fer a bit o' prayer, saved her. An' she don't bang 'em about
quite so bad since."
"There was an awful time the other night."
"Yes; that Owny's too smart, an' mebbe he would er banged her in a fair
fight; but he cut stick, an' hasn't shown hide ner hair sence."
Mrs. Murphy leaned over Dil, and uttered a benison in her ignorant
Christianity.
"'Pears like they jist oughten to go togither. She looks like a ghost,
poor thing." Then she lifted Bess from the shabby wagon that had been
her home so long, and brought her out on the lounge.
"Will ye look at them poor legs?" she said with a cry. "They do make yer
heart bleed. She was a smart little thing, goin' to school, whin it
happened. The father oughter been hung fer it; fer it was he that did
it, murderin' by inches. An' he beat Mrs. Quinn to a jelly. Wudden't ye
think now she'd had enough o' rum, not to be goin' the same road?"
Mrs. Minch sighed.
"It's stuck everywhere, right in a body's way, Mrs. Murphy. They're
taxin' people for prisons and 'sylums and homes for orphans, when they
haven't the sense to shut up the saloons and gin-mills. Look at that
Mrs. MacBride, smilin' and making it pleasant for a hard-workin' woman,
havin' a nice warm room for gossipin' and such, and bein' clever enough
to make them run up a score, and get her money once a week. There's no
dancin' nor carousin'; but it takes in the decentish sort of women, and
turns 'em out as bad as the men. It's the poor families that's pinched
and starved and set crazy. When I think of my boy growin' up in it--but
where'll poor folks go? Saloons are all over. They fight for the chance
to ruin folks."
"Thrue for ye, Mrs. Minch. An' sorra indade it is whin ye do be sad that
they come into the world, an' rej'ice whin they go out of it young.
They're spared a dale o' pain an' care. Yet it do seem wrong some way.
Childers should be a blessin' an' comfort to yer ould age. Things is
changed in the world. One gits that confused with thinkin'--"
They had prepared some water, but the poor little body was clean and
sweet. It was heart-breaking to see it.
Mrs. Murphy went into the bedroom for some clothing.
"Will ye look at the sort o' bury Dil made out o' boxes an' covered.
She's that handy an' full o' wit. An' them clo'es is like snow, and all
mended nate. I don't see how she cud do it wid all the babies. An' I do
be thinkin' it was Dil's love that kep' the little wan alive so long. It
was like medicine; her warm arms an' cheery smile, her patience an'
thinkin' what wud pleasure Bess. If there don't be a straight road to
hiven fer thim both--an' purgatory ought to be saved fer the ither kind.
Now, it don't look a bit sinsible that little lamb shud suffer whin
she's suffered so much a'ready! Sometimes I most think the church has
mistook whin they save the rumsellers an' the great wicked men wid their
money, cause they kin pay fer prayers."
"She's in heaven, if there is any heaven." Sometimes Mrs. Minch doubted.
"An' oh, Mrs. Minch, if there wasn't any hiven to rest us at last, how
cud we live through the cruel world?"
Such a pathetic cry as it was!
The doctor came. He looked at Bess, and asked a few questions, made a
note or two in his book, cutting short Mrs. Murphy's explanations.
"Yes, yes; I've seen the child. She's been strung on fine steel wires,
or they'd given way long ago. And the old woman? Strange how they go on
living when they had a hundred times better be dead, and the people of
some account go out like the snuff of a candle! Where's the girl?"
glancing around.
"In there." Mrs. Murphy nodded towards the room.
Dil lay motionless, but for the faint breathing. The doctor listened
with his ear down on her heart, felt her pulse, and seemed in a study.
"Let her sleep as long as she can. She has worn herself out. She used to
wheel this one round," nodding. "Have in some fresh air; the room is
stifling. How any one lives--"
Dil roused without opening her eyes.
"Was it you, Bess? Oh, _is_ it morning?"
"No, no; go to sleep again. The night's just begun. She's dead tired
out," to the women. "Let the mother come round when she can, and get rid
of these young ones before the girl wakes. If there's anything else
wanted, send round. Are these people very poor?"
"Mrs. Quinn goes out washing. And the babies are taken in by the day. I
don't know"--doubtfully.
"The mother will settle that. And the old lady--the city must bury her, I
suppose?"
"'Deed an' it must. She's had nothin' but her pinshin, an' has no folk."
They found Bess's nice white frock pinned up in a cloth, beautifully
ironed and laid away in anticipation of the journey--the very journey she
had taken so unknowingly. They put it on, and smoothed down the poor
little legs with tender hands. Then they laid her on her mother's bed
until Dil should rouse.
