Wednesday's visitor was a tall, slim girl with an abundance of soft,
light hair, that fell in loose waves and dainty little curls. Her gown
was so pretty, a sort of grayish-blue china silk with clusters of
flowers scattered here and there. Her wide-brimmed, gray chip hat was
just a garden of crushed roses, that looked as if they might shake off.
There was a charm about her, for the children who had seen her the week
before ran to her with joyful exclamations. They kissed her white hands,
they caught hold of her gown, and presently she dropped on the grass and
they all huddled about her. She told them a story, very amusing it must
have been, they laughed so. Sadie Carr, the little deformed girl, seemed
to lay instant claim to her.
Dil had a strange, homesick yearning to-day. She longed so to see the
boys. Her eyes overflowed with tears as she thought of them and their
warm, vital love. She seemed almost to have lost Bess. Could she see her
again at Cent'l Park she wondered? She would ask Patsey to take her
there as soon as she went home.
A great hay wagon had come and taken a load of the children down to the
meadows. Three were in disgrace for being naughty, and had to spend an
hour sitting on the stoop. Some were reading. The German girl was
crocheting.
Dil sat out under the old branching apple-tree, whose hard red apples
would be delightful along in the autumn. She was counting up the days.
To-night they would be half gone. Would they let her go on Saturday she
wondered? She looked at her poor little hands--they hadn't grown any fat.
"Who is that little girl? and why does she keep apart from the others?"
asked Miss Deering.
"I don't know. She seems strange and hard to get on with. But she looks
so weakly that even sitting still may do her good. Go and see what you
can make of her, Miss Virginia."
Miss Deering had several roses in her hand. She sauntered slowly down to
Dil, and dropped the roses in her lap on the thin white hands.
"Oh, thank you!" Dil exclaimed gravely. She did not pick them up with
the enthusiasm Miss Deering expected.
"Don't you care for flowers?" Miss Deering seated herself beside the
quiet child, and studied the face turned a little from her.
"Yes, I like thim so much," glancing at them with a curiously absent
air. Her manner was so formal and old-fashioned, and she roused a sense
of elusiveness that puzzled the young lady.
"I think I must have seen you before. I can't just remember--"
Dil raised her soft brown eyes, lustrous still with the tears of longing
that were in them a moment ago. The short curved upper lip, the tumbled
hair, the gravely wondering expression--how curiously familiar it seemed.
"I hope you are happy here?" she said gently.
"I like it better home," Dil returned, but with no emphasis of
ungraciousness. "I'm used to the boys, 'n' they're so good to me. But
they wanted me to come an' get well. I wasn't reel sick only--Patsey
don't like me to look like a skiliton, he says. Everybody here's so
nice."
"And who is Patsey--your brother?"
She seemed to study Virginia Deering in her turn. It was a proud face,
yet soft and tender, friendly. It touched the reticent little soul.
"No; Owen's my brother. There's some more boys, an' we keep house.
Patsey is--Patsey's alwers been good to me an' Bess."
There was a touching inflection in her tone.
"Who is Bess?" with a persuasive entreaty that found its way to the
lonely heart.
"Bess is--Bess was"--The voice trembled and died out. Virginia Deering
slipped her arm about the small figure with a sympathetic nearness. Dil
made another effort.
"Bess was my poor little hurted sister. I didn't ever have no other
one."
"Don't you want to tell me about her? I should so like to hear. How did
she get hurt?"
Virginia Deering had of late been taking lessons in divine as well as
human sympathy. She was willing to begin at the foundation with the
least of these.
Dil looked across the sunny field to the shaded, waving woods. There had
never been any one to whom she could tell all of Bess's story. Mrs.
Brian, tender and kindly, had not understood. A helpless feeling came
over her.
"I wonder if she loved roses? Did she ever have any?" Miss Deering laid
her finger on those in Dil's hand, then felt under and clasped the hand
itself.
Dil was suddenly roused. The grave face seemed transfigured. Where had
she seen it--under far different auspices?
"She had some wild roses wunst. Oh, do you know what wild roses is? I
looked in the woods for some yest'day."
Wild roses! She had set herself to bear her lot, bruised and wrecked in
an evil moment, with all the bravery of true repentance.
"Yes," in a soft, constrained tone. "I have always loved them. And last
summer where I was staying there were hundreds of them."
"Oh," cried Dil eagerly, "that was jest what _he_ said. It was clear
away to las' summer. Patsey was up to Grand Cent'l deepo'. He carried
bags an' such. An' a beautiful young lady gev him a great bunch. Casey
made a grab fer thim, but Patsey snatched, an' he's strongest, 'n' he
gev it to Casey good till a cop come, 'n' then he run all the way to
Barker's Court an' brought thim to Bess an' me."
