MARY CAREW IS TEMPTED.
When Norma, on reaching home with the tired child, finished her story,
which, truth to tell, lost nothing of its dramatic possibilities in her
telling, Mary Carew looked up with her face so set and white that Norma,
who had been too intent in her recital to notice the gradual change in
the other's manner, was startled.
"Don't take on so, Mary," she cried, removing the child's wraps as she
spoke, "I've always warned you she wasn't any deserted child, haven't
I?" but there was a real tenderness in Norma's voice as she reminded the
other of it.
"You'd better get your supper," Mary replied, "it's near time for you to
be going," and she pushed her work aside and held out her arms for the
child, her face softening as it did for nothing else in the world.
Tired, cold, dazed with crying, the drooping little soul crept into
Mary's arms, which closed hungrily and held her close as the sobs began
to come again.
Unlike her usual self, Mary let Norma prepare the supper unaided, while
she sat gazing down on the flushed little face pillowed on her arm, and
drew off the broken shoes, chafing and rubbing the cold, tired feet with
her hand.
She wanted no supper, she declared shortly in response to Norma's call,
but on being pressed, came to the table and drank a little tea
thirstily, and fed the sleepy child from her own plate.
"Now don't take on so, Mary, don't fret about it while I'm gone," Norma
begged as she hurried off to her nightly duties. "I'll miss her just as
much as you, if it does turn out that we have to give her up, and for
the darling's own sake, Mary, we ought to be glad to think she's going
back to her own."
But Mary, laying the sleeping child down in the crib, burst forth as the
door closed, "An' it's Norma Bonkowski can tell me I ought to be glad!
She can tell me that, and then say she'll miss her the same as me! It's
little then she knows about my feelings,--for it'll be to lose the one
bright thing outer my life as has ever come in it. 'Go back to her own!'
Like as not her own's a mother like them fine ones I see on the Avenoos
as leaves their little ones to grow up with hired nurses. 'Give her
up--give--her up--' Norma says so easy like,--when every word chokes
me--" and struggling against her sobs, Mary fell on her knees beside the
crib, burying her face in the covers, "an' I must go on sittin' here day
after day sewin', an' my precious one gone; stitchin' an' stitchin', one
day jus' like another stretchin' on ahead, long as life itself, an' no
little feet a-patterin' up the stairs, an' no little voice a-callin' on
me,--nothin' to live for, nothin' to keep me from thinkin' an' thinkin'
till I'm nigh to goin' crazy with the stitchin'--give her up?"--a wild
look was on Mary's face as she raised it suddenly, a desperate one in
her eyes--"I'll not give her up--she's mine----"
For a moment she gazed at the flushed face framed about with the sunny
hair, then she rose, and, moving about the room with feverish haste,
she gathered together certain of the garments which hung from nails
about the walls, and rolled them into a bundle. Then from between the
mattress and the boards of the bed she drew an old purse, and counted
its contents.
"Two dollars and seventy-five,--eighty-five, ninety,--that's mine,--the
rest is Norma's," and she returned the remainder to the hiding-place.
Then, putting on her own hat and shawl, she lifted the drowsy child,
still dressed, and slipping on her cloak, rolled her in addition, in the
shawl found with her that July morning almost five months before.
Then grimly picking up child and bundle, with one guilty, frightened
look about the room that for so many years had meant home to her, she
went out the door and hurried cautiously down the steps and out into the
snowy night.
* * * * *
It was half-past twelve when Norma Bonkowski, returning, climbed the
stairs of the Tenement wearily. She was cold, for her clothes were
thin; she was tired, for the day had been a hard one; she was
dispirited, for the manager had been more than usually sharp and
critical of her performance that night.
When she entered her door the room was dark. The lamp had burned itself
out and the room was filled with the sickening smell. The fire, too, was
out, save for a few red embers. With a sudden realization that something
was wrong, Norma groped about the littered mantel-shelf for a match,
then hastily lit an end of candle. Bed and crib were empty, half the
nails bare of their garments.
"Gone!" cried Norma, beginning to wring her hands. Intuitively she felt
what had happened. Desperate at the thought of losing her darling, Mary
Carew had fled.
But in a moment a re-assuring look replaced the fright on the blue,
pinched features. "I know Mary better than she knows herself," declared
the optimistic Norma, "she'll be back," and tossing her blonde head
resolutely, she threw aside her hat and cape and began to rekindle the
fire.
"I'll put on the tea-kettle, too," she told herself, "and be real
comfortable and extravagant for once, and have a cup of tea ready when
they come," for the good lady had no intention of going to bed, assuring
herself she would not sleep if she did. So, moving about, she refilled
the lamp, and drawing the machine nearer the stove, began to sew where
Mary had left off. "I wonder how she thinks to make a livin'," Norma
asked herself, smiling grimly, "seein' the machine's left behind. Poor
Mary! I know her too well, she'll be back before morning."
