THE PASSING OF THE DANCER
“BLUE,” Doodles began tentatively, “you know that poor sick lady that
Granny O’Donnell was telling us about last night.”
“M─hm.”
“I’ve thought of her ever since, and I guess she is one of God’s people
that needs comforting. Don’t you think so?”
“What?” scowled Blue in surprise.
Doodles repeated innocently, adding, “It must be pretty dreadful to lie
there all day long without anybody to talk to.”
Blue nodded, wondering what scheme Doodles was amusing himself with now.
“I’m glad you think just as I do,” the small boy went on, “because, of
course, you’ll have to do most of it for me.”
Blue straightened in his chair, and began to listen with more interest.
“At first I didn’t see any way I could comfort her, and then I thought
of Caruso. It was his singing that made me think—oh, he sung just
beautifully!”
“And the door wasn’t open, was it?” put in Blue. “Too bad! I shut it,
the hall was so cold.”
“Door?” Doodles looked puzzled.
“Why, the hall door! You wanted the sick woman to hear Caruso, didn’t
you?”
“Oh!” Doodles brightened understandingly. “I didn’t think about the
door. Maybe she could hear if it was open.”
“S’posed that was what you were drivin’ at.”
“No! I meant for you to take him down to her room. You wouldn’t mind,
would you?” The query wore an anxious tone.
Blue’s grimace would not have encouraged a stranger, but Doodles laughed
contentedly. He knew his brother.
“Caruso don’t sing much now,” the elder boy argued evasively. “Mr.
Gillespie said they didn’t in the winter.”
“I know,” admitted Doodles. “But I guess he would, if I wanted him to.
You whistle to him, and see if he won’t.”
Blue good─humoredly struck up a tune, and to his surprise and
disappointment the bird started into song.
“There!” Doodles clapped his hands gleefully.
“Wha’ ’d yer stop him for?” laughed Blue, for Caruso was suddenly
silent.
“Never mind, he’ll do it again!”
He did—to the uneasiness of Blue.
“Do you want to take him now?” asked Doodles trustingly. “And tell her,
please, that I’d have come myself if I could.”
“I don’t b’lieve she’d care anything about hearin’ him,” began Blue,
feeling after an excuse.
“Seem’s if anybody would, ’specially if they were sick,” replied
Caruso’s master plaintively. “I don’t see how I can comfort folks any
other way.”
Blue looked curiously at his brother.
“You seem to be fierce to comfort somebody all of a sudden,” he laughed.
“Of course, I am! Aren’t you?”
“I d’n’ know—why?”
The clear eyes of Doodles met his brother’s squarely. “You remember what
the minister said last Sunday?” A touch of surprise was in the query.
Blue’s cheeks turned a deeper red. “Guess I wasn’t payin’ much
’tention,” he admitted honestly.
“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” Doodles repeated in a soft voice.
“Oh, I know that! The choir sung it.”
“Yes, that’s what the Lord told his messengers to do, and the minister
said we all ought to be God’s messengers and carry comfort to people. So
I want to comfort that sick lady. You see, I can’t do much comforting,
but I thought I could send Caruso, if you’d take him. Of course, it
won’t be as if I really went myself; but do you think God will mind? He
knows—”
“I guess it’s you doin’ it, all right,” Blue hastened to assure him. He
picked up the cage. “Come along, old feller, you an’ I’ll go
comfortin’!”
Doodles delightedly waved them out of sight, and then leaned back with a
smile.
Shortly Blue reappeared, but alone.
“Oh! what did she say? Wouldn’t he sing?”
“I didn’t try him. She wants you. She says she’s heard you singin’ hymns
up here, and nothin’ would do but I must come right up after you. Want
to go? I’ll take you pickaback.”
“You can’t—so far!”
“Yes, I can! I never thought of it before. Come on!”
It was the way Doodles often rode to bed, and he was soon on the
stairs—regretting in a whisper that he had not stopped to brush his
hair.