"A great bunch of wild roses! Oh, then I know something about Patsey. It
was one day in August. And--and I had the roses."
Dil's face was a rare study. Virginia Deering bent over and kissed it.
Then the ice of strangeness was broken, and they were friends.
This was Patsey's "stunner." She was very sweet and lovely, with pink
cheeks, and teeth like pearls. Dil looked into the large, serious eyes,
and her heart warmed until she gave a soft, glad, trusting laugh.
"Patsey'll be so glad to have me find you! They were the beautifullest
things, withered up some, but so sweet. Me an' Bess hadn't never seen
any; an' I put them in a bowl of water, an' all the baby buds come out,
an' they made Bess so glad she could a-danced if she'd been well, 'cause
she used to 'fore she was hurted, when the hand-organs come. They was on
the winder-sill by where she slept, an' every day we'd take out the poor
dead ones. 'N' there was jes' a few Sat'day when we went up to the
Square an' met the man. 'N' I allers had to wheel Bess, 'cause she
couldn't walk."
"What hurt her?"
"Well--pappy did. He was dreadful that night along a-drinkin', an' he
slammed her against the wall, an' her poor little hurted legs never grew
any more. An' the man said jes' the same as you,--that he'd been stayin'
where there was hundreds of thim, an' he made the beautifullest picture
of Bess--she was pritty as an angel."
Miss Deering's eyes fell on the little trail of freckles across Dil's
nose. They were very small, but quite distinct on the waxen, pale skin.
"And he painted a picture of you! He put you in that wild-rose dell. I
know now. I thought I must have seen your face."
Dil looked almost stupidly amazed.
"Bess was so much prittier," she said simply. "_Do_ you know 'bout him?
He went away ever so far, crost the 'Lantic Oshun. But he said he'd come
back in the spring."
She lifted her grave, perplexed eyes to a face whose wavering tints were
struggling with keen emotion.
"He couldn't come back in the spring. He went abroad with a cousin who
loved him very much, who was ill, and hoped to get well; but he grew
worse and weaker, and died only a little while ago. And Mr. Travis came
in on Monday, I think."
Her voice trembled a little.
"Oh, I knew he would come!" The glad cry was electrifying.
And she, this little being, one among the waifs of a big city, had
looked for him, had a right to look for him.
"He ain't the kind to tell what he don't mean. Bess was so sure. An' I
want to ast him so many things I can't get straight by myself. I ain't
smart like Bess was, an' we was goin' to heaven when he come back; he
said he'd go with us. An' now Bess is dead."
"My dear little girl," Virginia held her close, and kissed the cool,
waxen cheek, the pale lips, "will you tell me all the story, and about
going to heaven?"
It was an easy confidence now. She told the plans so simply, with that
wonderful directness one rarely finds outside of Bible narratives. Her
own share in the small series of tragedies was related with no
consciousness that it had been heroic. Virginia could see the Square on
the Saturday afternoon, and Bess in her wagon, when she "ast Mr. Travis
to go to heaven with them." And the other time--the singing. Ah, she well
knew the beauty and pathos of the voice. How they had hoped and
planned--and that last sad night, with its remembrance of wild roses.
Dil's voice broke now and then, and she made little heart-touching
pauses; but Virginia was crying softly, moved from the depths of her
soul. And Dil's wonderful faith that she could have brought Bess back to
life bordered on the sublime.
"Oh, my dear," and Virginia's voice trembled with tenderness, "you need
never doubt. Bess _is_ in heaven."
"No," returned Dil, with a curious certainty in her tone, "she ain't
quite gone, 'cause I've seen her. We all went up to Cent'l Park, Sunday
week ago. I was all alone, the boys goin' off walkin', an' me bein'
tired. I wanted her so much, I called to her; an' she come, all
beautiful an' well, like _his_ picture of her. I c'n talk to her, but
she can't answer. There's a little ketch in it I can't get straight, not
bein' smart like to understand. But she's jes' waitin' somewheres, 'n'
he kin tell me how it is. You see, Bess wouldn't go to heaven 'thout me,
an' he would know just where she is. For she couldn't get crost the
river 'n' up the pallis steps 'les I had hold of her hand. For she never
had any one to love her so, 'n' she wouldn't go back on me for a whole
world."
Miss Deering could readily believe that. But, oh, what should she say to
this wonderful faith? Had it puzzled John Travis as well?
"And who sent you here?" she asked, to break the tense strain.
Dil told of the fainting spell, and Mrs. Wilson and Miss Lawrence, who
had been so good.
