THE ANGEL BECOMES A FAIRY.
July passed, and in August, the heat in the room beneath the roof set
the air to shimmering like a veil before the open window, and Mary
Carew, gasping, found it harder and harder to make that extra pair of
jean pantaloons a day. And, as though the manager at the Garden Opera
House had divined that Miss Bonkowski had left another birthday behind
her, like milestones along the way, that lady's salary received a cut on
the first day of August.
At best, the united incomes of the two made but a meagre sum, and there
was nothing for it now but to reduce expenses. The rent being one thing
that was never cut, the result was a scantier allowance of food.
Moreover, the mortals seeing to it that their heavenly visitant had her
full craving satisfied, it was small wonder that the bones in Mary's
face pressed more like knobs than ever against the tight-drawn skin, or
that the spirits of the airy, hopeful, buoyant Norma flagged. Indeed,
had not the warm-hearted, loving little creature, repaid them with quick
devotion, filling their meagre lives with new interests and affections,
despair or worse--regret for their generous impulse--must now have
seized their hearts.
Invitations, too, grew rare, from the other ladies of the Tenement,
bidding the little stranger whose simple friendliness and baby dignity
had won them all, to dine or to sup, for hard times had fallen upon them
also. A strike at a neighboring foundry, the shutting down of the great
rolling-mill by the river had sent their husbands home for a summer
vacation, with, unfortunately, no provision for wages, a state of
affairs forbidding even angels' visits, when the angel possessed so
human a craving for bread.
Even Mrs. O'Malligan, whose chief patron, Mrs. Tony, together with her
children and their dozens of dresses, had gone for a summer outing, had
no more on her table than her own family could dispose of.
But the Angel,--"'Eaving bless her," as Mrs. Tomlin was wont to observe
when the Angel, coming to see the baby, would stand with grave wonder,
touching the pallid little cheek with a rosy finger to make the baby
smile,--the Angel noted nothing of all this. Even the memory of
"_Mamma_" was fading, and Mary, Norma, the Tenement, the friendly
children swarming staircase and doorway, were fast becoming her small
world.
With instinct born of her profession, the chorus-lady had long ago
recognized the wonderful grace and buoyancy of the child's every
movement, and to her surprise found that the baby had quite a knowledge
of dancing.
"Who taught you how, my precious?" she would ask, when the child, as if
from the very love of motion, would catch and spread her skirts, and,
with pointed toe, trip about the room, "tell your Norma who taught the
darling how to dance?"
The baby glancing over her shoulder, with the little frown of
displeasure that always greeted such ignorance on Norma's part, had but
one reply: "Tante," she would declare, and continue her measured walk
about the floor. So, for pastime, Norma began teaching her the figures
of a dance then on the boards at the Opera House, to which her little
ladyship lent herself with readiness. The motions, sometimes approaching
the grotesque in the lean and elderly chorus-lady as she bobbed about
the limited space, courtesying, twirling, pirouetting, her blonde hair
done up in kids,--herself in the abbreviated toilet of pink calico sack
and petticoat reserved for home hours, changed to unconscious grace and
innocent abandon in the light, clean-limbed child, who learned with
quickness akin to instinct, and who seemed to follow Norma's movements
almost before they were completed.
"It is wonderful--amazing!" Miss Bonkowski would exclaim, pausing for
breath, "it is _genius_," and her voice would pause and fall reverently
before the words, and the lesson would be resumed with greater
enthusiasm than before.
But many were the days when, Norma away at rehearsal and Mary Carew,
hot, tired, alas, even cross,--totally irresponsive to anything but the
stitching of jean pantaloons,--the Angel would grow tired of the stuffy
room and long for the forbidden dangers and delights of Tenement
sidewalks. Then, often, with nothing else to do, she would catch up her
tiny skirts and whirl herself into the dance Norma had taught her, in
and out among the furniture crowding the room, humming little broken
snatches of music for herself, bending, swaying, her bright eyes full of
laughter as they met Mary's tired ones, her curls bobbing, until
breathless, hot and weary she would drop on the floor and fall asleep,
her head pillowed on her soft dimpled arm.
