For an instant he sat motionless, gazing at the yellow slip. Then he
sprang to his feet. Thrusting his unopened correspondence into his
pocket, he gave a few hurried instructions to his men and started for
the ferry. Once on the boat, he began pacing the deck. “Tom hurt!” he
repeated to himself. “Tom hurt? How--when--what could have hurt her?”
He had seen her at the sea-wall, only three days before, rosy-cheeked,
magnificent in health and strength. What had happened? At the St. George
landing he jumped into a hack, hurrying the cabman.
Jennie was watching for him at the garden gate. She said her mother was
in the sitting-room, and Gran'pop was with her. As they walked up the
path she recounted rapidly the events of the past two days.
Tom was on the lounge by the window, under the flowering plants,
when Babcock entered. She was apparently asleep. Across her forehead,
covering the temples, two narrow bandages bound up her wound. At
Babcock's step she opened her eyes, her bruised, discolored face
breaking into a smile. Then, noting his evident anxiety, she threw the
shawl from her shoulders and sat up.
“No, don't look so. It's nothin'; I'll be all right in a day or two.
I've been hurted before, but not so bad as this. I wouldn't have
troubled ye, but Mr. Crane has gone West. It was kind and friendly o' ye
to come; I knew ye would.”
Babcock nodded to Pop, and sank into a chair. The shock of her
appearance had completely unnerved him.
“Jennie has told me about it,” he said in a tender, sympathetic tone.
“Who was mean enough to serve you in this way, Tom?” He called her Tom
now, as the others did.
“Well, I won't say now. It may have been the horse, but I hardly think
it, for I saw a face. All I remember clear is a-layin' me hand on the
mare's back. When I come to I was flat on the lounge. They had fixed me
up, and Dr. Mason had gone off. Only the thick hood saved me. Carl and
Cully searched the place, but nothin' could be found. Cully says he
heard somebody a-runnin' on the other side of the fence, but ye can't
tell. Nobody keeps their heads in times like that.”
“Have you been in bed ever since?” Babcock asked.
“In bed! God rest ye! I was down to the board meetin' two hours after,
wid Mr. Crane, and signed the contract. Jennie and all of 'em wouldn't
have it, and cried and went on, but I braved 'em all. I knew I had to go
if I died for it. Mr. Crane had his buggy, so I didn't have to walk. The
stairs was the worst. Once inside, I was all right. I only had to sign,
an' come out again; it didn't take a minute. Mr. Crane stayed and fixed
the bonds wid the trustees, an' I come home wid Carl and Jennie.” Then,
turning to her father, she said, “Gran'pop, will ye and Jennie go into
the kitchen for a while? I've some private business wid Mr. Babcock.”
When they were gone her whole manner changed. She buried her face for a
moment in the pillow, covering her cheek with her hands; then, turning
to Babcock, she said:--
“Now, me friend, will ye lock the door?”
For some minutes she looked out of the window, through the curtains and
nasturtiums, then, in a low, broken voice, she said:
“I'm in great trouble. Will ye help me?”
“Help you, Tom? You know I will, and with anything I've got. What is
it!” he said earnestly, regaining his chair and drawing it closer.
“Has no one iver told ye about me Tom?” she asked, looking at him from
under her eyebrows.
“No; except that he was hurt or--or--out of his mind, maybe, and you
couldn't bring him home.”
“An' ye have heared nothin' more?”
“No,” said Babcock, wondering at her anxious manner.
“Ye know that since he went away I've done the work meself, standin' out
as he would have done in the cold an' wet an' workin' for the children
wid nobody to help me but these two hands.”
Babcock nodded. He knew how true it was.
“Ye've wondered many a time, maybe, that I niver brought him home an'
had him round wid me other poor cripple, Patsy--them two togither.” Her
voice fell almost to a whisper.
“Or ye thought, maybe, it was mean and cruel in me that I kep' him a
burden on the State, when I was able to care for him meself. Well, ye'll
think so no more.”
Babcock began to see now why he had been sent for. His heart went out to
her all the more.
“Tom, is your husband dead?” he asked, with a quiver in his voice.
She never took her eyes from his face. Few people were ever tender
with her; they never seemed to think she needed it. She read this man's
sincerity and sympathy in his eyes; then she answered slowly:--
“He is, Mr. Babcock.”
“When did he die! Was it last night, Tom?”
“Listen to me fust, an' then I'll tell ye. Ye must know that when me
Tom was hurted, seven years ago, we had a small place, an' only three
horses, and them warn't paid for; an' we had the haulin' at the brewery,
an' that was about all we did have. When Tom had been sick a month--it
was the time the bucket fell an' broke his rib--the new contract at the
brewery was let for the year, an' Schwartz give it to us, a-thinkin'
that Tom'd be round ag'in, an' niver carin', so's his work was done, an'
I doin' it, me bein' big an' strong, as I always was. Me Tom got worse
an' worse, an' I saw him a-failin', an' one day Dr. Mason stopped an'
said if I brought him to Bellevue Hospital, where he had just been
appointed, he'd fix up his rib so he could breathe easier, and maybe
he'd get well. Well, I hung on an' on, thinkin' he'd get better,--poor
fellow, he didn't want to go,--but one night, about dark, I took the
Big Gray an' put him to the cart, an' bedded it down wid straw; an' I
wrapped me Tom up in two blankits an' carried him downstairs in me own
arms, an' driv slow to the ferry.”
