WHAT DAGO SAID TO THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON SATURDAY.
Such a day as that was! We enjoyed it at first, for the sun shone and
a crowd of dancing children followed us everywhere we went. We were in
a strange part of town, so no one recognised us, but more than one
woman looked sharply at little Elsie's embroidered ruffles, peeping
out below the old gingham dress, and at Phil's squeaky new shoes.
"Have you run away, honey, or did your mammy dress you up that way and
send you out to beg?" asked a pleasant-voiced woman, with a baby in
her arms, as she leaned over a gate to drop a penny in Elsie's cup.
Elsie gave a startled glance at Phil, not knowing what to say, and
Phil, turning very red, moved away without answering.
The music-box was an old-fashioned affair that wound up noisily with
a big key. It played several jerky little waltzes and four plaintive
old songs: "Ben Bolt," "The Last Rose of Summer," "Then You'll
Remember Me," and "Home, Sweet Home." The children had sung them so
often that they knew all the words, and their voices rang out lustily
at first; but, about the twentieth time the same old round of tunes
began, little Elsie drew a deep, tired breath.
[Illustration]
"Oh, Phil," she said, "I _can't_ sing those songs all over again. I'm
sick of them." She sat down on the curbstone, refusing to join in the
melody, clasping her hands around her knees, and rocking back and
forth as the shrill voice of the music-box piped on alone.
"I just _hate_ 'Sweet Alice Ben Bolt,'" she complained. "Isn't it most
time to go home?" It was noon now. At the sound of the factory
whistles all our followers had deserted us, and gone home to dinner.
Phil sat down on the curbstone beside Elsie, and emptying the pennies
out of the little cup she had been carrying, gravely counted them.
"There's only eleven," he announced. "Of course we can't go home yet."
The music-box droned out the last notes of "You'll Remember Me," gave
a click, paused an instant as if to take breath, and then started
mournfully on its last number, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place
like home." At the first sound of the familiar notes, Elsie laid her
head down on her knees and began to weep dismally. "I wish I was back
in my home, sweet home," she cried. "I'm _so_ tired and cold and
hungry. I'm nearly starved. Oh, brother, I wisht I hadn't runned away!
I don't _like_ to be a beggar," she wailed.
Phil began patting her on the back. "Don't cry, sister," he begged.
"We'll go back to that bake-shop we passed a little while ago, and get
something to eat. Don't you remember how good it smelled? Come on!
You'll feel better when you've had a lunch. I'll spend every penny
we've got, if you'll only stop crying. We can make some more this
afternoon."
Elsie wiped her eyes on her shawl, let him help her to her feet, and
obediently trotted after him as we went down the narrow back street,
through which we had passed a few moments before. It was not far to
the bakery. The opening of the door made a bell ring somewhere in the
rear of the shop, and a fat, motherly old German woman came waddling
to the front. Phil bought a bag of buns and another of little cakes,
and was turning to go out again when Elsie climbed up on a chair near
the stove, refusing to move. A cold wind had begun to blow outdoors,
and her hands and wrists showed red below her short sleeves.
"I'm tired," she said, with an appealing glance of her big blue eyes
at the old woman. "Mayn't we stay here and rest while we eat the
cakes?"
"Ach, yes, mein liebchen!" cried the motherly old soul, taking
Elsie's cold little hands in hers. "Come back mit me, where is one
leedle chair like yourself."
She led the way into a tiny sitting-room at the rear of the shop,
where a canary in a cage and geraniums blooming in the window made it
seem like summer. Hot, spicy smells of good things baking, floated in
from ovens somewhere out of sight.
As Elsie sank down into the little chair, with a deep sigh, Phil
trundled the wheelbarrow into the room, and for the first time the old
woman caught sight of me and the music-box. You should have heard her
exclamations and questions. She laughed at Phil's answers until her
fat sides shook. Little by little she found out the whole truth about
our running away, and seemed to think it very amusing. After we had
rested awhile, Phil offered to give her a private performance. As he
started to wind the music-box, she opened a door into a stairway and
called, "Oh, Meena! Make haste, once already, and bring der baby!"