“Your hair’s all right, kiddie,” Blue declared; but the small boy
continued silent misgivings realizing that smooth locks were not always
looked upon by his brother as essential.
It was a dusky little room which they entered, in chilling contrast to
the sunny kitchen they had just left. Caruso sat ruffled on his perch,
the picture of gloom.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” cried the sick woman. “I’ve wished and
wished I could hear that again—‘Jerusalem, the Golden,’ you know.”
She lay quite still through the singing, now gazing at Doodles, now
closing her eyes as if weary.
“Thanks,” she said at the end. “It carries me back! Jim liked it so
much!” She turned suddenly to Blue, who was sitting on a small trunk,
Doodles having been put into the only chair. “Do you know what a
beautiful voice your brother has?”
“Has he?” smiled Blue. “I like to hear him sing.”
“Oh, but it’s a wonderful voice! Never taken lessons, has he?”
“No,” Blue told her.
“He ought to. But there’s time enough, time enough. Sing something
else!”
So Doodles sang again, one hymn after another, in response to her
repeated demands.
“I wish Jim could ’a’ heard that,” she sighed, as the last notes of “The
Ninety and Nine” dropped into silence. “Poor Jim—all alone!” With
half─shut eyes she rambled on reminiscently. “Why didn’t I go when he
wrote he was first violin in the orchestra! If I only had! But I never
dreamed—I never dreamed anything would happen! I wanted to stay and earn
a little more, just a little more—for the baby’s stone. She’ll have it
now—she and Jim together. Carbury said there was enough—glad I got it!
Carbury’ll see it’s done right—he said he would—always does as he says.
Wish I could be there too! I do want to lie side o’ Jim and the baby!
Never mind! I shall see them! ’T won’t be long! Seem’s if I couldn’t
wait! I’ll tell him how sorry I am I didn’t go—he was always good to me!
If I’d only been there! I wish—” A fit of coughing interrupted her
broken talk, and when it was over she lay exhausted on her rumpled
pillow.
Blue fidgeted about on the trunk, and looked undecidedly over at
Doodles; but the little brother sat motionless, gazing at the sick woman
with sad, anxious eyes.
She was a girlish slip of a creature, with a face that might have been
beautiful but for its lines of suffering. Presently she roused.
“Oh, it’s you!” she smiled. “I thought it was Somerby—I hate Somerby!
Please sing some more—I guess you sung me to sleep. I feel quite
rested.”
Only a moment Doodles paused; then he began the old, old hymn, “Jesus,
Lover of My Soul.”
The woman lay with close─shut eyes, and once the singer halted, thinking
she might be drowsing; but she looked up quickly, with a “Go on! Don’t
stop!” and he sang it through to the end.
“Lamb of God” and “Pass Me Not” left her still begging for more, and
Doodles kept on until he knew by her breathing that she was really
asleep.
Shortly, however, she awoke, and surprised him by asking abruptly,
“Should you like a fiddle?”
“Oh, wouldn’t I!” exclaimed Doodles. “Christarchus let me use his as
long as he stayed; but he’s gone, and I can’t play any more,” he ended
plaintively.
“You shall have Jim’s!” she cried passionately. “Now I know why I didn’t
burn it up!”
The brown eyes of Doodles grew big with horror. “Burn it up?” he
breathed.
“Yes,” she replied wearily, “I didn’t want anybody to have it—I was
afraid Somerby’d get hold of it. Don’t you ever let Somerby have it!”
she burst out fiercely. “No matter what he says, don’t you let him have
it! Promise me that, promise me that!”
“No, I won’t let anybody have it—ever!” Doodles said earnestly.
She seemed satisfied, and went on. “It’s a comfort to think that’s
settled. It’s worried me about Jim’s fiddle. I’m glad you’re going to
have it—you’ll love it! I wanted to give you something for singing to me
so beautifully. It is good of you to come. There’s nothing else in the
trunk of any value, but you can have all there is. It is a nice fiddle—I
don’t know how much it cost, but a lot of money—my, how Jim idolized
it!”