She hesitated for a moment, leaned her bruised head on her hand, and
then went on:--
“When I got to Bellevue, over by the river, it was near ten o'clock at
night. Nobody stopped me or iver looked into me bundle of straw where
me poor boy lay; an' I rung the bell, an' they came out, an' got him up
into the ward, an' laid him on the bed. Dr. Mason was on night duty, an'
come an' looked at him, an' said I must come over the next day; an' I
kissed me poor Tom an' left him tucked in, promisin' to be back early in
the mornin'. I had got only as far as the gate on the street whin one of
the men came a-runnin' after me. I thought he had fainted, and ran
back as fast as I could, but when I got me arms under him again--he was
dead.”
“And all this seven years ago, Tom?” said Babcock in astonishment,
sinking back in his chair.
Tom bowed her head. The tears were trickling through her fingers and
falling on the coarse shawl.
“Yis; seven years ago this June.” She paused for a moment, as if the
scene was passing before her in every detail, and then went on: “Whin I
come home I niver said a word to anybody but Jennie. I've niver told
Pop yit. Nobody else would have cared; we was strangers here. The next
mornin' I took Jennie,--she was a child then,--an' we wint over to the
city, an' I got what money I had, an' the doctors helped, an' we buried
him; nobody but just us two, Jennie an' me, walkin' behint the wagon,
his poor body in the box. Whin I come home I wanted to die, but I said
nothin'. I was afraid Schwartz would take the work away if he knew it
was only a woman who was a-doin' it wid no man round, an so I kep' on;
an' whin the neighbors asked about him bein' in a 'sylum an' out of his
head, an' a cripple an' all that, God forgive me, I was afraid to tell,
and I kept still and let it go at that; an' whin they asked me how he
was I'd say he was better, or more comfortable, or easier; an' so he
was, thank God! bein' in heaven.”
She roused herself wearily, and wiped her eyes with the back of her
hand. Babcock sat motionless.
“Since that I've kep' the promise to me Tom that I made on me
knees beside his bed the night I lifted him in me arms to take him
downstairs--that I 'd keep his name clean, and do by it as he would hev
done himself, an' bring up the children, an' hold the roof over their
heads. An' now they say I dar'n't be called by Tom's name, nor sign it
neither, an' they're a-goin' to take me contract away for puttin' his
name at the bottom of it, just as I've put it on ivery other bit o'
paper I've touched ink to these seven years since he left me.”
“Why, Tom, this is nonsense. Who says so?” said Babcock earnestly, glad
of any change of feeling to break the current of her thoughts.
“Dan McGaw an' Rowan says so.”
“What's McGaw got to do with it? He's out of the fight.”
“Oh, ye don't know some men, Mr. Babcock. McGaw'll never stop fightin'
while I live. Maybe I oughtn't tell ye,--I've niver told anybody,--but
whin my Tom lay sick upstairs, McGaw come in one night, an' his own
wife half dead with a blow he had given her, an' sat down in this very
room,--it was our kitchen then,--an' he says,' If your man don't git
well, ye'll be broke.' An' I says to him, 'Dan McGaw, if I live twelve
months, Tom Grogan'll be a richer man than he is now.' I was a-sittin'
right here when I said it, wid a rag carpet on this floor, an' hardly
any furniture in the room. He said more things, an' tried to make love
to me, and I let drive and threw him out of me kitchen. Then all me
trouble wid him began; he's done everything to beat me since, and now
maybe, after all, he'll down me. It all come up yisterday through McGaw
meetin' Dr. Mason an' askin' him about me Tom; an' whin the doctor told
him Tom was dead seven years, McGaw runs to Justice Rowan wid the story,
an' now they say I can't sign a dead man's name. Judge Bowker has the
papers, an' it's all to be settled to-morrow.”
“But they can't take your contract away,” said Babcock indignantly, “no
matter what Rowan says.”
“Oh, it's not that--it's not that. That's not what hurts me. I can git
another contract. That's not what breaks me heart. But if they take me
Tom's NAME from me, an' say I can't be Tom Grogan any more; it's like
robbin' me of my life. When I work on the docks I allus brace myself
an' say' I'm doing just what Tom did many a day for me.' When I sign his
name to me checks an' papers,--the name I've loved an' that I've worked
for, the name I've kep' clean for him--me Tom that loved me, an' never
lied or was mean--me Tom that I promised, an'--an'”--
All the woman in her overcame her now. Sinking to her knees, she threw
her arms and head on the lounge, and burst into tears.
Babcock rested his head on his hand, and looked on in silence. Here was
something, it seemed to him, too sacred for him to touch even with his
sympathy.
“Tom,” he said, when she grew more quiet, his whole heart going out to
her, “what do you want me to do?”
“I don't know that ye can do anything,” she said in a quivering voice,
lifting her head, her eyes still wet. “Perhaps nobody can. But I thought
maybe ye'd go wid me to Judge Bowker in the mornin'. Rowan an' all of
'em 'll be there, an' I'm no match for these lawyers. Perhaps ye'd speak
to the judge for me.”
Babcock held out his hand.
“I knew ye would, an' I thank ye,” she said, drying her eyes. “Now
unlock the door, an' let 'em in. They worry so. Gran'pop hasn't slep'
a night since I was hurted, an' Jennie goes round cryin' all the time,
sayin' they 'll be a-killin' me next.”
Then, rising to her feet, she called out in a cheery voice, as Babcock
opened the door, “Come in, Jennie; come in Gran'pop. It's all over,
child. Mr. Babcock's a-going wid me in the mornin'. Niver fear; we'll
down 'em all yit.”