MOYA AND SHEILA
Elisabeth of Belgium was walking sturdily now on the legs that had been
too weak to uphold her when she first came to Rosemont in November.
Her increasing strength was an increasing delight to all the people who
loved her--and there was no one who knew her who did not love her--but
her activity obliged her caretakers to be incessantly on the alert.
Miss Merriam, the skilled young woman from the School of Mothercraft,
who had pulled her through her period of greatest feebleness, now found
herself sometimes quite outdone by the energy of her little charge.
The Ethels were always glad to relieve her of her responsibilities for
an hour or two, and it was the afternoon of the day after Roger had
reported his plan to the Club that found the cousins strolling down
Church Street, "Ayleesabet" between them, clinging to a finger of each,
not to help her stand upright but to serve as a pair of supports from
which she might swing herself off the ground.
"See! She lifted her whole weight then!" exclaimed Ethel Blue. "We
shall have to give up calling her 'baby' soon. She's becoming an
acrobat!"
"It's all due to Miss Merriam. I wish she didn't look so tired the
last few days."
Ethel Blue made no reply. She guessed something of the reason that had
made Miss Gertrude appear distressed and silent. A certain note that
she herself had placed in a May basket and hung on Miss Merriam's door
might have something to do with her appearance of anxiety. She changed
the subject as a measure of precaution, for she had been in the
confidence of Dr. Watkins, the elder brother of Tom and Delia and a
warm admirer of Miss Merriam's, and she did not want the conversation
to run into channels where she might have to answer inconvenient
questions.
"This scheme of Roger's is pretty tremendous," she began by way of
introducing a theme in which Ethel Brown would be sure to be interested.
"We--the Club, I mean--never has 'fallen down' yet on anything, even
some of our 'shows' that we didn't have much time to get up, so we
ought to have confidence in ourselves as a Club."
"With this next undertaking, though, we don't really know how the thing
is done."
"How to make over the house, you mean?"
"How to make over the house and how to run the Fresh Air settlement
when the house is made over."
"There's no doubt we'll know more at the end of the summer than we know
now! We've got to get information from every source we can."
"The way Roger has up to now."
"We must think of every one we know who has made over a house, and Dr.
Watkins ought to be able to tell us of some people who have had Fresh
Air children staying with them, so we can get some idea about what they
need and how a house is managed."
"Come, come." A chirp rose from near the ground. Ayleesabet was tired
of being disregarded for so long.
"You blessed Lamb!" cried Ethel Blue. "Did you say, 'Come, come,' just
because you heard it? Did you think we were talking very learnedly
about things we didn't know much about! Never mind, ducky daddles,
we'll know a lot about them six months from now!"
"Just the way we've learned a lot about babies in the last six months
from this little teacher!" added Ethel Brown.
"Come, come. Home, home," remarked Elisabeth insistently.
"What's the matter? Are your leggies tired? Want the Ethels to carry
you?"
Elisabeth made it known that she would like some such method of
transportation, and sat joyfully on a "chair" which the two girls made
by interclasping their wrists.
Not for long did this please her ladyship.
"Down, down," she demanded in a few minutes.
"We might as well go home if she's too tired to walk and too restless
to ride," decided Ethel Brown, and they turned about, to the evident
pleasure of the baby.
As they were returning along Church Street but were still at a distance
from Dorothy's house Elisabeth suddenly gave a chirrup of delight. The
Ethels looked about to see the cause of this unexpected expression of
joy. Crawling out through a hedge on to the sidewalk was a child of
about Elizabeth's age, but a thin and dirty little mite, with a face
that betrayed her race as Irish.
"What's this morsel doing here all by herself!" exclaimed Ethel Blue.
"She must have run away; or perhaps she isn't alone. Let's look about
for her mother."
Up and down the street they looked while Elisabeth scraped acquaintance
with the sudden arrival upon her path.
"It doesn't seem as if she could be far off."
In truth she was not far off, for as the girls wondered and exclaimed a
weak voice made itself heard from the other side of the hedge.
"Don't take her away," it said.
Leaving the children to entertain each other on the sidewalk they
enlarged the hole from which the new baby had crawled, and pushed their
way through it. On the ground behind the hedge, and hidden from the
sidewalk by its thick twigs lay a young woman, so pale that she
frightened the girls.
"Don't take the baby away. I'll feel better in a little while. She
crept off from me."
"How did you get here?" asked Ethel Brown.
"I came out from New York to look for work in the country. I felt so
sick I lay down here."
"Did you get any work?"
A slight movement of the head indicated that she had not. The Ethels
consulted each other by disturbed glances. There was no hospital
nearer than Glen Point, and indeed, the woman seemed so ill that they
did not see how she could reach the hospital even in the trolley.
