WHAT HAPPENED.
The happening came about in this way: Aunt Elizabeth had promised to
take Edna to see some poor little children who, she said, might make
Edna feel how highly favored she was. Aunt Elizabeth Horner was a good
woman, although she was rather hard on little people, having been
brought up in a very strict way herself; but she was interested in
many charities and missions, was always making warm clothing for the
poor, and many a time sat up late at night, after a busy day, in order
to fashion pretty cornucopias, boxes, and other fancy articles for
some fair in which she was interested. She was one of the managers of
an institution called "The Home of the Friendless," and favored it
more than any of her other charities. The name appealed strongly to
Edna, and she was very anxious to see the little children.
"We want to build a nice big new home for these poor wanderers who
have no other home and no friends, so we are going to hold a fair,"
said Aunt Elizabeth, as they stopped at the door of a quiet-looking
house on a little side street. "This is too small a place for the many
little children who should be provided for."
[Illustration: AUNT ELIZABETH.]
Edna was very much interested in seeing the little waifs, in hearing
them sing, and in seeing where they ate and slept. She was very
thoughtful as she sat perched up on the seat of the car by her aunt's
side during their homeward journey.
"I wish I could do something for them," she said, after a while.
"So you can, my dear," replied Aunt Elizabeth. "You can help me to
make something for the fair."
"Do you think I really could?" cried Edna, delightedly.
"I am quite sure of it; if you are willing to give up some of your
playtime, you can help me a great deal by cutting out the paper for my
cornucopias, and perhaps you could do some of the pasting yourself."
This was surely a pleasant prospect, and the little girl was much
pleased at it. She was a warm-hearted child, and a generous one, too.
So she not only helped to make the pretty things, but brought all her
pennies to her aunt to spend in materials.
"I will tell you what we can do with the pennies," said Aunt
Elizabeth. "We will buy a lot of little dolls, and you can help dress
them. I will have a great big shoe at my table, in which we can have
the old woman who had 'so many children she didn't know what to do.'"
"Where will you get the old woman?" asked Edna, her face beaming.
Louis was standing by. "O, Aunt Elizabeth!" he said, becoming
interested in the plan, "let me give the money for the old woman." So
it was settled, and Edna gave up every spare moment to helping. All
her thoughts were upon the fair, and she thought nothing more
beautiful than the pretty things which Aunt Elizabeth's deft fingers
turned out. There were little mugs and boats and pitchers, all made of
pasteboard and fancy papers; these were to be filled with candy, and
made a fine show as they stood on a table ready to be sent away.
One afternoon Aunt Elizabeth wanted some ribbon in a hurry. "I am
going to send you downtown, Edna," she said. "You are big enough to
find your way alone. Hurry back, for I want the ribbon as soon as I
can get it."
"Can't Louis go with me?"
"No; he has to study one of his lessons, which he missed this morning.
It is high time you were learning to be more self-reliant. I will tell
you just how and where to go."
Edna's heart fluttered at this undertaking. She had never been
downtown alone, and she was much afraid that she could not find the
way, but she decided to do the best she could, especially as she knew
her aunt would consider any objection in the light of disobedience.
It was all very easy to get in the car, pay her fare, and ask the
conductor to let her out at such a street; so she managed very easily
to reach the shop and get the ribbon; but to take the car home she was
obliged to cross the street, and here came trouble, for there were
horses dashing up and down, trolley cars coming this way and that,
and, altogether, it was a very confusing point. Therefore Edna stood a
long time on the curb before she dared to venture across, but finally
she summoned up courage when the way seemed tolerably clear, and she
managed to reach the opposite side; but looking back at a trolley car
which seemed close at hand she hurried faster than her stout little
legs could be relied upon to take her, and down she went in the mud of
the gutter. She picked herself up in an agony of shame, lest she
should be laughed at, and ran on as fast as she could up the street,
but, unfortunately, in the wrong direction; for when she stood still
and looked about her there were no blue cars to be seen, and it all
looked strange.