In answer to her call, a young woman came hurrying down the steps,
carrying a big fat baby, who stared at us solemnly with its round
blue eyes, and stuck its thumb in its mouth. But as the music started,
and I began my dancing, he kicked and crowed with delight. The more he
gurgled and cooed and waved his little fat hands, the broader the
smiles spread on the women's faces. I mention this because the more he
noticed us, the more his grandmother's heart seemed to warm toward us.
When the music stopped, she went out of the room and brought us each a
glass of milk and a little mince pie, hot from the oven.
After we had eaten, Elsie got down on the rug and played with the
baby, although Phil kept insisting that it was time to go. One thing
after another delayed us until it was nearly the middle of the
afternoon before we started out again on the streets. The old woman
pinned Elsie's shawl around her more comfortably, kissed her on each
cheek, and told Phil to hurry home with her, that it was getting too
cold to be wandering around, standing on street corners.
She watched us out of sight. As soon as we had turned a corner, Phil
looked ruefully into Elsie's empty cup. "If I had known she was going
to give us the milk and pie, I wouldn't have bought the buns," he
said. "We haven't made much headway, and it gets dark so soon, these
days. I'm afraid the feather fooled us about the way to go."
We wandered on and on all the rest of that long afternoon, sometimes
playing before every door, and sometimes walking blocks before
stopping for a performance. Phil's new shoes tired his feet until he
could scarcely drag them, and little Elsie's lips were blue with cold.
At last when the music-box struck up "Home, Sweet Home" for what
seemed the ten hundreth time, her voice quavered through the first
line and stopped short with a sob.
"Oh, Phil, I'm getting tireder and tireder! Can't you make that box
skip that song?" she begged. "If I hear it another time I just can't
stand it! I'll _have_ to turn around and go back home."
Phil glanced anxiously at the clouded sky. The sun was so low it was
hidden by the tall buildings, and the darkness was coming on rapidly.
"Well, come along!" he said, impatiently. "I s'pose I'll have to take
you home, cry-baby, but I'm not going in myself. We haven't any
money at all, hardly; not enough to take me even a tweety, weenty part
of the way to that place I'm going to, let alone enough to buy you
that doll. But that's the way with girls. They always spoil
everything."
[Illustration: "ALL WENT WELL UNTIL WE REACHED AN ALLEY CROSSING."]
Little Elsie rubbed her sleeve across her eyes and swallowed hard. "I
wouldn't ask to go back, brother, really and truly I wouldn't, but I'm
so cold and mizzible I feel most like I'm going to be sick."
Phil looked at her little bare red hands and tear-stained face, and
said, gruffly, "Well, then, get on the wheelbarrow. You can sit on the
music-box and hold Dago in your lap, and I'll wheel you a piece until
you get rested."
Elsie very willingly climbed up and took me in her lap. It was hard
work for Phil. He grew red in the face, and his arms ached, but he
kept bravely on, although he was out of breath from the hard pushing.
All went well until we reached an alley crossing. Phil, whose
attention was all on the wheel of his barrow, which he was trying to
steer safely between the cobblestones, did not see a long string of
geese waddling down the alley on their way home from the commons,
where they had been feeding all day. They came silently along in an
awkward, wavering line, as quietly as a procession of web-footed
ghosts, until they were almost upon us. Then the leader shot out his
wings with a hoarse cry, every goose in the procession followed his
example, and with a rush they flapped past us, half running, half
flying. It was done with such startling suddenness that it caused a
general upsetting of our party. Phil veered to one side, and over we
went in a heap, music-box, Elsie, barrow, and all, with myself on top.
There was a frightened scream from Elsie, followed by a steady
downpour of tears as Phil picked her up. She had struck her forehead
on a cobblestone, and a big blue bump was rapidly swelling above one
eye. Her nose was bleeding a little, too. Phil was so occupied in
trying to comfort her, and in wiping away the blood, that it was
several minutes before he thought of the music-box. When he picked it
up he found it was so badly broken that it would no longer play.
"Oh, what will papa say!" cried Elsie. The little fellow made no
answer, but could scarcely keep from crying himself, as he lifted it
on the barrow, to start back home.
