IN MURPHY'S ALLEY
With the opulent purr that seems to be peculiar to luxurious
limousines, Mrs. Carew's car rolled down Commonwealth Avenue and out
upon Arlington Street to Charles. Inside sat a shining-eyed little
girl and a white-faced, tense woman. Outside, to give directions to
the plainly disapproving chauffeur, sat Jerry Murphy, inordinately
proud and insufferably important.
When the limousine came to a stop before a shabby doorway in a narrow,
dirty alley, the boy leaped to the ground, and, with a ridiculous
imitation of the liveried pomposities he had so often watched, threw
open the door of the car and stood waiting for the ladies to alight.
Pollyanna sprang out at once, her eyes widening with amazement and
distress as she looked about her. Behind her came Mrs. Carew, visibly
shuddering as her gaze swept the filth, the sordidness, and the ragged
children that swarmed shrieking and chattering out of the dismal
tenements, and surrounded the car in a second.
Jerry waved his arms angrily.
"Here, you, beat it!" he yelled to the motley throng. "This ain't no
free movies! CAN that racket and get a move on ye. Lively, now! We
gotta get by. Jamie's got comp'ny."
Mrs. Carew shuddered again, and laid a trembling hand on Jerry's
shoulder.
"Not--HERE!" she recoiled.
But the boy did not hear. With shoves and pushes from sturdy fists and
elbows, he was making a path for his charges; and before Mrs. Carew
knew quite how it was done, she found herself with the boy and
Pollyanna at the foot of a rickety flight of stairs in a dim,
evil-smelling hallway.
Once more she put out a shaking hand.
"Wait," she commanded huskily. "Remember! Don't either of you say a
word about--about his being possibly the boy I'm looking for. I must
see for myself first, and--question him."
"Of course!" agreed Pollyanna.
"Sure! I'm on," nodded the boy. "I gotta go right off anyhow, so I
won't bother ye none. Now toddle easy up these 'ere stairs. There's
always holes, and most generally there's a kid or two asleep
somewheres. An' the elevator ain't runnin' ter-day," he gibed
cheerfully. "We gotta go ter the top, too!"
Mrs. Carew found the "holes"--broken boards that creaked and bent
fearsomely under her shrinking feet; and she found one "kid"--a
two-year-old baby playing with an empty tin can on a string which he
was banging up and down the second flight of stairs. On all sides
doors were opened, now boldly, now stealthily, but always disclosing
women with tousled heads or peering children with dirty faces.
Somewhere a baby was wailing piteously. Somewhere else a man was
cursing. Everywhere was the smell of bad whiskey, stale cabbage, and
unwashed humanity.
At the top of the third and last stairway the boy came to a pause
before a closed door.
"I'm just a-thinkin' what Sir James'll say when he's wise ter the
prize package I'm bringin' him," he whispered in a throaty voice. "I
know what mumsey'll do--she'll turn on the weeps in no time ter see
Jamie so tickled." The next moment he threw wide the door with a gay:
"Here we be--an' we come in a buzz-wagon! Ain't that goin' some, Sir
James?"
It was a tiny room, cold and cheerless and pitifully bare, but
scrupulously neat. There were here no tousled heads, no peering
children, no odors of whiskey, cabbage, and unclean humanity. There
were two beds, three broken chairs, a dry-goods-box table, and a stove
with a faint glow of light that told of a fire not nearly brisk enough
to heat even that tiny room. On one of the beds lay a lad with flushed
cheeks and fever-bright eyes. Near him sat a thin, white-faced woman,
bent and twisted with rheumatism.
Mrs. Carew stepped into the room and, as if to steady herself, paused
a minute with her back to the wall. Pollyanna hurried forward with a
low cry just as Jerry, with an apologetic "I gotta go now; good-by!"
dashed through the door.
"Oh, Jamie, I'm so glad I've found you," cried Pollyanna. "You don't
know how I've looked and looked for you every day. But I'm so sorry
you're sick!"
Jamie smiled radiantly and held out a thin white hand.
"I ain't sorry--I'm GLAD," he emphasized meaningly; "'cause it's
brought you to see me. Besides, I'm better now, anyway. Mumsey, this
is the little girl, you know, that told me the glad game--and mumsey's
playing it, too," he triumphed, turning back to Pollyanna. "First she
cried 'cause her back hurts too bad to let her work; then when I was
took worse she was GLAD she couldn't work, 'cause she could be here to
take care of me, you know."
At that moment Mrs. Carew hurried forward, her eyes half-fearfully,
half-longingly on the face of the lame boy in the bed.
"It's Mrs. Carew. I've brought her to see you, Jamie," introduced
Pollyanna, in a tremulous voice.
The little twisted woman by the bed had struggled to her feet by this
time, and was nervously offering her chair. Mrs. Carew accepted it
without so much as a glance. Her eyes were still on the boy in the
bed.
"Your name is--Jamie?" she asked, with visible difficulty.
"Yes, ma'am." The boy's bright eyes looked straight into hers.
"What is your other name?"
"I don't know."