Mrs. Minch brought up her sewing, while Mrs. Murphy went to her own room
to look after Mrs. Bolan. Mrs. Carr, another neighbor, came in and
helped with the babies, and wondered how Dilly Quinn had ever been able
to do as much work as a hearty, grown woman, and she not bigger than a
ten-year-old child!
It was three o'clock when Dil roused. Mrs. Minch sat quietly at her
sewing. The wagon was pushed clear up to the window, empty.
"O Mrs. Minch, what has happened?" She sprang out, wild-eyed and
quivering.
"My dear," Mrs. Minch took her in her arms, "Bess is better off. She is
in heaven with the good God, who will be tenderer of her than any human
friend. She will have no more pain. She will be well and strong, and a
lovely angel. You would not wish her back--"
"Yes, I do, I do. We was goin' to heaven together in the spring; we had
it all planned. And Bess wouldn't 'a' gone without me--oh, I know she
wouldn't. Where is she? What have you done with her?"
"She is in there."
Dil flew to her mother's room. The ironing-board lay on the bed, and a
strange, still shape imperfectly outlined under the sheet.
"She looks like an angel," said Mrs. Minch.
Dilsey Quinn stared, bereft of her senses for some moments. Slowly the
incidents of the morning came over her--of last night, when Bess seemed
so improved, so hopeful. She had seen dead people. Death was no stranger
in Barker's Court. There were "wakes," and quiet, hurried burials. They
died and were taken away, that was all. With a curious, obstinate
unreason she knew Bess had died like all the rest; yet she had been so
sure Bess could not die. But she had _not_ gone to heaven. The breath
had gone out of her body, but a breath couldn't go to heaven. She had
left her body here; the poor hurted legs the Lord Jesus would have
mended. They could never be mended now, for they would be put in the
ground.
She stood so still that Mrs. Minch raised the sheet. The pinched look
was going out of the face, as it often does after death. The eyes were
closed; the long bronze lashes were beautiful; the thin lips had been
pressed rather tightly, as if in fear that they might betray their
secret. Yet it had a strange, serene beauty.
Dil did not cry or utter a sound. A great solitude enveloped her, as if
she were alone in a wide desert. She would never have any one to love or
caress; a thick darkness settled all about her, as if now she and Bess
were shut out of heaven forever. For what would the palace be, and the
angels innumerable, if Bess was not there?
She turned and went to her own room, began to pick up the things and
tidy it, spread the cot, shook the cushion of the poor dilapidated
wagon, carefully laid over it the blanket she had taken so much pains to
make.
"Mrs. Minch," she said, "will you please bring Bess in here. Mammy
wouldn't like her there. An' I want her here--on my bed."
Mrs. Minch looked at her in surprise. The face was rigid and
unresponsive, but there was an awesome, chilling sorrow in every line.
She reverently obeyed Dil's behest.
"You are very good. You see, no one cared 'bout her but jes' me an'
Patsey an'"--Ah, what _would_ John Travis say? "An' I want to keep her
here."
"My dear, dear child--"
She put away the kindly hands, not ungently, but as if she could not
quite bear them--as if she was too sore for any human touch.
"How did I come to sleep so long?" she asked, in a strained, weary tone.
"You were so tired, poor dear. The doctor was in, and he said it was the
best thing for you. Mrs. Murphy has been in and out, and Mrs. Carr."
"You took care of the babies?" Her lips quivered, and a few big tears
rolled down her cheeks. She could suffer, if the time to sorrow had not
yet come.
"Yes, dear. I don't see how you get along so with them. And do you feel
better?"
The kind eyes studied her with concern.
"I'm well. I never do get sick."
"Do you know where your mother is?"
"Not the street. No, ma'am. The people have a queer long name. An'
she'll be late th' night."
Mrs. Murphy looked in the door.
"Ah, yer up, an' ye do look better. Hev ye had anything to ate? Do ye
mind if I have Mrs. Minch come up-stairs just a bit?"
"Oh, no." Dil did not notice the strain in the eyes, the awesomeness of
facing death.
"I cudden't be alone. She's roused, but she's almost gone; fightin' fer
life, one may say, at the very end," she whispered as they went up the
stairs.
The babies were amusing themselves. Dil uncovered the face of her dead,
and looked long and earnestly, as if she knew there was a great mystery
she ought to solve. Ah, how sweet she was! Dil's heart swelled with a
sense of triumph. She had always been so proud of Bess's beauty.
But what was _dead?_ It happened any time, and to anybody, to babies
mostly, and made you cold and still, useless. Then you were taken away
and buried. It was altogether different from going to heaven. What
strange power had taken Bess, and kept her from that blessed journey?
Why did the Lord Jesus let any one do it? John Travis couldn't have been
so mistaken, and Christiana, and the children.