"But now he's come, you see, I must get well an' go down. He'll be there
waitin'. I'd like to stay with the boys, but somethin' draws me to Bess.
I feel most tore in two. An' ther's a chokin' in my throat, an' my head
goes round, an' I can't hardly wait, I want to see her so. When I tell
Patsey and Owny all about it, I'm most sure they'll want me to go, for
they know how I loved Bess. An' when _he_ comes, he'll know what's jes'
right."
They were silent a long while. The bees crooned about, now and then a
bird lilted in the gladness of his heart. Virginia Deering was asking
herself if she had ever loved like this, and what she had suffered
patiently for her love. For her self-will and self-love there had been
many a pang. But she let her soul go down now to the divinest
humiliation. Whatever _he_ did henceforth, even to the dealing out of
sorest punishment, must be right evermore in her eyes.
The children were coming back from their ride, joyous, noisy, exuberant;
their eyes sparkling, their cheeks beginning to color a little with the
vivifying air and pleasurable excitement. Dil glanced at them with a
soft little smile.
"I think they want you," she said. "They like you so. An' I like you
too, but I've had you all this time."
"You are a generous little girl." Virginia was struck by the simple
self-abnegation. "I will come back again presently."
She did not let the noisy group miss anything in her demeanor. And yet
she was thinking of that summer day, and the poor roses she had taken so
unwillingly. How she had shrunk from them all through the journey! How
she had tossed them out, poor things, to be fought over by street arabs.
They had come back to her with healing on their wings. And that John
Travis should have seen them, and the two little waifs of unkind
fortune. Ah, how could _she_ have been so fatally blind and cruel that
day among the roses? And all for such a very little thing.
What could she say to this simple, trustful child? If her faith and her
beliefs had gone outside of orthodox lines, for lack of the training all
people are supposed to get in this Christian land, was there any way in
which she could amend it? No, she could not even disturb it. John Travis
should gather in the harvest he had planted; for, like Dil, she believed
him in sincere earnest. She "almost knew that he meant to set out on the
journey to heaven," if not in the literal way poor, trusting little Dil
took it. And she honored him as she never had before.
She came back to Dil for a few moments.
"Don't you want to hear about the picture?" she asked. "It quite went
out of my mind. Mr. Travis exhibited it in London, and a friend bought
it and brought it home. I saw it a fortnight ago. So you brought him a
great deal of good fortune and money."
"I'm so glad," her eyes shone with a soul radiance; "for he gev us some
money--it was for Bess, an' we buyed such lots of things. We had such a
splendid time! Five dollars--twicet--an' Mrs. Bolan, an' she was so glad
'bout the singin'. But I wisht it had been Bess. He couldn't make no
such beautiful picture out'n me. Bess looked jes' 's if she could talk."
"He put you in that beautiful thicket of roses." Ah, how well he had
remembered it! "I do not think any one would have you changed, but you
were not so thin then."
"No;" Dil gave the soft little laugh so different from the other
children. "I was quite a little chunk, mammy alwers said, an' I don't
mind, only Patsey wants me to get fatter. Mebbe they make people look
beautifuller in pictures," and she gave a serious little sigh.
Then the supper-bell rang. Dil held tightly to the slim hand.
"They're all so good," she said earnestly. "But folks is diff'rent. Some
come clost to you," and she made an appealing movement of nearness.
"Then they couldn't understand 'bout me an' Bess--that she's jes' waitin'
somewheres till I kin find out how to go to her, an' then he'll tell us
which way to start for heaven. I'm so glad you know _him_."
Dil tried again to eat, but did not accomplish much. She was brimful of
joy. Her eyes shone, and a happy smile kept fluttering about her face,
flushing it delicately.
"You have made a new child of her," said Miss Mary delightedly. "I
thought her a dull and unattractive little thing, but such lives as
theirs wear out the charms and graces of childhood before they have time
to bloom. We used to think the poor had many compensations, and amongst
them health, that richer people went envying. Would any mother in
comfortable circumstances change her child's physique for these stunted
frames and half-vitalized brains?"
Virginia Deering made some new resolves. It was not enough to merely
feed and clothe. She thought of Dilsey Quinn's love and devotion; of
Patsey Muldoon's brave endeavor to rescue Owen, and keep him from going
to the bad, and his generosity in providing a home for Dil, to save her
from her brutalized mother. Ah, yes; charity was a grander thing,--a love
for humanity.
Dil came to say good-night. Virginia was startled by the unearthly
beauty, the heavenly content, in her eyes that transfigured her.
"You breathe too short and fast," she said. "You are too much excited."
