_Dear Kate_:
Billy is all right. I got him planted in a place where Jim would never
dare look for him. I was in an awful fix. Every time I turned around it
seemed I saw some one from Jim, and I got so scared I couldn't do my
work, because every time I come home, I thought perhaps they might have
copped him. Did you ever know Tom Cassidy, a young cop at our Station?
His father was captain there for years and years and years, a great big
good-looking Irishman. Well, young Tom is just as good looking as his
dad, and he has been awful nice to me. He is the one that took my part
before the captain, when the captain tried to give me the third degree.
He walks down to the corner with me every once in awhile, and he likes
Billy. The other day he walked home with me and Billy, and I was all
in, as I just had a rotten note from Jim. He was so kinda nice, I
started a crying in the street, and he said, "You poor little thing, let
me go up with you and tell me all about it." First I thought it might be
a plant, then I thought I didn't care, for I had to talk to somebody who
had some sense, and it would not be peaching on Jim, for I really didn't
know where he was. So he came up to the room, and I made some coffee to
give me time to get my feelings collected so I could talk, and he sat
down and played with Billy. Then I told him all about it, how I didn't
know where Jim was, but that he kept a touching me all the time, till I
didn't have a cent left, and now he was threatening to take the kid. He
was awful nice, and patted my hand with his great big hand, and said,
"You poor little red head, it has sure made you peaked looking. Your
eyes are bigger than your face. What you going to do?" "That's just it,"
I said, "I don't know what to do. I've got to work, I can't set around
and watch Billy all the time. I just don't know _what_ to do. If I
could only get him away somewhere where they couldn't find him, I'd tell
the whole bunch to go to Hell."
"Say, kid," he said, "I got an idea. Why don't you send him up to my
mother's? We got a swell little house up at 225th Street, lots of room,
a big yard where he could play, and ma would be tickled to death to have
him. She is dippy on kids, and since me and Jack growed up, she says her
hands have been empty." I nearly fainted, a thinking of Billy in the
home of a cop, cause that is the last place on earth they would think of
looking for him, and then I got suspicious again. You know, Kate, I have
got an awful bad suspicious disposition. I am looking everywhere for a
plant, but I studied it all over, and I couldn't see none in this, and I
was so tickled that I couldn't say even "thank you." Tom said to me,
"Now, you put his little duds in a bundle, and when I go off duty at
four o'clock, I will come and get you, and we will go up on the subway."
Then I got a thinking after he went away that some of Jim's friends
might be watching the house, so I went down to Cassidy's beat, and told
him I would meet him at the Grand Central, where there wouldn't be so
much danger of us being piped off.
Talk about a grand little home, Kate. Tom Cassidy has sure got it, and
his mother is the nicest little Irish woman that ever lived! And
_Irish_! You could cut her brogue with a knife. But she just laughs all
the time, and her face breaks up in the funniest little wrinkles that
make you laugh with her. She came to the door herself, wiping her hands
on her kitchen apron, and when she saw Tom and me and Billy, she looked
at us funny for a minit and then she said, "Say, Tom, ye ain't been
married all these years, and just now a bringing your family to your old
mother?" Tom laughed and said, "No such luck, mother, but I've adopted a
family. I think the house is lonely without kids." She took Billy and me
up to a little bed room, and she helped take off his hat and coat,
talking all the time, Billy talking back, not a bit scared of her. Then
we went down to the kitchen to finish getting supper. Another son came
in named Jack who is studying farming and he is crazy about it. Tom
introduced him to me by saying, "This is John Cassidy, farmer, greatest
onion expert in the world." The kid, who is about nineteen, said, "Ah,
cut it out, Tom," and Tom's mother said, "Now, don't plague the bye."
Then we sat down and had the dandiest dinner. We ate in the kitchen, and
then I had to go to work. Billy was all right, didn't seem to feel a bit
bad about me going. Jack had him in the back yard, building something
with little pieces of wood. Tom went to the station with me, but I
wouldn't let him go no farther, cause I did not want to be seen too much
with him. I told him I wouldn't come and see Billy, cause I might be
followed. I tell you, I went home feeling better than when I went up
there, cause Jim can do his worse now, he can't get Billy.
I got your letter, Kate. It was an awful nice letter. You seem all
different, and it makes me happy way inside.
Yours,
_Nan_.