She was so glad they had put on her best dress, bought with John
Travis's money. Ah, if they only had started that day and risked all!
Here was her blue sash and the blue bows for her sleeves. She hardly had
the courage to touch the beloved form.
How strangely cold the little hands were. She kissed them, and then she
no longer felt afraid. She raised the frail figure, and passed the
ribbon round the waist. Almost it seemed as if Bess breathed.
She brought the brush and comb, and curled the hair in her own flowing
fashion, picking out the pretty bang in rings, kissing the cold cheeks,
the shell-like eyelids. Why, surely Bess was only asleep. She must, she
would waken, to-morrow morning perhaps. A sudden buoyant hope
electrified her. She had her again, and the horrible thought of
separation vanished. Dil was too ignorant to formulate any theories, but
every pulse stirred within her own body.
Two of the mothers came for babies, but she uttered no word of what had
happened. Then she fed the others, and fixed the fire, and Dan peered in
fearfully. She gave him a slice of bread, and he was glad to be off.
Up-stairs they had watched the breath go out of the poor body.
"Pore thing! God rist her sowl wheriver it is," and Mrs. Murphy crossed
herself.
"Has she no friends?"
"Not a wan, I belayve. She used to talk of some nevys whin she first
come, that's nigh two years ago. But she'd lost track of them. I'm sure
I've taken good care of the pore ould craythur, an' I hope some wan will
do the same to me at the last."
"You're a kindly woman, Mrs. Murphy, and God grant it. We don't know
where nor when the end will come."
Mrs. Minch stopped as she went down-stairs.
"Poor old Mrs. Bolan has gone to the better land. She and Bess will have
a Christmas with the angels. They will not want to come back here."
Dil had no courage to argue. But she knew to the very farthest fibre of
her being, that nothing could so change Bess that she would desire to
stay anywhere without her.
Mrs. Garrick had heard the tidings before she came in for her baby, and
was profuse in her sympathies.
"But it's the Lord's mercy, for she were a poor sufferer, and was jist
waitin'. How did it happen? Was it in the night, whilst ye were all
asleep? An' to think yer poor mother whint away knowin' nothin'."
"I can't talk about it. I--I don't know."
"An' old Mis' Bolan. Well, I'll run up-stairs a bit, an' see Mrs.
Murphy."
She was rewarded for her trouble here; the strange curiosity of some, as
if the dead face could answer the mystery.
"She's a moighty quare girl, that Dilsey Quinn. Niver to be askin' one
to look at the corpse; an' if Bess hadn't been so peaked, she would have
been a pritty child. She had such iligant hair."
The neighbors began to make calls of condolence. Two deaths in a house
was an event rather out of the common order of things.
Dil awed them by her quiet demeanor, and answered apathetically, busying
herself with the supper.
"What hev ye done wid her?" asked one. "Shure, she's not bin tuk away?"
"No; she's in ther', in my room. An'--an' she's mine."
For to Dil there seemed something sacred about Bess, and she kept guard
rigorously. It was not simply a dead body to gloat over. They could go
up-stairs and look at Mrs. Bolan.
It was nine o'clock when her mother came home laden with budgets, and
Dan following in a vaguely frightened manner. He had been hanging about
Mrs. MacBride's, waiting for her. She had gone in and taken her "sup o'
gin," and heard the news, also the complaints.
"Whiniver did it happen, Dil?" throwing down her budgets. "She's been no
good to hersilf nor no wan else this long while. An' she cudden't iver
git well, an' was a sight o' trouble. But I'm clear beat. Week after
week I thought she'd be sure to go, but when you're lookin', the thing
niver comes. An' it's took me so suddent like, that I had no breath left
at all. Was it true--did ye find her dead, an' faint clear away?"
She looked rather admiringly at Dil.
"Yes--she were cold," said Dil briefly. "An' then I don't know what
happened."
"Ye pore colleen! Ye'll be better widout her, an' ye'll be gittin well
an' strong agin. It's bin a hard thing, an' yer divil of a father shud a
had his own back broke. But he's fast enough, and I hope they'll kape
him there. Any word of Owny?"
"No." Oh, what would Owny say--an' Patsey.
"Who kem an' streeked her? Let's see."
She took the lamp and went in. It seemed to Dil as if she would even now
shake her fist at Bess, and the child stood with bated breath.
"She were a purty little thing, Dil," the mother said with a softened
inflection. "Me sister Morna had yellow hair an' purplish eyes, and was
that fair an' sweet, but timid like. I believe me mother had some such
hair, but the rest of us had black. She looks raile purty, an' makes a
better corpse than I iver thought. Why didn't ye lit thim see her, Dil?
Ye's needn't a been shamed of her."