But on one of these long, hot mornings when the heat seemed to stream in
as from a furnace at the window and even the flies buzzed languidly, the
Angel was seized with another idea for passing time. Her vocabulary of
Tenement vernacular was growing too, and she chattered unceasingly.
"C'rew, didn't a fink Angel might go find her mamma?" she demanded on
this particular morning.
"To-morrow," said C'rew, and the click in her tired voice sounded even
above the whirring of the heavy machine, for C'rew's head ached and her
back ached, and possibly her heart ached too, for herself and Norma and
the child and poor people in one-windowed tenement rooms in general.
"Didn't a fink she might go play with little Joey?"
"No," said Mary decidedly, and she leaned back wearily and pushed her
thin, colorless hair off her hot, throbbing temples, "no, you played
down on the pavement with Joey an' th' rest yesterday, an the sun made
you sick. But," with haste to avert the cloud lowering over the baby
face, "if you'll be real good an' not worry her, you can go down an' see
Mrs. O'Malligan."
Fair weather prevailed again on the pretty face, and at Mary's word the
Angel was at the open door, tugging at the chair placed crossways to
keep her from venturing out unobserved, and with a sigh and a guilty
look at the pile of unfinished work, Mary rose and carried her down to
the good Irish lady's door, and, with a word, hurried back.
Mrs. O'Malligan, big, beaming and red, smiled a moist but hearty welcome
from over her tubs toward the little figure in the faded gingham
standing shyly in the open doorway. "An' it's proud to see ye I am, me
Angel," she declared, "though there's never a childer in call to be
playin' wid ye."
But the Angel, nothing daunted, smiled back in turn, and climbed into a
chair, and the two forthwith fell into friendly conversation, though it
is doubtful if either understood one-half of what the other was talking
about.
Presently Mrs. O'Malligan, with many apologies, went out into the back
court to hang out the last of the family wash, and on her return,
stopping short in the doorway, her jolly red face spread into a
responsive smile. "The saints presarve us," she cried, "would ye look at
the child?" for in the tub of blue rinsing water sat the gleeful Angel,
water trickling from her yellow hair and from every stitch of clothing,
while her evident enjoyment of the cool situation found a response in
Mrs. O'Malligan's kind and indulgent heart.
"Angel take a baf," was the smiling though superfluous explanation
which came from the infant Undine.
"An' it's right ye are," laughed Mrs. O'Malligan, "an' sure I'll be
afther givin' ye a rale wan meself," and filling an empty tub with clean
water, the brisk lady soon had the baby stripped to her firm, white skin
and standing in the tub.
And what with the splashings of the naughty feet, and the wicked tumbles
into the soap-suds every time the mischievous little body was rinsed,
and Mrs. O'Malligan's "Whist, be aisy," and "It's a tormentin' darlint
ye are," they heard nothing of the knocks at the door or the calls, nor
knew that Miss Bonkowski, in street dress and hat, had entered, until
she stood beside them with an armful of clean clothes.
"Was there ever such luck," she cried excitedly, "to find her all washed
and just ready! Mary said she was here, and so I just brought her clean
clothes down with me to save a trip back upstairs. Wipe her quickly,
please," and with hands and tongue going, Miss Norma explained that one
of the children in the juvenile dance on the boards at The Garden Opera
House had been suddenly taken ill, and a matinee advertised for the next
day.
"And it happens lucky enough," she went on, addressing the ladies who,
catching wind of the excitement, had speedily gathered about the
doorway, "it just happens I have been teaching her this very dance, and
if she don't get frightened, I believe she will be able to take the
place."
So saying, Miss Bonkowski gave a pull out and a last finishing pat to
the strings of the embroidered muslin bonnet the child had worn on her
first appearance, and taking her, clean, dainty, smiling and expectant,
into her arms, Miss Norma plunged out of the comparative coolness of the
Tenement hallway into the glare of the August sun.