"When will we be there, brother?" asked Elsie, when they had trudged
along for some time. She was holding on to the tail of his jacket,
sniffling dismally. Phil stopped, for they had reached a street
corner, and looked around. It was growing dusk. Then he turned to her
with a dazed, scared fate.
"Oh, Sis," he cried, "I don't know what to do. This isn't the street
that I thought it was. I'm afraid we're lost!"
They had reached the edge of the town by this time. Only one more
block of pretty suburban homes stood between them and the outskirting
fields.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Phil, after a moment's pause,
bravely choking back his own fears at sight of his little sister's
frightened face. "See that house over there with the firelight shining
through the windows, so bright and warm? It looks as if kind people
lived there. We'll go and ask them to show us the way home."
"I wish I was home now," mourned Elsie. "I wish I was all clean and
warm, sitting at the supper-table with my good clothes on, beside my
papa. Maybe we'll never find our way back, any more! Maybe he'll
never kiss me and say, 'Papa's dear little daughter,' again! He'll
think I'm dead. Maybe we'll have to go and live with beggars, and be
somebody's poor children all our life to punish us for running away;
and, oh, maybe we'll never have any 'home, sweet home' any more!"
At the picture she made for herself, of the cheerful room with the
dear home faces gathered around the table, which she might never see
again, she began to sob wildly. The tears were falling so fast now
that she could hardly see, but stumbled blindly along, stumping her
tired toes at every step, and clinging fast to Phil's old jacket.
They had almost reached the house with the friendly windows, when a
great iron gate just ahead of them swung open, and an elegantly
dressed old lady walked out to step into a carriage, drawn up at the
curbstone. Behind her came another old lady, tall and stately, and
with something so familiar in appearance that both the children stood
still in astonishment. She was looking about her with sharp,
eagle-like eyes. Her skirts swished softly as she walked, and the
little bunches of gray curls on each side of her face bobbed gently
under her imposing black bonnet.
"Aunt Patricia!" screamed little Elsie, darting forward and clasping
her arms around the astonished old lady's knees. "Oh, Aunt Patricia!
We're lost! _Please_ take us home!"
If a dirty little grizzly bear had suddenly sprung up in the path and
begun hugging her, Miss Patricia could not have been more amazed than
she was at the sight of the ragged child who clung to her. She pushed
back the old silk muffler from the tousled curls, and looked
wonderingly on the child's blood-stained face with the blue bump still
swelling on the forehead.
"Caroline Driggs," she called to the lady who stood waiting for her at
the carriage door, "am I dreaming? I never saw my nephew's children in
such a plight before. I can scarcely believe they are his."
"Oh, we are! We are!" screamed little Elsie. "I'll just _die_ if you
say we are not!"
Phil stood by, too shamefaced to plead for himself, yet fearful that
she might take Elsie and leave him to his fate, because he had refused
to apologise for his rude speech.
Miss Patricia had been spending the day with Mrs. Driggs, who was an
old friend of hers, and who was now about to take her home in her
carriage. Mrs. Driggs seemed to understand the situation at a glance.
"Come on," she said. "We'll put the children in here with us; the
monkey and the rest of the gypsy outfit can go up with the coachman.
Here, Sam, take this little beast on the seat with you, and lift up
the barrow, too."
If those children were half as glad to sink down on the comfortable
cushions as I was to snuggle under the coachman's warm lap-robe, then
I am sure that Mrs. Driggs's elegant carriage never held three more
grateful hearts. As we climbed to our places I heard Mrs. Driggs say,
kindly: "So the little ones were masquerading, were they? It is a cold
day for such sport."
Miss Patricia answered, in a voice that trembled with displeasure:
"Really, Caroline, I am more deeply mortified than I can say, to think
that any one bearing my name--the proud, unsullied name of
Tremont--could go parading the streets, in the garb of a beggar,
asking for alms. I cannot trust myself to speak of it calmly."
All the way home I felt sorry for Phil. I didn't envy him having to
sit there, facing Miss Patricia, with his conscience hurting him as it
must have done. That is the advantage of being a monkey. We have no
consciences to trouble us. I didn't envy his home-coming, either,
although I knew he would be glad enough to creep into his warm, soft
bed. His feet were badly blistered from his long tramp in his new
shoes.
