A FRIENDLY ENEMY
"Now, don't you worry, little girl. You are not like that one running
away. I can see that by your manner," said the officer kindly, as
Dagmar pressed her handkerchief to her wet eyes. "I don't have to take
you to the calaboose, unless I set fit, and I don't."
He touched her arm kindly. Jim Cosgrove hated to see anyone cry, and
his kind heart never seemed to interfere with the fulfillment of his
duty. When he was kind he had reason to be, and never yet had the
higher officials questioned his wisdom.
"Oh, thank you," said Dagmar, when she could find the words. "We
haven't done anything wrong."
"Well, it isn't exactly right for young girls to run away from home,
and I don't have to wait for all the particulars to decide that is what
you are both aiming to do. However, let us go along. My wife doesn't
mind takin' a girl in now and then, to save her name from the records."
Dagmar breathed easier. She might even find a place to sleep! Why
hadn't Tessie waited?
In spite of the rather unpleasant situation, there was comfort in the
thought she would not have to go to some dreadful hotel, or boarding
house, and perhaps undergo all the hardships dealt out to runaways in
the "pictures." So Dagmar walked along with the officer, unmindful of
the sharp looks of the few passersby who happened to be out in that
section of the rather quiet town.
"Of course you will go straight back home in the morning?" asked and
answered the officer.
"Oh, I did so want to try something else," almost pleaded the girl.
"You see, mister, it is awful in the mill end of Flosston."
"Not very good, I'll admit," replied he, "but it will be my duty to
send you back."
They walked along in silence after that brief conversation. Dagmar was
thinking how difficult it would be to go back home on the morrow, and
in the company of an officer! As if the man divined her thoughts, he
said presently:
"We will see how we make out when we get to my house. My old woman is
as good a help to me as the other man on the post, and better. She
helps me a lot with the girls, and I often say she should have had a
uniform. Maybe we can fix it so she will take you back home."
"Oh, that would be better," replied Dagmar. "I would hate to go with a
man."
"Course you would and I don't blame you. But I must hurry and put you
up with Mary. If I don't find your pal I will have to give the word to
the next town. Can't have a girl like that running around loose all
night."
"I wish she had stayed. Tessie is--not really wild, but she has so much
freedom at home. All her folks seem to care for about her is her money."
"Lots of folks are foolish as that, then they have to spend a good lot
to make up for getting a little. And the funny part of it is, the
girls, who seem so wise, are the easiest fooled. Now, she acted like a
real grown-up, but I'll bet my badge she would go along with the first
person who offered her a hot pancake for breakfast. They have so much
nerve it dries up all their common sense."
"I do wish she had not run away. She is always making fun of me and
calling me a baby. But I think, as you say, mister, it is better not to
have too much nerve."
"You're right, girl. But here we are. Don't you be the least bit afraid
of my wife. She is big and blustery, but has a heart of gold."
The rugged outside of this man evidently hid a heart of his own not far
from pure gold, and Dagmar could not help thinking he was the nicest
policeman she had ever heard of, and that she had encountered him
seemed nothing short of wonderfully good luck.
Turning in at the gate, which even in the night could be seen to form a
little arch in vines and bushes, Officer Cosgrove tapped lightly on the
door, which was opened before the echo of his last tap had died away.
"Here we are, Mary," he announced to the woman standing in the portal.
"I just brought you a little girl--who--is lost. Take care of her while
I go after the--other. She didn't take so kindly to Jim as this one
did," and with a friendly little push, he ushered Dagmar into the
narrow hall, and turned out into the roadway, from whence his light
footfall could immediately be heard hurrying over the cinder-covered
path.
"Come in, girl," ordered Mrs. Cosgrove. "What happened to you?"
Dagmar was bewildered. What had happened to her? What should she answer!
"I am--away--from home," she managed to reply. "The officer said I
could go back tomorrow."
The inadequacy of her reply sounded foolish even to Dagmar, but she was
constrained to feel her way. She could never blurt out the fact that
she had actually run away from home!
"Oh, I see," said Mrs. Cosgrove with a tone of uncertainty. "Run away,
eh?"
"Yes'm," said Dagmar defencelessly.
"Too bad. Didn't your folks treat you right?"
"Oh, yes," hurried Dagmar to correct any such impression as that
question conveyed. "But I wanted to help them--all, and I thought
I--could!"
Tears were running over now, and Dagmar's courage was at lowest ebb.
The motherly woman took the ever-present "telescope," and setting it
down in a corner of the pleasant room, directed Dagmar to a chair near
the little stove, in which a small light glowed, quite suitably opposed
to the chill of early spring.
"Just sit down and I'll get you a bite. Of course you are hungry."
