A RUNAWAY COUPLE
"Courage mounteth with occasion."
For two years Lovey Mary cared for Tommy: she bathed him and dressed
him, taught him to walk, and kissed his bumps to make them well; she
sewed for him and nursed him by day, and slept with him in her tired
arms at night. And Tommy, with the inscrutable philosophy of
childhood, accepted his little foster-mother and gave her his all.
One bright June afternoon the two were romping in the home yard under
the beech-trees. Lovey Mary lay in the grass, while Tommy threw
handfuls of leaves in her face, laughing with delight at her grimaces.
Presently the gate clicked, and some one came toward them.
"Good land! is that my kid?" said a woman's voice. "Come here, Tom,
and kiss your mother."
Lovey Mary, sitting up, found Kate Rider, in frills and ribbons,
looking with surprise at the sturdy child before her.
Tommy objected violently to this sudden overture and declined
positively to acknowledge the relationship. In fact, when Kate
attempted to pull him to her, he fled for protection to Lovey Mary and
cast belligerent glances at the intruder.
Kate laughed.
"Oh, you needn't be so scary; you might as well get used to me, for I
am going to take you home with me. I bet he's a corker, ain't he,
Lovey? He used to bawl all night. Sometimes I'd have to spank him two
or three times."
Lovey Mary clasped the child closer and looked up in dumb terror. Was
Tommy to be taken from her? Tommy to go away with Kate?
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Kate, exasperated at the girl's manner. "You
are just as ugly and foolish as you used to be. I'm going in to see
Miss Bell."
Lovey Mary waited until she was in the house, then she stole
noiselessly around to the office window. The curtain blew out across
her cheek, and the swaying lilacs seemed to be trying to count the
china buttons on her back; but she stood there with staring eyes and
parted lips, and held her breath to listen.
[Illustration with caption: "'Come here, Tom, and kiss your mother.'"]
"Of course," Miss Bell was saying, measuring her words with due
precision, "if you feel that you can now support your child and that
it is your duty to take him, we cannot object. There are many other
children waiting to come into the home. And yet--" Miss Bell's voice
sounded human and unnatural--"yet I wish he could stay. Have you
thought, Kate, of your responsibility toward him, of--"
"Oh! Ough!" shrieked Tommy from the playground, in tones of distress.
Lovey Mary left her point of vantage and rushed to the rescue. She
found him emitting frenzied yells, while a tiny stream of blood
trickled down his chin.
"It was my little duck," he gasped as soon as he was able to speak. "I
was tissin' him, an' he bited me."
At thought of the base ingratitude on the part of the duck, Tommy
wailed anew. Lovey Mary led him to the hydrant and bathed the injured
lip, while she soothed his feelings. Suddenly a wave of tenderness
swept over her. She held his chubby face up to hers and said
fervently:
"Tommy, do you love me?"
"Yes," said Tommy, with a reproachful eye on the duck. "Yes; I yuv to
yuv. I don't yuv to tiss, though!"
"But me, Tommy, me. Do you love me?"
"Yes," he answered gravely, "dollar an' a half."
"Whose little boy are you?"
"Yuvey's 'e boy."
Satisfied with this catechism, she put Tommy in care of another girl
and went back to her post at the window. Miss Bell was talking again.
"I will have him ready to-morrow afternoon when you come. His clothes
are all in good condition. I only hope, Kate, that you will care for
him as tenderly as Mary has. I am afraid he will miss her sadly."
"If he's like me, he'll forget about her in two or three days,"
answered the other voice. "It always was 'out of sight, out of mind'
with me."
Miss Bell's answer was indistinct, and in a few minutes Lovey Mary
heard the hall door close behind them. She shook her fists until the
lilacs trembled. "She sha'n't have him!" she whispered fiercely. "She
sha'n't let him grow up wicked like she is. I won't let him go. I'll
hide him, I'll--"
Suddenly she grew very still, and for a long time crouched motionless
behind the bushes. The problem that faced her had but one solution,
and Lovey Mary had found it.
The next morning when the sun climbed over the tree-tops and peered
into the dormitory windows he found that somebody else had made an
early rise. Lovey Mary was sitting by a wardrobe making her last will
and testament. From the neatly folded pile of linen she selected a few
garments and tied them into a bundle. Then she took out a cigar-box
and gravely contemplated the contents. There were two narrow hair-
ribbons which had evidently been one wide ribbon, a bit of rock
crystal, four paper dolls, a soiled picture-book with some other
little girl's name scratched out on the cover, and two shining silver
dollars. These composed Lovey Mary's worldly possessions. She tied the
money in her handkerchief and put it in her pocket, then got up softly
and slipped about among the little white beds, distributing her
treasures.
"I'm mad at Susie," she whispered, pausing before a tousled head; "I
hate to give her the nicest thing I've got. But she's just crazy 'bout
picture-books."
The curious sun climbed yet a little higher and saw Lovey Mary go back
to her own bed, and, rolling Tommy's clothes around her own bundle,
gather the sleeping child in her arms and steal quietly out of the
room. Then the sun got too high up in the heavens to watch little
runaway orphan girls. Nobody saw her steal through the deserted
playroom, down the clean bare steps, which she had helped to wear
away, and out through the yard to the coal-shed. Here she got the
reluctant Tommy into his clothes, and tied on his little round straw
hat, so absurdly like her own.
"Is we playin' hie-spy, Yuvey?" asked the mystified youngster.
"Yes, Tommy," she whispered, "and we are going a long way to hide. You
are my little boy now, and you must love me better than anything in
the world. Say it, Tommy; say, 'I love you better 'n anybody in the
whole world.'"