But all this while the little brain was at work. "Goin' to Angel's
mamma,--her goin' to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma
hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo
as it rested on Norma's shoulder.
Norma paused on the crowded sidewalk, to take breath beneath the shade
of a friendly awning. "Not to-day, my angel," she panted, "to-day your
Norma is going to take her precious where there are ever so many nice
little girls for her to dance with."
"Angel likes to dance with little girls, Norma," admitted the baby,
while Norma made ready to thread her way across the street through the
press of vehicles.
"I'll not say one word to her about being frightened," reflected the
wise chorus lady, "and she's such an eager little darling, thinking of
other things and trying to do her best, maybe she won't think of it. If
she can only keep the place while that child is sick,--what a help the
money would be!"--and the usually hopeful Norma sighed as she hurried in
the side entrance of the handsome stone building known to the public as
The Garden Opera House.
* * * * *
The next afternoon, at The Garden Opera House, as the bell rang for the
curtain to rise, Mary Carew, in best attire of worn black dress and
cheap straw hat, was putting the Angel into the absent fairy's cast-off
shell, which consisted of much white tarlatan as to skirts and much
silver tinsel as to waist, with a pair of wonderful gauzy wings at sight
of which the Angel was enraptured.
Miss Bonkowski being, as she expressed it, "on in the first scene," Mary
Carew had been obliged to forsake jean pantaloons for the time being and
come to take charge of the child, who in her earnest, quick,
enthusiastic little fashion had done her part and gone through the
rehearsal better even than the sanguine Norma had hoped, and after
considerable drilling had satisfied the authorities that she could fill
the vacancy.
As for the Angel, in her friendly fashion she had enjoyed herself
hugely, accepting the homage of the other children like a small queen,
graciously permitting herself to be enthused over by the various ladies
who, like Norma, constituted "the chorus," and carrying home numerous
offerings, from an indigestible wad of candy known as "an
all-day-sucker," given her by her fairy-partner, to a silver quarter
given her by the blonde and handsome tenor.
"She is the most fascinating little creature I ever met in my life,"
the prima donna had cried to the excited Miss Bonkowski, who had never
been addressed by that great personage before,--"did you ever see such
heavenly eyes,--not blue--violet--and such a smile--like the sun through
tears! Who is she,--where did she come from? Such grace,--such poise!"
The Angel's story was recited to quite an audience, in Miss Bonkowski's
most dramatic manner. But long before the chorus lady had finished, the
great singer, lending but a wandering attention after the few facts were
gathered, had coaxed the child into her silken lap, and with the mother
touch which lies in every real woman's fingers from doll-baby days
upward, was fondling and re-touching the rings of shining hair, and,
with the mother-notes which a child within one's arms brings into every
womanly woman's voice, was cooing broken endearments into the little
ear.
Meanwhile the Angel gazed into the beautiful face with the calm and
critical eyes of childhood. But what she saw there must have satisfied,
for, with a sigh of content, she finally settled back against the
encircling arm. "Pretty lady," was her candid comment. "Angel loves
her."
Flattered and praised as she had been, it is doubtful if the great
singer had ever received a tribute to her charms that pleased her more.
"Bring her to my room to-morrow to dress her," she said to Miss
Bonkowski in soft, winning tones that were nevertheless a command,
unpinning the two long-stemmed roses she wore and putting them in the
baby fingers, "and bring her early, mind!" And so it was that Mary
Carew, nervous and awkward, was there now, doing her best to dress the
excited little creature, whom nothing could keep still a second at a
time.
"Thank you, ma'am," Mary managed to breathe as the great personage,
turning the full radiance of her beauty upon the bewildered seamstress,
took the necklace of flashing jewels from her maid's fingers and bade
her help Mary.
The great lady laughed. "You're nervous, aren't you?" she said
good-humoredly, too human not to be pleased at this unconscious tribute
on Mary's part.
"If the child can only do it right, ma'am," said Mary, in a voice she
hardly knew for her own, overcome this by graciousness no less than by
the splendor.