"Not very," gulped the girl, who had not tasted food since she snapped
the cover on her lunch box that eventful noon day, when the girl,
having agreed with Tessie to leave Milltown, had eaten the dark bread
and bologna, for what she supposed would be the last time. So Dagmar
was hungry, although her emotion for the time was choking her, and
hiding the pangs of actual hunger.
"All the same tea tastes good when we use up nerves," insisted the
woman, leaving the room, and presently clicking dishes and utensils in
the kitchen. Left alone for a moment Dagmar recovered her composure and
glanced about the room. It seemed almost fragrant in its clean
freshness. She had never occupied such a room, with that peculiar,
bracing atmosphere. The small mantel with its prim vases looked a
veritable home shrine, and the center table with the sprigs of budding
lilacs, seemed to the forlorn girl something to reverence. The rag rugs
under her feet were so spotless, the curtains so white--it suddenly
occurred to the girl these things could not exist in the smoke and grim
of a mill town. It was the mill--always the mill found to blame for her
misery.
"Come on, girl--what is your name?" came a voice from the kitchen.
Dagmar responded and took her place at the table with its white
oilcloth cover, and a snowy napkin neatly smoothed under the one plate
set for her.
"Molly has gone to Flosston to a Girl Scout meeting," announced Mrs.
Cosgrove, helping Dagmar to a dish of home-made pork and beans. "She
loves the Scout affairs, and wouldn't miss a rally, even if she has to
come home a little late. Martin, that's my boy, will meet her at the
jitney."
"Gone to Flosston?" repeated Dagmar. "That's where I came from--that is
the corner we call Milltown, it is out where the factories are."
"Oh, I know the town well. Not too nice in spots. But start right in.
Drink your tea and eat up your bread and jelly. I'll finish what I was
at, and be back by the time you have cleaned your plate."
Dagmar realized this action was taken out of sheer delicacy. And she
was very thankful to be left alone with her food. After all it was not
so bad to be arrested, if all jail sentences were served in such nice
clean kitchens, thought the girl.
But the reflection of a girl scout meeting at Flosston, and the
stinging memory of the honor badge, picked up that night and carried
off by the reckless Tessie, would torture her in spite of the more
important issues in the girl's experience.
Where would Tessie go? Where would she stay and what would become of
her? No doubt, as the officer had remarked, such a girl would easily
become the prey of the unscrupulous, and at this thought Dagmar
shuddered. What dreadful things always happen to runaway girls in the
movies? Again the standard asserted its power.
Next moment the opening door announced Mrs. Cosgrove was back, and
Dagmar had "cleaned her plate."
"There now, you will feel better," and the woman quickly gathered up
the tea dishes. "Come in the other room, and tell me your story before
Jim comes back; sometimes a woman can help a girl more than a man can,
and, as Jim says, I am sort of a wedge between the law and the victim,"
and she laughed lightly at the idea of interfering with her husband's
business.
Dagmar told her story. She did not spare herself or attempt to cover
her mistakes. She had left home because she was tired of Milltown and
because she thought she would be better able to help her folks by
getting out of the factory. Yes, she had listened to Tessie, and Tessie
was different. Her mother allowed her out late nights, and had no
objections to her going to dances in the factory hall, without brother
or father. When Dagmar went her brother Frank always accompanied her.
"Well, that's encouraging," spoke Mrs. Cosgrove when Dagmar paused.
"When folks have that much sense you can always talk to them. Now, when
Molly comes we will talk it over with her. I wouldn't mind leaving off
my work to-morrow, although I did plan to clean the cellar, and I could
go out and see your mother--that is, if Molly thought there would be a
chance for work for you here, and perhaps we could fix it so you could
stay for a while anyway. I don't believe it would do you good to go
right back in that crowd again. What you need is new chums."
"Oh, I couldn't give you all that trouble," objected Dagmar. "I am
willing to go right back in the morning."
"It's right you should say so," continued the wise woman, "but you see,
my girl, when you go back, you get right in the same rut again, and all
those mill girls would just make life miserable for you. I am not
encouraging you to stay away from home, but as Molly says, she is a
leader in the scout girls you know--she always says when a thing goes
wrong in one place it is best to try it in another. That is if the
thing must be done, and, of course, you must work. However, wait until
Molly comes in. She has learned so much since she has tried to teach
others that I do believe she knows more than I do."
"You say she is a scout lieutenant?"
"Yes, they only take girls eighteen or over for that office and my
Molly was eighteen two days before she was elected," and at the thought
Mrs. Cosgrove indulged in a satisfactory chuckle.
It was all very bewildering to Dagmar, but just how it happened that
she did not return to Flosston immediately was due to a very
interesting plan made by Molly and co-operated in by her official
father, and finally worked out by the near-official mother.