"Will I det on de rollin' honor?" asked Tommy, thinking he was
learning his golden text.
But Lovey Mary had forgotten her question. She was taking a farewell
look at the home, every nook and corner of which had suddenly grown
dear. Already she seemed a thing apart, one having no right to its
shelter and protection. She turned to where Tommy was playing with
some sticks in the corner, and bidding him not to stir or speak until
her return, she slipped back up the walk and into the kitchen. Swiftly
and quietly she made a fire in the stove and filled the kettle with
water. Then she looked about for something more she might do. On the
table lay the grocery book with a pencil attached. She thought a
moment, then wrote laboriously under the last order: "Miss Bell I will
take kere Tommy pleas don't be mad." Then she softly closed the door
behind her.
A few minutes later she lifted Tommy out of the low shed window, and
hurried him down the alley and out into the early morning streets. At
the corner they took a car, and Tommy knelt by the window and absorbed
the sights with rapt attention; to him the adventure was beginning
brilliantly. Even Lovey Mary experienced a sense of exhilaration when
she paid their fare out of one of the silver dollars. She knew the
conductor was impressed, because he said, "You better watch Buddy's
hat, ma'am." That "ma'am" pleased her profoundly; it caused her
unconsciously to assume Miss Bell's tone and manner as she conversed
with the back of Tommy's head.
"We'll go out on the avenue," she said. "We'll go from house to house
till I get work. 'Most anybody would be glad to get a handy girl that
can cook and wash and sew, only--I ain't very big, and then there's
you."
"Ain't that a big house?" shouted Tommy, half way out of the window.
"Yes; don't talk so loud. That's the court-house."
"Where they make court-plaster at?" inquired Tommy shrilly.
Lovey Mary glanced around uneasily. She hoped the old man in the
corner had not heard this benighted remark. All went well until the
car reached the terminal station. Here Tommy refused to get off. In
vain Lovey Mary coaxed and threatened.
"It'll take us right back to the home," she pleaded. "Be a good boy
and come with Lovey. I'll buy you something nice."
Tommy remained obdurate. He believed in letting well enough alone. The
joys of a street-car ride were present and tangible; "something nice"
was vague, unsatisfying.
"Don't yer little brother want to git off?" asked the conductor,
sympathetically.
"No, sir," said Lovey Mary, trying to maintain her dignity while she
struggled with her charge. "If you please, sir, would you mind holding
his feet while I loosen his hands?"
Tommy, shrieking indignant protests, was borne from the car and
deposited on the sidewalk.
"Don't you dare get limber!" threatened Lovey Mary. "If you do I'll
spank you right here on the street. Stand up! Straighten out your
legs! Tommy! do you hear me?"
Tommy might have remained limp indefinitely had not a hurdy-gurdy
opportunely arrived on the scene. It is true that he would go only in
the direction of the music, but Lovey Mary was delighted to have him
go at all. When at last they were headed for the avenue, Tommy caused
another delay.
"I want my ducky," he announced.
The words brought consternation to Lovey Mary. She had fearfully
anticipated them from the moment of leaving the home.
"I'll buy you a 'tend-like duck," she said.
"No; I want a sure-'nough ducky; I want mine."
Lovey Mary was exasperated. "Well, you can't have yours. I can't get
it for you, and you might as well hush."
His lips trembled, and two large tears rolled down his round cheeks.
When he was injured he was irresistible. Lovey Mary promptly
surrendered.
"Don't cry, baby boy! Lovey'll get you one someway."
For some time the quest of the duck was fruitless. The stores they
entered were wholesale houses for the most part, where men were
rolling barrels about or stacking skins and hides on the sidewalk.
"Do you know what sort of a store they sell ducks at?" asked Lovey
Mary of a colored man who was sweeping out an office.
"Ducks!" repeated the negro, grinning at the queerly dressed children
in their round straw hats. "Name o' de Lawd! What do you all want wif
ducks?"
Lovey Mary explained.
"Wouldn't a kitten do jes as well?" he asked kindly.
"I want my ducky," whined Tommy, showing signs of returning storm.
"I don' see no way 'cept'n' gwine to de mahket. Efen you tek de cah
you kin ride plumb down dere."
Recent experience had taught Lovey Mary to be wary of street-cars, so
they walked. At the market they found some ducks. The desired objects
were hanging in a bunch with their limp heads tied together. Further
inquiry, however, discovered some live ones in a coop.
"They're all mama ducks," objected Tommy. "I want a baby ducky. I want
my little ducky!"
When he found he could do no better, he decided to take one of the
large ones. Then he said he was hungry, so he and Mary took turn about
holding it while the other ate "po' man's pickle" and wienerwurst.
It was two o'clock by the time they reached the avenue, and by four
they were foot-sore and weary, but they trudged bravely along from
house to house asking for work. As dusk came on, the houses, which a
few squares back had been tall and imposing, seemed to be getting
smaller and more insignificant. Lovey Mary felt secure as long as she
was on the avenue. She did not know that the avenue extended for many
miles and that she had reached the frayed and ragged end of it. She
and Tommy passed under a bridge, and after that the houses all seemed
to behave queerly. Some faced one way, some another, and crisscross
between them, in front of them, and behind them ran a network of
railroad tracks.
"What's the name of this street?" asked Lovey Mary of a small, bare-
footed girl.
"'T ain't no street," answered the little girl, gazing with
undisguised amazement at the strange-looking couple; "this here is the
Cabbage Patch."
[Illustration: "'T ain't no street...; this here is the Cabbage
Patch.'"]