She felt in her pocket for her parcel; it was safe, but her car fare
was gone, and she stood a pitiful, mud-besmeared little object. Then
the big tears began to come as she walked along very fast. "O dear,
I'm lost!" she said to herself, "and I'll have to walk home, and Aunt
Elizabeth is in a hurry, and she'll scold me! O dear! O dear! I want
my own home, I do, I do." She began then to run along very fast again,
to hide her tears from passers-by, and presently she came bump up
against another little girl who had also been running.
The two children coming to such an abrupt standstill stared at each
other. Edna saw a poor, ragged, dirty, pale-faced child with wild
locks; and the little girl saw Edna with the tears still coursing down
her cheeks, her pretty coat and frock stained with mud, and her hat
knocked very much to one side.
It was the ragged girl who smiled first.
"I 'most knocked ye down, didn't I?" she said. "Where was ye going so
fast?"
"I am going home," replied Edna, "only I don't know how to get there."
"Yer lucky."
Edna stared. "I think I'm very unlucky. What makes you say that?"
"Yer lucky ter have any home ter go ter. I ain't. Yer live somewhere,
if ye don't know where it is, an' I don't live nowhere, if I know
where that is."
Edna smiled at this. "Why," she said, "where are your father and
mother?"
"I ain't got none. Mis' Ryan she bound me out to Mis' Hawkins, an' I
ain't goin' to stay there, I ain't. She starves me an' beats me;" and
the child's voice shrilled out again, "I ain't goin' ter stay, I
ain't."
"And haven't you any grandparents, or aunts or uncles?"
The child shook her head.
"Nor great-aunts? I think maybe you have a great-aunt like my Aunt
Elizabeth," continued Edna.
But another shake of the head was the reply.
"And you haven't any friends. O, do say you haven't any friends,"
urged Edna, a pleased look coming into her face. "If you just say you
haven't any friends I'll know just what to do."
"There's Moggins," said the child.
"Who is Moggins?" Edna asked, her face falling.
"My cat. Mis' Hawkins won't let me let him indoors; but he knows me
an' comes when I call him."
"O, well," replied Edna, "of course a cat is a friend, but I don't
believe he'll count. Anyhow, we'll take him, too."
"Where?" asked the girl, in astonishment.
"Why, to the Home of the Friendless, of course; aren't you friendless,
and you haven't any home. It's just the place made for you;" and Edna
smiled, well pleased. "Can you get Moggins? Is he far away?"
"Down there," and the child jerked her head in the direction of a
narrow court near by.
"I'll wait here for you," said Edna, decidedly. "Tell me your name and
I'll tell you mine. I'm Edna Conway."
"I'm Maggie Horn. You wait for me;" and Maggie darted away, leaving
Edna on the corner.
All thoughts of the ribbon, car fare, and all else faded away
before this great new interest. The saving from homelessness and
friendlessness this little street child whom Edna had met in such
an unexpected way seemed to her more important than anything else
in the world, and she eagerly waited Maggie's return.
She did not have to wait long, for very soon Maggie came running back
with a forlorn, miserable, half-starved kitten cuddled up in her arms.
"Here he is!" she cried, exultantly. "I ketched him; he was a-settin'
in the sun. Let's hurry, so Mis' Hawkins won't git me." Edna patted
Mogg's head, the little cat looking at her with scared eyes until he
was reassured by Maggie's coaxing voice.
"Ye see," said Maggie, "he's kinder skeert o' most folks, 'cause
they've tret him so bad. The way I come to git him was when Annie
Flynn an' Han Murphy had him a-swingin' him round by one paw and then
flingin' him off ter see if he'd light on his feet; one of his legs
has been queer ever since. I give 'em my supper fur lettin' me have
him, but I have a time ter keep the boys from gittin' him. Come, let's
go to the place. Where is it?"
Edna came to a halt, looking doubtfully up and down the street. "I
don't just know," she said, "but I'll know it when I see it, for
there's a sign over the door with 'Home for Friendless Children' on
it."
"Ho!" exclaimed Maggie, "we might walk all day in this big place, and
then not get there."
"If I hadn't lost the ten cents I had for car fare we might ride and
tell the conductor to let us off when we got there," said Edna,
naively.
Maggie laughed. She was sharper than Edna. "How'd ye know which car to
take?"
"That's so," was the reply; "we'll have to ask a policeman."
"No! no!" cried Maggie. "I'm skeered o' the perlice."