As they stood silent and perplexed the honk of a motor roused the
almost unconscious woman.
"Is the baby in the street?" she inquired frantically.
Ethel Brown crushed her way through the hedge, and found that the
children were still on the sidewalk, but were so near its edge that the
driver of the car had tooted to warn them back. To her delight she saw
that the driver was Grandfather Emerson. She waved her hand to stop
him.
"You're a great caretaker!" he cried. "Why do you leave Elisabeth to
look after herself in this fashion? And who's her friend?"
Ethel climbed into the machine beside him and told of the discovery
that the girls had just made. Mr. Emerson drew the car alongside the
curb and jumped out with anxiety written on his face. The hole in the
hedge was too small for him to push through so he ran around the end,
and approached the prostrate form of the woman.
Her eyes were closed and she lay so still that Ethel Blue, who was
rubbing her hands, shook her head as she glanced up gratefully at the
new arrival.
"What's this, what's this?" asked Mr. Emerson in his full, rich voice.
Its mere sound seemed to carry comfort to the poor creature lying at
his feet. He knelt beside her. "Hungry, eh?" he asked. "We'll see
about that right off. Can you eat these cookies?" He took a thin tin
box out of his pocket and opened it. "I have a little granddaughter
named Ethel Brown who insists on my keeping cookies in my pocket all
the time so that I can eat them when I'm driving. See if you can take
a bite of this."
A fluttering hand took the cooky and put it between the pale lips.
Helped by the girls the woman struggled to her feet and stood wavering
before she tried to take a step. She was a young woman with very black
hair and gray-blue eyes and a face that was meant to be unlined and
pretty and not gaunt with hunger and furrowed by anxiety.
"You're very good," she whispered feebly.
Supported on each side she managed to reach the sidewalk, where she
looked about wildly for her baby. An expression that was sad but
infinitely relieved came over her features when she saw the two
children sitting in the gravel of the walk filling their tiny hands
with pebbles.
"A cooky won't hurt the baby either," decided Mr. Emerson, and he gave
one to each of the children.
The Ethels had no chance to ask him what he meant to do without their
discovery hearing them, so they helped the woman into the machine, put
in the two children and climbed in themselves. To their great interest
Mr. Emerson turned the car about and headed it for his own home.
"I wonder what Grandmother will say," murmured Ethel Brown to Ethel
Blue, who was steadying the ill woman's head as it lay against the back
of the seat.
Ethel Blue lifted her eyebrows to indicate that she could not guess;
but both girls knew in their hearts that Mrs. Emerson would do what was
wisest and for the best good of the strays. She came to the door in
answer to the sound of the horn.
"How did you get back so soon?" she began to inquire of her husband
when her eyes fell on the passengers in the car.
"An accident?" she asked anxiously as she ran down the steps.
"The girls found this woman and her child part way over here and I
thought I'd better bring her on and get your opinion about her. I
think she'd like something to eat," and the kind old gentleman smiled
in friendly fashion as the woman opened frightened eyes at the sound of
a new voice.
Among them they succeeded in getting her into the house and into a cool
room, where she lay exhausted on the bed, her hand holding tight to the
little hand of her baby, lying wearily beside her.
"Sunstroke?" asked Grandmother.
"Hunger," replied Mr. Emerson, and he and Ethel Brown went down stairs
at once in search of food, while Mrs. Emerson and Ethel Blue managed to
undress their patient and put her into a fresh nightdress and bathe her
face and hands. By the time they had done this and were undressing the
baby, Ethel Brown and Mrs. Emerson's cook were at the door with jellied
broth, milk, gruel and a cooling drink.
Ethel Blue fed the woman, spoonful by spoonful, and Ethel Brown gave
the baby alternate spoonfuls of gruel and milk.
"Sleepy now?" asked Mrs. Emerson when the dark head sank back on the
pillow. "Take a nap, then. See, the baby is right here where you can
lay your hand on her. We'll look in now and then and just as soon as
you wake up you must take some more food."
"Must!" repeated the girl, for she was hardly older than Miss Merriam
they saw when her hair was pushed back from her face. "Must! 'Tis
_glad_ I'll be to be doing it!" and a ghost of a smile fluttered her
lips.
Outside of the bedroom door Mrs. Emerson asked for an explanation and
the others for her advice.
"I don't see how we can tell what we can do until we pull her through
this trouble and find out what the poor soul wants to do herself."
"She said she came out from New York to look for work in the country."
"Then we must find her work in the country. But the first thing for us
to attend to is to get her poor body into such a condition that she can
work. She's a sweet looking young woman. I'm glad you brought her
home, Father," and between Mr. and Mrs. Emerson there passed a smile of
such understanding as makes beautiful the lives of people long and
happily married.