"Right," said the lady, clasping a bracelet upon her round, white arm,
and settling her trailing draperies preparatory to going on, "right! Of
course she will, who ever heard of an Angel going wrong!" and laughing
she sailed away.
"Now," cried Miss Bonkowski, rushing in a little later, "give her to me,
quick, Mary! If you stand right here in the wings you can see nicely,"
and the excited lady, wonderful as to her blonde befrizzlement, gorgeous
as to pink skirt, blue bodice and not the most cleanly of white waists,
bore the Angel, like a rosebud in a mist of gauze, away.
Left alone amid the bustle and confusion Mary stood where Norma had
directed, gazing out upon the stage like one in a dream. Never in all
her colorless life had she been in the midst of such bewildering
splendors before. Was it any wonder that Norma Bonkowski was different
from the rest of the Tenement when she shared such scenes daily?
Still further dazed by the music and the glimpses she could catch of the
brilliantly lighted house, Mary held her breath and clasped her hands as
she gazed out on the stage where, across the soft green, from among the
forest trees, into the twilighted opening, glided the fairies; waving
their little arms, tripping slowly as if half-poised for flight,
listening, bending, swaying, whirling, faster, swifter, they broke into
"The Grand Spectacular Ballet of the Fairies," as the advertisements of
the opera phrased it. Faster, swifter still, noiselessly they spun,
here, there, in, out, in bewildering maze until, as the red and yellow
lights cast upon the stage changed into green, their footsteps
slackened, faltered, their heads, like tired flowers, drooped, and each
on its mossy bank of green,--the fairies sank to sleep.
All? All but one; one was left, in whose baby mind was fixed an
unfaltering supposition that she must dance, as she had done alone, over
and over again at the rehearsals for her tiny benefit, until the music
stopped. So, while Norma Bonkowski wrung her hands and the stage
manager swore, and all behind the scenes was confusion and dismay, the
Angel danced on.
The prima donna whose place it now was, as the forsaken princess, lost
in the forest, to happen upon the band of sleeping fairies, waited at
her entrance, watching the child as, catching and spreading her fan-like
skirts of gauze, she bent, swayed, flitted to and fro, her eyes big and
earnest with intentness to duty, her yellow hair flying, all
unconscious, in the fierce glare of the colored lights, of the sea of
faces in the house before her.
With a sudden flash of intuition Norma Bonkowski flew to the manager.
"Stop the music, make them stop," she begged.
He glared at her savagely, but nevertheless communicated the order to
the orchestra, and as the music waned to a mere wailing of the violin,
the little dancer, rosy, hot, tired, whirled slower, slower,--then sank
on her bed of green, and like her companions feigned sleep with the
cunning pretence of childhood.
But not even then could the prima donna make her appearance, for, in the
storm of applause which followed, the revived efforts of the orchestra
were drowned.
The face of the manager broadened into smiles, Norma Bonkowski fell
against Mary Carew with tears of relief, and the prima donna with
good-natured readiness stepped upon the stage, lifted the now frightened
child who, at the noise, had sprung up in alarm, and carried her out to
the footlights, the other children peeping, but too well drilled, poor
dears, to otherwise stir. The audience paused.
"Wave bye-bye to the little girl over there," whispered the prima donna
with womanly readiness, nodding toward the nearest box, filled with
children eagerly enjoying "The Children's Opera of the Princess Blondina
and the Fairies."
Though frightened and ready to cry, the Angel waved her hand obediently,
and the prima donna, nodding and smiling in the unaffected fashion which
was half her own charm, carried the child off the stage amid applause as
enthusiastic as she herself was used to receiving.
It had all taken place in a very few minutes, but as the smiling singer
said, handing the Angel over to the manager, even in those few moments,
"She has made the hit of the season," then, turning, re-entered the
stage, her voice, with its clear bell-like tones, filling the house with
the song, "Blondina Awakening The Fairies."
Nor did it end with this, for the Angel was forthwith engaged, at what
seemed to Norma and Mary a fabulous price, to repeat her solo dance at
every Wednesday and Saturday matinee during the further run of the
opera.