“I had an Uncle Jim once,” said Doodles; but she did not heed.
“You’d better take the trunk right upstairs now,” she went on hurriedly.
“Nobody’ll need it—there’s money enough under my pillow. I’ve saved
plenty—oh, if I could only have kept on a little longer, I’d have had
enough to take me home—I did want to lie side o’ Jim and the baby!”
The cough seized her again, and the paroxysm was so violent that Blue
took fright and ran up to see if his mother had come home. But the
kitchen was empty, and Granny, too, was nowhere to be found.
When he returned, the woman was talking—a strange medley of words which
the boys could not piece together to make anything understandable.
Suddenly she burst into a gay little song, for a moment her voice rising
full and strong, and then dropping into weak huskiness. Spent with the
effort, she lay quiet for a little, but was soon singing again, sacred
strains and ragtime ditties running in and out of one another in
startling confusion.
The words grew indistinct, the notes halting; they gave place to low
mutterings, and finally all was still. Blue watched the gentle rise and
fall of the coverlet, and at last tiptoed over to his brother.
The woman opened her eyes, and, gazing earnestly at Doodles, uttered
with apparent effort the one word, “Sing!”
So promptly did he respond, Blue breathed an ejaculation as he whirled
himself back to the edge of the trunk.
“A—bide with me! Fast falls the ev—en—tide,
The darkness deepens—Lord, with me a—bide!
When oth—er help—ers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, a—bide with me!”
Softly, distinctly fell the words, while over the face of the sick woman
stole a look of peace.
Blue found himself following the hymn with unwonted interest. Never had
he heard Doodles sing like that. “It’s better ’n church!” he whispered
under his breath.
“Hold Thou thy cross be—fore my clos—ing eyes;
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
Heaven’s morn—ing breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee!
In life, in death, O Lord, a—bide with me!”
The room was silent. The little singer leaned back in weariness. Blue,
with a glance toward Doodles, bent nearer the cot. The woman lay as if
sleeping, though not a flicker stirred the covers. Blue’s face took on a
look of awe, and noiselessly he stepped to his brother’s side.
“We’d better go upstairs now, you’re getting tired.”
“She may want me to sing again,” he objected.
“No, she won’t. She’s fast asleep.”
Doodles looked across at her.
“Well,” he yielded, putting his arms around his brother’s neck.
Mrs. Stickney had not returned, the sun was low, and the kitchen was
growing shadowy; but the warmth felt grateful after the chill of the
room downstairs.
“I’ll get somebody to help me bring up that trunk,” Blue decided, “and
then for my papers—it’s almost time.”
“Don’t forget Caruso!”
“I declare! I had!” He dashed away, returning at once with the bird.
“Is she still asleep?” queried Doodles.
“Sure!” Blue nodded, and darted off again.
With the trunk actually in the kitchen, Doodles felt the violin to be
less mythical. How wonderful it would be to have one of his very own! He
was glad Blue did not urge the boy to stay, he was in haste to have the
trunk opened. But the lock appeared to be an intricate kind, which Blue
could not work, and he finally had to run off for his papers, leaving
the trunk still closed.
Doodles was not slow to acquaint his mother with the happenings of the
afternoon.
“That dancer!” she exclaimed, before he had scarcely begun his story.
“Have you and Blue been down in that dancer’s room? What possessed you?
I should never have let you go if I had been home.”
“I guess I comforted her,” replied Doodles in excuse. “She seemed to
like my singing.”
“Well, I’d rather you wouldn’t go down again,” said Mrs. Stickney.
“Nobody knows who or what she is, except that she sings and dances in
some cheap theater. What was it about her fiddle?”
Doodles told, and his mother listened; but before he had finished,
Granny O’Donnell called her away.
She was gone a long time. Blue was with her when she came back, and both
were strangely grave. After tea Mrs. Stickney tried to unlock the trunk,
but did not succeed, and Doodles went to bed without seeing his violin.
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