One, two,--then three, a neighboring church clock tolled, and Norma
stitched and waited, stitched and waited. Several times she fell asleep,
her head upon the machine, to awake with a start, hurry to the door and
listen.
A little before four she heard a step, and running to the door caught
poor Mary as she staggered in, half-sinking with her burdens. Taking the
frightened, wailing child and putting her down by the fire, Norma
dragged Mary to a chair.
"Hush," she commanded, when Mary tried to speak, "I know--I understand,"
and for once regardless of the child's comfort, she dragged the sodden
shoes from Mary's feet, drew off the wet skirts and wrapped her in
anything, everything, warm she could find. By this time Mary was sobbing
wildly, and Norma, half-distracted, turned to draw the tea and to toast
some slices of the stale bread she had waiting.
"Now," she said, jerking the table around before Mary, then sitting down
and taking up the child, "you drink that, Mary Carew, before you dare to
say one word!"
The child responded promptly to the warmth and food and began to
chatter. "C'rew did take Angel away, Norma, and it was cold and Angel
cwied, and C'rew cwied, but the nice lady sang."
"I tried to run off with her," sobbed Mary, "but the Lord stood right in
my way an' turned me back."
"Whatever do you mean, Mary?" demanded Norma.
"Just that, just what I said. I was a-runnin' off so's to keep her fer
my own, an' th' Lord stopped me an' sent me back."
The child, nodding on Norma's knee like a rosy little Mandarin, caught
the sacred name. "I p'ay the Lord mine and Joey's and eve'ybody's soul
to keep," she murmured with drowsy effort, thinking C'rew was urging her
to say the little prayer Miss Ruth had taught her.
"He will, He will," said Mary Carew with awed emphasis, "if ever I
doubted it before, Norma, I know now He will. I had been walkin' a good
while after I left here, for I had laid my plans hasty-like, to cross
the river an' get a room on the other side, for I was jus' outer my
head, Norma, along of the thought of losin' her,--an' as I said, I had
been walkin' I don' know how long, plannin' as I went, when the darlin'
woke up, an' begun to cry. An' jus' then a man opened a door to come out
of a place as had a great sign up, an' in the light as come out with
him, he caught sight of us.
"'Haven't you no place to go fer shelter, my poor woman?' he says, for I
was kinder breathless, an' pantin', fer the darlin' an' the bundle was a
weight to carry. But I was that tired out, I couldn't say nothin' but
jus' begin to cry. Seem' which he says, 'This is one of the
All-Night-Missions, come in an' I will see if you may stay until
morning.'
"Thinkin' as how th' child might be sufferin' with the cold, I follered
him in, a-plannin' to leave at daylight an' get across the river. I set
down on a bench where he pointed me, an' when I got my breath I begun to
look around.
"It was a nice place, Norma, with picters round th' walls an' a good
fire an' people sittin' round listenin' to a man talkin', an' when he
stopped, a lady begun to sing a song about some sheep as were lost.
"Angel here, she had stopped crying soon as she got warm, an' now she
set up, peart an' smilin', pleased to death with the singin'. An' when
she was done her song, the lady went to talkin', an' right along, Norma,
she was talkin' straight at me. It mus' have been th' Lord as tol' her
to do it, else how did she know?
"'Rachel,' says she, an' I reckon this Rachel's another poor such a one
as me, don't you, Norma?--'Rachel a cryin' for her children an' there
wasn't any comfort for her because they weren't there!' That's how she
begun. 'There isn't no love,' she said, 'no love on earth like the love
a mother has for her child, you might take it away,' she said, 'an' try
to fill its place with money an' everything good in life, but you can't
make her stop wantin' her child an' thinkin' about it, not if you was to
separate them fifty years; or you might try to beat it out of a mother
or starve it out of her, but if the mother love had ever been there,
it'd be there still.' That's what she said, Norma. An' she s'posed like
the child was lost an' she said, 'even if there was a lot of children
besides that a one, would she stay at home, contented like, with them as
was safe? No,' she said, 'that mother wouldn't, she'd start out and go
hunt for the one as was lost,--even to faintin' along the way, till she
found the child or give up an' died. That's how the Lord cares for
us'--she said, but I didn't hear no more after that, for I jus' set
there turned like to stone, goin' over what she said, the darlin' asleep
again in my lap. An' seems like I must a set there for hours, Norma,
fightin' against the Lord.
"'An' if you as ain't her mother wants her so,' at last, somethin'
inside says to me, 'how much more must th' mother what's lost her want
her?' and at that, Norma, the Lord won an' I got up an' come back with
the child."