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[Illustration: "I don't want to fight! I'm glad it's not ladylike to
fight, it scares me so!" [Page 12.]]
THE ROSIE WORLD
BY
PARKER FILLMORE
Author of "The Hickory Limb," "The Young Idea"
With Illustrations by
MAGINEL WRIGHT ENRIGHT
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1914
Copyright, 1914.
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
_Published September, 1914_
Parts of _The Rosie World_ have appeared serially in _Everybody's
Magazine_ under the titles: "The Chin-Chopper," "A Little Savings
Account," copyright, 1912, by The Ridgway Company; "A Little Mother
Hen," "The Loan of a Gentleman Friend," "Crazy with the Heat,"
copyright, 1913, by The Ridgway Company; "The Stenog," "The Watch-Dog,"
"The Rosie Morrow," copyright, 1914, by The Ridgway Company; and in
_Smith's Magazine_ under the title: "What Every Lady Wants," copyright,
1913, by Street & Smith.
To
Gilman Hall
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE CHIN-CHOPPER 1
II THE SCHNITZER 7
III THE PAPER-GIRL 18
IV A LITTLE SAVINGS ACCOUNT 25
V GEORGE RILEY ON MUCKERS 40
VI JACKIE 47
VII HOW TO KEEP A DUCK OUT OF WATER 59
VIII A LITTLE MOTHER HEN 67
IX JANET'S AUNT KITTY 78
X ROSIE RECEIVES AN INVITATION 87
XI THE TRACTION BOYS' PICNIC 93
XII THE LOAN OF A GENTLEMAN FRIEND 99
XIII JANET EXPLAINS 107
XIV ON SCARS AND BRUISES 113
XV THE BRUTE AT BAY 123
XVI WHAT EVERY LADY WANTS 130
XVII ROSIE PROMISES TO BE GOOD 143
XVIII ON THE CULTURE OF BABIES 147
XIX CRAZY WITH THE HEAT 157
XX A FEVERED WORLD 165
XXI THE STORM 168
XXII A CHANCE FOR GERALDINE 171
XXIII HOME AGAIN 175
XXIV GEORGE TURNS 182
XXV DANNY AGIN ON LOVE 194
XXVI ELLEN 204
XXVII ROSIE URGES COMMON SENSE 213
XXVIII JANET USES STRONG LANGUAGE 224
XXIX THE CASE OF DAVE MCFADDEN 234
XXX JANET TO HER OWN FATHER 242
XXXI DANNY'S SUGGESTION 254
XXXII THE SUBSTITUTE LADY 264
XXXIII ELLEN'S CAREER 273
XXXIV THE KIND-HEARTED GENTLEMAN 285
XXXV ELLEN MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT 292
XXXVI THE HAPPY LOVER 298
XXXVII THE SISTERS 304
XXXVIII ELLEN HAS HER FLING 308
XXXIX THE WATCH-DOG 317
XL MR. HARRY LONG EXPLAINS 322
XLI THE GREATEST TEACHER IN THE WORLD 335
XLII THE ROSIE MORROW 349
ILLUSTRATIONS
"I don't want to fight! I'm glad it's not ladylike to fight,
it scares me so!" _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"Here, baby darlint, go to sister Rosie" 48
Rosie gently lifted off his nightshirt and held the candle
close 60
"Because you kiss Janet McFadden, you needn't think
you can kiss any girl" 106
Rosie stared at him out of eyes that were very sad and
very serious 148
She read it again by the light of the candle 290
To be the confidant of Mrs. O'Brien in this particular
disappointment was embarrassing, to say the least 298
They all looked at Rosie, who sat, oblivious of them,
staring off into nothing 332
THE ROSIE WORLD
CHAPTER I
THE CHIN-CHOPPER
Mrs. O'Brien raised helpless distracted hands. "Off wid yez to school!"
she shouted. "All of yez! Make room for George!" What Mrs. O'Brien
really called her boarder is best represented by spelling his name
Jarge.
"Maybe I didn't have a dandy fight on my last trip down," George
announced as he took off his coat and began washing his hands at the
sink.
The young O'Briens clustered about him eagerly.
"Did you lick him, Jarge?" Terry asked.
"Tell us about it!" Rosie begged.
"Will yez be off to school!" Mrs. O'Brien again shouted.
No one heeded her in the least. George by this time was seated at the
table and Rosie was hanging over his shoulder. Terence and small Jack
stood facing him at the other side of the table and Miss Ellen O'Brien,
with the baby in her arms, lingered near the door.
"Your cabbage'll be stone cold," Mrs. O'Brien scolded, "and they'll all
be late for school if they don't be off wid 'em!"
"Was he drunk, Jarge?" Rosie asked.
"No, but he'd been taking too much." George spoke through a mouthful of
corned beef and cabbage.
"Aw, go on," Terry pleaded, "tell us all about it."
"They ain't much to tell," George declared, with a complacency that
belied his words. "He was nuthin' but a big stiff about nine feet high
and built double across the shoulders." George sighed and cocked his eye
as though bored at the necessity of recounting his adventure. Then, just
to humour them, as it were, he continued: "I see trouble as soon as he
got on. They was plenty of empty seats on one side, but the first thing
I knew he was hanging on a strap on the crowded side insultin' a poor
little lady. He wasn't sayin' nuthin' but he was just hangin' over her
face, lookin' at her and grinnin' until she was ready to cry out for
shame."