Dil was saved from answering by the advent of a throng of neighbors. The
room seemed so warm, and there was such a flurry, she dropped on the
lounge faint and breathless.
"Go to bed, Dan," said his mother.
Dil rose again and opened the door. The cold air, close and vile as it
was, felt grateful.
"Go up-stairs a bit in Mrs. Murphy's;" and though the permission was a
command, Dil went gratefully.
Mrs. Murphy sat sewing to make up for lost time. Her little girl was
asleep in the cradle. She had improved since cooler weather had set in.
The door of one room was shut. The old chintz-covered Boston rocker was
empty.
"I couldn't stay to see them all lookin' at her," she exclaimed
tremulously, as she almost tottered across the room.
"No, dear." Mrs. Murphy took her in her arms. "Ye look like a ghost. But
Bess is main pritty, an' it's a custom. Will ye sit here?"
Dil shuddered as she looked at the empty chair where Mrs. Bolan used to
sit.
"No; I'll take the stool. I just want to be a bit still like an' think.
I couldn't talk 'bout _her_, you know."
"Yes, dear," with kindly sympathy.
Dil dropped on a box stool, leaning her folded arms on a chair. Mrs.
Murphy took up her sewing again. She longed to comfort, but she was sore
afraid the two lorn souls were wandering about purgatory. She had a
little money of Mrs. Bolan's that she meant to spend in masses. But who
would pay for a mass for Bessy Quinn's soul? And she had never been
baptized. The ignorant, kindly woman was sore distressed.
Dil seemed to look through the floor and see the picture down-stairs.
All her sense of possession rose in bitter revolt. Yet now she was
helpless to establish her supreme right. Her mother had grudged Bess the
frail, feeble spark of life; she alone had cared for her, loved her,
protected her, and she was shut out, sent away. Now that Bess needed no
care and lay there quiet, they could come and pity her.
Presently more tranquil thoughts came. Even her mother could not do
anything to hurt Bess. She was safe at last.
There had been so much repression and self-control in Dil's short life,
that it made her seem apathetic now. And yet, slowly as the poor pulses
beat, there was a strange inward fire and stir, as if she must do
something. A curious elusiveness shrouded the duty or work, and yet it
kept hovering before her. Oh, what was it?
Did she fall asleep, and was it a vision, a vague remembrance of
something she had heard? Bess was not dead, but in a strange, strange
sleep. Once there had been a little girl in just this sleep, and One had
come--yes, she would get up--about midnight these strange charms worked.
She would get up and go softly over to Bess. She would take the little
hand in hers; she would kiss the pale, still lips, and say, "Bess, my
darling, wake up. I can't live without you. You have had such a nice
long rest. Open your eyes an' look at me. Bess, dear, you remember we
are to go to heaven in the spring. _He_ will be waitin' for us, an'
wonderin' why we don't come. He is goin' to fight the giants, to show us
the way, an' row us over the river to the pallis."
Then the eyes would open blue as the summer sky, the lips would smile,
the little hands reach out and grow warm. There would be a strange
quiver all through the body, and Bess would sit up and be alive once
more. Oh, the glad cry of joy! Oh, the wordless, exquisite rapture of
that moment! And Bess, in some mysterious way, would be better,
stronger, and the days would fly by until the blessed spring came.
Mrs. Murphy touched her, and roused her from this trance of delight. She
heard her mother's voice and started.
"It's a nice sleep ye've had," said Mrs. Murphy's kindly voice. "An'
it's full bedtime, an' past. They've all gone, an' yer mother wants ye."
Dil groped her way down-stairs. There was a vicious smell of beer and
kerosene-smoke in the warm room.
"It's time ye were in bed," said her mother. "Ye kin sleep in there,"
indicating her own room with a nod; "fer I'll not sleep the night with
me child lyin' dead in the house. Bridget Malone has kem to stay wid me.
We'll jist sit up."
"O mother," cried Dil, aghast, "let me sleep in my own room! I'd rather
be there with Bess."
"Is the colleen's head turned wid grafe? Sleepin' wid a corpse! Who iver
heerd of sich a thing? Indade ye'll not, miss! Go to bed at wunst, an'
not a word outen you."
Her first impulse was to defy the woman looming up so tall and
authoritative. But the shrewd sense that comes early to the children of
poverty restrained her. She would be worsted in the end, so she went
reluctantly. Had she dreamed? No, it must be true. She _could_ waken
Bess. Again the uplifting hope took possession of her. She seemed wafted
away to a beautiful country with Bess. So absorbing was the vision that
it filled her with a certainty beyond the faintest doubt. She did not
even take off her dress, but lay there wide-eyed and rapturous.
After a while the chatter ceased and the snoring began. How still it was
everywhere! But Dil was not afraid.