"I d'n' know--I think it's 'cause _he's_ comin'. 'N' I've waited so, 'n'
now it's all light 'n' beautiful, 'n' I don't feel worried no more."
"You must go to sleep and get rested, and--get well." Yes, she _must_ get
well, and have the different kind of life Virginia began to plan for
her.
A soft rain set in. There was such a tender patter on the leaves that
Dil almost laughed in sympathetic joy. Such delightful fragrance
everywhere! For a moment she loathed the city, and it seemed as if she
could not go back to the crowded rooms and close air. But only for a
little while. John Travis would set her on the road to heaven.
It was curious how bits of the hymn came back to her. She could not have
repeated the words consecutively--it was like the strain of remembered
melody one follows in one's brain, and yet cannot give it voice. She
seemed actually to _see_ it.
"O'er all those wide extended plains,
Shines one eternal day."
Eternal day! and no night. Forever to be walking about with Bess, when
the Lord Jesus had taken her in his arms and made her like other
children. Oh, did Sadie Carr know that in heaven she would be straight
and nice and beautiful? She must ask Miss Deering to tell her. Then her
heart went out with trembling, yearning tenderness toward her mother.
Couldn't the Lord Jesus do something to keep her from drinking gin and
going up to the Island? Was little Dan in a happy home like this, with
plenty to eat?--boys were always hungry. She used to be before Bess went
away, but it seemed as if she should never be hungry again.
The little girls around her were breathing peacefully. They were still
well enough to have a good time when beneficent fortune favored. They
had run and played and shouted, and were healthily tired. Dil remembered
how sleepy she used to be when she was crooning songs to Bess. But since
the day at Central Park it had been so different. The nights were all
alight with fancies, and she was being whirled along in an air full of
music and sweetness.
Toward morning it stopped raining. Oh, how the birds sang at daylight!
She dropped off to sleep then, but presently something startled her. She
was back with the boys, and there was breakfast to get. She heard the
eager voices, and sprang out of bed, glancing around.
It was only the children chattering as they dressed. Perhaps she looked
strange to them, for one little girl uttered a wild cry as Dil slipped
down on the floor a soft little heap.
The nurses thought at first that she was dead, it was so long before
there was any sign of returning animation, and then it was only to lapse
from one faint to another.
"We must have the doctor," said Miss Mary. "And we will take her to my
room. There are three children in the Infirmary, one with a fever."
The room was not large, but cheerful in aspect. A tree near by shut out
the glare of the sunshine, and sifted it through in soft, changeful
shadows.
"She looks like death itself. Poor little girl! And Miss Lawrence was so
interested in her. Will you mind staying a bit, Miss Virginia? There are
so many things for me to do, and the doctor will be in soon."
Virginia did not mind. She had been keeping a vigil through the night.
She had taken a pride in what she called shaping her life on certain
noble lines. How poor and small and ease-loving to the point of
selfishness they looked now! What could there ever be as simply grand
and tender as Dilsey Quinn's love for her little sister, and her
cheerful patience with the evils of a hard and cruel life?
She had been in the wrong, she knew it well. She had waited for him to
make an overture; but he had gone without a word, and that had
heightened her anger. Then had come a bitter sense of loss, a tender
regret deepening into real and fervent sorrow. Out of it had arisen a
nobler repentance, and acceptance of the result of her evil moment. She
had hoped some time, and in some unlooked-for way, they would meet.
But since she had given the offence, could she not be brave enough to
put her fate to the touch and
"Win or lose it all"?
The words that had always seemed so hard to say came readily enough, as
she told the story of the human blighted rose that had brought a new
faith to her.
Dil seemed to rally before the doctor came. She opened her eyes, and
glanced around with the old bright smile.
"It's all queer an' strange like," she said; "but you'm here, an' it's
all right. Did I faint away? 'Cause my head feels light an' wavery as it
did that Sunday night."
"Yes, you fainted. But you are better now. And the doctor will give you
a tonic to help you get well. We all want you to get well."
"I ain't never been sick, 'cept when I was in the hospital, hurted. I
only feel tired, for I ain't got no pain anywhere, an' I'll soon get
rested. 'Cause I want to go down home an' see _him_. If I _could_ go
over to the Square on Sat'day. I 'most know he'll be waitin' for me."
Should she tell the poor child? Oh, was she sure John Travis would come?
He need not see _her_. She had not asked for herself.