Stuart looked after my comfort, and I was soon curled up snugly on a
cushion before the fire. Phil and Elsie had a hot bath, and hot bread
and milk, and were put to bed at once. Elsie was coughing at nearly
every breath, and the doctor seemed troubled when he came up to rub
some soothing lotion on the poor little swelled forehead. He brought
something for Phil's blistered feet, too, but he never spoke a word
all the time he was putting it on.
After it was done he stood looking at him very gravely. Then he said:
"Your little sister tells me that you took her out to dance and sing
in the streets to-day to earn money, in order that you may run away
from home. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir," answered Phil, in a very faint voice.
"So you are tired of your home," continued the doctor, "and think you
could find kinder treatment among strangers who care nothing for you.
I am sorry that my little son has come to such a conclusion. But if
you are determined to leave us, there is no necessity for you to slip
off like a thief in the night. Winter is coming on, and you will need
all your warm clothes. Better take time to pack them properly, and
collect whatever of your belongings you want to keep. I am very much
afraid that this day's work is going to make your little sister ill.
No doubt you will feel worse for it yourself, and will need a good
rest before starting out. Maybe you'd better wait until Monday, before
you turn your back for ever on your home and family."
The doctor waited a moment, but Phil made no answer. After waiting
another moment, still without a word from Phil, the doctor said, "Good
night, my son," and walked down-stairs into the library.
Now, I know well enough that, when we started out in the morning, Phil
was fully determined to run away from home, as soon as he could earn
enough money to take him. I couldn't understand what had changed his
mind so completely. You can imagine my surprise when he began to sob,
"Oh, papa! papa! You didn't kiss me good night and you don't care a
bit if I run away! Oh, I don't want to go now! I don't _want_ to!"
It sounded so pitiful that I got up off my cushion and walked over to
the bed. All that I could do was to take his head in my arms and rub
it and pat it and rub it again. I think it comforted him a little,
although he sobbed out at first: "Oh, Dago, you're the only friend
I've got! It's awful when a little boy's mother is dead, and there
isn't anybody in the whole world to love him but a monkey!"
The door was open into Elsie's room. She heard what he said, and in a
minute, she came pattering across the carpet in her little bare feet
and climbed up on the bed beside me.
"Don't say that, brother," she begged, leaning over and kissing him.
"Dago isn't the only one that loves you, 'cause there's me. Don't
cry."
"But, oh," wailed Phil, "papa didn't say one word about my staying! He
doesn't care if I run away. He never once asked me not to, and I
believe he'll be glad when I'm gone, 'cause he can't bear to see Aunt
Patricia worried, and everything I do seems to worry her. She says she
doesn't understand boys, and I s'pose it's best for me to go. But I
don't want to. _Aow, I don't want to!_"
By this time he had worked himself up into such a spasm of crying that
he could not stop, for all little Elsie's begging. She wiped his eyes
on the sheet with her little dimpled hands, and kissed him a dozen
times. Then I think she must have grown frightened at his sobs, for
she slipped off the bed to the floor, "I'll tell papa that you don't
want to go," she said, trailing out of the room in her long white
nightgown. She had to hold it up in front to keep from tripping, and
her little bare feet went patter, patter, down the long stairs to the
library. Wondering what would happen next, I followed her into the
hall, and swung by my tail over the banister.
Doctor Tremont was sitting in a big armchair before the fire, with his
head in his hands. He looked very much troubled over something. She
opened the door, and ran up to him.
"Why, Elsie, child, what is the matter?" he cried, catching her in his
arms. "What do you mean by running around the house in your nightgown?
Doesn't my little daughter know that it will make her cough worse, and
maybe make her very, very ill?"
He started quickly up the stairs with her, to carry her back to bed.
She clasped her arms around his neck, and laid her soft pink cheek
against his. "Oh, daddy dear," I heard her say, "Phil is crying and
crying up there in the dark, and the monkey's patting his head, trying
to make him stop. He's crying because you don't love him any more. He
said you didn't kiss him good night, and you don't care if he runs
away, and he hasn't a friend in the world but me and the monkey. He
feels awful bad about having to leave home. Oh, daddy dear, _please_
tell him he can stay!"