"The brute!" snapped Mrs. O'Brien as she slopped down a big cup of
coffee.
"Did you throw him off?" Terence asked.
George took an exasperating time to swallow, then complained: "You
mustn't hurry me so. 'Tain't healthy to hurry when you eat."
Ellen O'Brien tossed her head disdainfully. "If that's all you've got to
say, Mr. Riley, I guess I'll be going."
Rosie turned on her big sister scornfully. "Aw, why don't you call him
Jarge? Ain't he been boarding with us a whole week now?" To show the
degree of intimacy she herself felt, Rosie slipped an arm about George's
neck.
Ellen sniffed audibly.
George had not been looking at the elder Miss O'Brien but, from the
haste with which now he finished his story, it was evident that he
wished her to hear it.
"When I see he was looking for trouble, I went right up to him and says:
'If you can't sit down and act ladylike, just get off this car.' And
then he looks down at me and grins like a jackass and says: 'Who do you
think you are?' 'Who do I think I am?' I says; 'I'm the conductor of
this car and my number's eight-twenty and, if I get any more jawin' from
you, I'll throw you off.' He'd make two of me in size but I could see
from the look of him he was nuthin' to be afraid of. So, when he grins
down at the little lady again and then drops his strap to turn clean
around to me and poke out his jaw, I up and gives him a good
chin-chopper."
George stopped as if this were the end and his auditors grumbled in
balked expectancy:
"Aw, go on, Jarge, tell us what you did."
"Well, if that's the end of your story, Mr. Riley, I'm going."
"The brute, insultin' a lady!"
It was Rosie who demanded in desperation: "But, Jarge, what is a
chin-chopper?"
"Chin-chopper? Why, don't you know what a chin-chopper is?" George
paused in his eating to explain. "A chin-chopper is when a big stiff
pokes out his jaw at you and then, before he knows what you're doing,
you up and push him one under the chin with the inside of your hand. It
tips him over just like a ninepin."
"Oh, Jarge, do you mean you knocked him down on the floor of the car?"
By this time Rosie was skipping and hopping in excitement.
"Sure that's what I mean."
"And then, Jarge, when you had him down, what did you do?"
"What did I do? Why, then I danced on him, of course."
George jumped up from his chair and, indicating a prostrate form on the
kitchen floor, proceeded to execute a series of wild jig steps over
limbs and chest.
Rosie clapped her hands. "Good, good, good, Jarge! And then what did you
do?"
"What did I do? Why, then I snatches off the stiff's hat and throws it
out the window. As luck went, it landed in a fine big mud-puddle. Then I
pulls the bell and says to him, 'Now, you big bully, if you've had
enough, get off this car and go home and tell your wife she wants you.'"
"And, Jarge, did he get off?"
"Did he? I wonder! He couldn't get off quick enough!"
George glanced timidly toward Ellen in hopes, apparently, that his
prowess would meet the same favour from her as from the others.
Ellen caught his look and instantly tightened her lips in disgust. "I
think it's perfectly disgraceful to get in fights!"
Under the scorn of her words George withered into silence. Terence
rallied instantly to his defence. He turned on his older sister angrily.
"Aw, go dry up, you old school-teacher!"
"I'm not an old school-teacher!" Ellen cried. "And you just stop calling
me names! Ma, Terence is calling me an old school-teacher and you don't
say a thing!"
Mrs. O'Brien looked at her son reprovingly. "Why, Terry lad, I'm
surprised at you callin' your poor sister Ellen a thing like that! You
know as well as I that she's not an old school-teacher."
"Well, anyway," Terence growled, "she talks like one."
Rosie's wild spirits, meantime, had vanished. She sighed heavily. "Say,
Jarge, wisht I was a boy."
George looked at her kindly. "What makes you say that, Rosie?"
"Oh, nuthin'. Only I know some stiffs I'd like to try a chin-chopper
on."
George eyed her a little uneasily. "Aw, now, Rosie, you oughtn't to
talk that way. You're a girl and 'tain't ladylike for girls to fight."
"I know, Jarge. That's why I say I wisht I was a boy."
George grew thoughtful. "Of course, though, Rosie, I wouldn't have
blamed the little lady in the car if she had poked her hatpin into that
fellow. It's all right for a lady to do anything in self-defence."
In Rosie's face a sudden interest gathered. "Ain't it unladylike, Jarge,
if it's in self-defence?"
George answered emphatically: "Of course not--not if it's in
self-defence."
He would have said more but Terence interrupted: "What's the matter,
Rosie? Any one been teasing you?"
Rosie answered quickly, almost too quickly: "Oh, no, no! I was just
a-talkin' to Jarge----"
"Well, just stop yir talkin' and be off wid yez to school! Do ye hear me
now, all o' yez!" Mrs. O'Brien opened the kitchen door and, raising her
apron aloft, drove them out with a "Shoo!" as though they were so many
chickens.