The kindly, middle-aged doctor looked in upon them at this moment,
accompanied by Miss Mary. Dil smiled with such cheerful brightness that
it almost gave the contradiction to her pale face. He sat down beside
her, counted her pulse, talked pleasantly until she no longer felt
strange, but answered his questions, sometimes with a shade of
diffidence when they reflected on her mother's cruelty, but always with
a frank sort of innocence. Then he listened to her breathing, heart and
lungs, and the spot where the two ribs were broken, "that hadn't ever
felt quite good when you rubbed over it," she admitted. He held up her
hand, and seemed to study its curious transparency.
"So you are only a little tired? Well, you have done enough to tire one
out, and now you must have a good long rest. Will you stay here
content?" he asked kindly.
"Everybody's so good!" and her eyes shone with a glad, grateful light.
"But I'd like to go by Sat'day. There's somethin'--Miss Deerin'
knows"--and an expectant smile parted her lips.
"Well, to-day's Thursday, and there's Friday. We'll see about it. I'd
like you to stay in bed and be pretty quiet--not worry--"
"I ain't got nothin' to worry 'bout," with her soft little laugh. "It's
all come round right, an' what I wanted to know most of all, I c'n know
on Sat'day. I kin look out o' the winder and see the trees 'n' the
sunshine, an' hear the birds sing. An' everybody speaks so sweet an'
soft to you, like 's if their voices was makin' music. O no, I don't
mind, only the children'll want Miss Deerin', and I want her too."
"Your want is the most needful. She shall stay with you."
The brown quartz eyes irradiated with luminous gleams.
"Very well," he said, with an answering smile.
Miss Deering came out in the hall. He shut the door carefully.
"If she wants anything or anybody, let her have it. Keep her generally
quiet, and in bed. Though nothing can hurt her very much. It is too late
to help or hinder."
"O surely you do not mean"--Miss Deering turned white to the very lips.
"She's as much worn out as a woman of eighty ought to be. If you could
look at her, through her, with the eye of science, you would wonder how
the machinery keeps going. It is worn to the last thread, and her poor
little heart can hardly do its work. Her cheerfulness is in her favor.
But some moment all will stop. There will be little suffering; it _is_
old age, the utter lack of vitality. And she's hardly a dozen years
old."
"She is fifteen--yes, I think she is right, though I could hardly believe
it at first."
"That poor little thing! I hope with all my soul there is a heaven where
the lost youth is made up to these wronged little ones. She has been
doing a woman's work on a child's strength."
"O can nothing save her?" cried Virginia Deering, with longing desire.
"For her life might be so happy. She has found friends--"
"It all comes too late. If you should ever be tempted to reason away
heaven, think of her and hundreds like her, and what else shall make
amends? I will be in again this afternoon," and he turned away abruptly.
He met Miss Mary in the lower hall, and left her amazed at the
intelligence. She came up-stairs and found Virginia with her eyes full
of tears.
"And I thought last night she looked so improved. It is so sudden, so
unexpected."
"How long?" asked Virginia, with a great tremble in her voice.
"Any time, my dear. A day or two, an hour may be. We must keep it from
the children. So many have improved, and no one has died. I can't
believe it."
"I want to stay with her," the girl said in a low tone.
"We shall be so grateful to you. You young girls are so good to give up
your own pleasures, and help us in our work."
Virginia went back quietly. Dil's face was turned toward the window, and
she was listening to the children's voices, as they ran around
tumultuously.
"They do be havin' such a good time," she said, with a thrill of
satisfaction in her tone.
"I wish you were well enough to join them," Virginia replied softly.
Dil laughed. "I've been such a big, big girl this long time," she
returned with a sense of amusement, but no longing in her tone. "I don't
seem to know 'bout playin' as they do; for mammy had so many babies, an'
Bess was hurted, an' there wasn't never no room to play in Barker's
Court, 'count o' washin' an' such. 'Pears like I'd feel strange runnin'
an' careerin' round like thim," and she made a motion with her head.
"I'd rather lay here an' get well. Oh, do you think the doctor'll let me
go on Sat'day?"
"My dear, I have written to Mr. Travis. I think he will be up then."
"Oh!" Such a joyful light illumined the face, that Virginia had much ado
to keep the tears from her own eyes. "You're so good," she said softly.
"Everybody's so good."
"And the children don't disturb you?"
"Oh, no; I like it. I c'n jest shut my eyes 'n' see 'Ring around a
rosy.' Oh," with a long, long sigh, "Bess would 'a' liked it so! I'm so
sorry she couldn't come 'n' see it all, the beautiful flowers 'n' trees
'n' the soft grass you c'n tumble on 'n' turn summersets as they did
yest'day. Don't you s'pose, Miss Deerin', there'll be a whole heaven for
the children by themselves? For _he_ told me somethin' 'bout 'many
mansions' the Lord Jesus went to fix for thim all. Ain't it queer how
things come to you?"