"Then we'll go to that drug store and ask," concluded Edna, wisely;
and with childlike confidence she turned to the shop in question.
"The 'Home of the Friendless,'" said the clerk, with a smile, as he
looked at the queer little pair. "Let me see, I can soon tell you;"
and he turned over the pages of a big book on the counter. "It is on
Pearl Street, No. 342."
"Is it a long way?" asked Edna.
"It's pretty long to walk. You'd better ride."
"O no, we can't; we'll walk. I can, can't you, Maggie?"
"Sure," replied Maggie, forcibly, if not elegantly.
Thanking the clerk who gave them some further instructions the little
girls started out on their journey.
"We must go up this street to Market, and out Market to Pearl," said
Edna; and they trotted along chatting as if the proceeding were not an
unusual one.
It was a long, tiresome walk, but the place was reached at last; and
Edna, standing on tiptoe, rang the bell, which was answered by one of
the little inmates of the house.
Edna smiled as she recognized one of the children she had seen when
she visited the place with her aunt. "O, how do you do?" she said; "I
have brought Maggie to live here with you." And she stepped into the
hall, followed by Maggie, who still held the scraggy little kitten
hugged close.
The child who opened the door stared. "I'll go call Miss Barnes," she
said. The sweet-faced teacher looked a little curiously at the
visitors, but Edna was confident of a welcome. "I've brought Maggie,"
she informed the lady, with a bright smile. "She hasn't any home, nor
any friend but Moggins, and Moggins hasn't any friends but her. So,
you know, that's why they both had to come."
"But, my dear," interrupted Miss Barnes, "we cannot take in little
people without knowing something more about them. The case will have
to go before the Board of Managers, and then if it is all right we'll
be very glad to have this little girl. The Board meets the first
Friday in each month."
Edna looked distressedly at Maggie. "O dear," she sighed, "and we've
come such a long way, and we're so hungry, at least I am. I expected
to be back by dinner time."
Miss Barnes was looking at her more closely.
"Why," she exclaimed, "aren't you the little girl who came with one of
our managers not long ago? Aren't you Mrs. Horner's niece?"
"Why, yes," replied Edna. "Didn't you know me? I knew you right away.
I'm awfully muddy, 'cause I tumbled down. I lost my car fare, and
we've walked and walked."
"You poor little child," said Miss Barnes, "let me go and call the
matron, and we'll talk this over."
"Maggie can't go back," decided Edna. "She would be beat to death, and
so would Moggins."
After a long consultation with the matron, and innumerable questions,
it was arranged that Maggie should remain till Miss Barnes had seen
Mrs. Horner. "And Moggins, too," stipulated Edna.
But the matron shook her head. "Then I'll have to take him home with
me," said Edna, though in her heart she had many misgivings as to what
Aunt Elizabeth would say.
Poor little Maggie stood with quivering lips as she saw her only
friends depart; but the good matron set before her a generous bowl of
mush and milk and the half-starved child, after receiving the
assurance that all possible should be done for her, accepted matters
quietly.
It was a very weary little girl whom Miss Barnes held by the hand as
the two stopped at the door of the four-story house opposite the
square.
"Shure! it's yersel'," cried Ellen, as she answered the bell. "Mrs.
Horner's called out a-suddint, me dear, an' phwat'll she say to yer
shtayin' so long? Phwat's that ye have?"
"O, it's Moggins; won't you take him and give him some milk? And, O
Ellen, I'm so hungry!"
"The pore dear," returned Ellen, taking the kitten tenderly.
"I'll find Uncle Justus," said Edna, as she ushered Miss Barnes into
the sitting-room, and, having brought her uncle, she ran to get
something to eat from Ellen, for the kind-hearted maid had saved the
child's dinner for her.
Having satisfied her appetite, and having heard the front door open
and shut, Edna began to be seized with fear; and she stood tremblingly
by the door as she heard Uncle Justus approach. But he only asked,
"Have you had some dinner, little girl?" Then he laid his hand gently
on her head and walked on. Next the front door again opened, and Edna
heard Aunt Elizabeth's voice. Should she stay or go? Fear overcame
her, and she took to her heels, never resting till she was up in her
little room, where with beating heart she sat at the window
overlooking the harbor.