"He is not your son?" For the first time Mrs. Carew turned to the
twisted little woman who was still standing by the bed.
"No, madam."
"And you don't know his name?"
"No, madam. I never knew it."
With a despairing gesture Mrs. Carew turned back to the boy.
"But think, think--don't you remember ANYTHING of your name
but--Jamie?"
The boy shook his head. Into his eyes was coming a puzzled wonder.
"No, nothing."
"Haven't you anything that belonged to your father, with possibly his
name in it?"
"There wasn't anythin' worth savin' but them books," interposed Mrs.
Murphy. "Them's his. Maybe you'd like to look at 'em," she suggested,
pointing to a row of worn volumes on a shelf across the room. Then, in
plainly uncontrollable curiosity, she asked: "Was you thinkin' you
knew him, ma'am?"
"I don't know," murmured Mrs. Carew, in a half-stifled voice, as she
rose to her feet and crossed the room to the shelf of books.
There were not many--perhaps ten or a dozen. There was a volume of
Shakespeare's plays, an "Ivanhoe," a much-thumbed "Lady of the Lake,"
a book of miscellaneous poems, a coverless "Tennyson," a dilapidated
"Little Lord Fauntleroy," and two or three books of ancient and
medieval history. But, though Mrs. Carew looked carefully through
every one, she found nowhere any written word. With a despairing sigh
she turned back to the boy and to the woman, both of whom now were
watching her with startled, questioning eyes.
"I wish you'd tell me--both of you--all you know about yourselves,"
she said brokenly, dropping herself once more into the chair by the
bed.
And they told her. It was much the same story that Jamie had told
Pollyanna in the Public Garden. There was little that was new, nothing
that was significant, in spite of the probing questions that Mrs.
Carew asked. At its conclusion Jamie turned eager eyes on Mrs. Carew's
face.
"Do you think you knew--my father?" he begged.
Mrs. Carew closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her head.
"I don't--know," she answered. "But I think--not."
Pollyanna gave a quick cry of keen disappointment, but as quickly she
suppressed it in obedience to Mrs. Carew's warning glance. With new
horror, however, she surveyed the tiny room.
Jamie, turning his wondering eyes from Mrs. Carew's face, suddenly
awoke to his duties as host.
"Wasn't you good to come!" he said to Pollyanna, gratefully. "How's
Sir Lancelot? Do you ever go to feed him now?" Then, as Pollyanna did
not answer at once, he hurried on, his eyes going from her face to the
somewhat battered pink in a broken-necked bottle in the window. "Did
you see my posy? Jerry found it. Somebody dropped it and he picked it
up. Ain't it pretty? And it SMELLS a little."
But Pollyanna did not seem even to have heard him. She was still
gazing, wide-eyed about the room, clasping and unclasping her hands
nervously.
"But I don't see how you can ever play the game here at all, Jamie,"
she faltered. "I didn't suppose there could be anywhere such a
perfectly awful place to live," she shuddered.
"Ho!" scoffed Jamie, valiantly. "You'd oughter see the Pikes'
down-stairs. Theirs is a whole lot worse'n this. You don't know what a
lot of nice things there is about this room. Why, we get the sun in
that winder there for 'most two hours every day, when it shines. And
if you get real near it you can see a whole lot of sky from it. If we
could only KEEP the room!--but you see we've got to leave, we're
afraid. And that's what's worrin' us."
"Leave!"
"Yes. We got behind on the rent--mumsey bein' sick so, and not earnin'
anythin'." In spite of a courageously cheerful smile, Jamie's voice
shook. "Mis' Dolan down-stairs--the woman what keeps my wheel chair
for me, you know--is helpin' us out this week. But of course she can't
do it always, and then we'll have to go--if Jerry don't strike it
rich, or somethin'."
"Oh, but can't we--" began Pollyanna.
She stopped short. Mrs. Carew had risen to her feet abruptly with a
hurried:
"Come, Pollyanna, we must go." Then to the woman she turned wearily.
"You won't have to leave. I'll send you money and food at once, and
I'll mention your case to one of the charity organizations in which I
am interested, and they will--"
In surprise she ceased speaking. The bent little figure of the woman
opposite had drawn itself almost erect. Mrs. Murphy's cheeks were
flushed. Her eyes showed a smouldering fire.
"Thank you, no, Mrs. Carew," she said tremulously, but proudly. "We're
poor--God knows; but we ain't charity folks."
"Nonsense!" cried Mrs. Carew, sharply. "You're letting the woman
down-stairs help you. This boy said so."
"I know; but that ain't charity," persisted the woman, still
tremulously. "Mrs. Dolan is my FRIEND. She knows I'D do HER a good
turn just as quick--I have done 'em for her in times past. Help from
FRIENDS ain't charity. They CARE; and that--that makes a difference.
We wa'n't always as we are now, you see; and that makes it hurt all
the more--all this. Thank you; but we couldn't take--your money."
Mrs. Carew frowned angrily. It had been a most disappointing,
heart-breaking, exhausting hour for her. Never a patient woman, she
was exasperated now, besides being utterly tired out.
"Very well, just as you please," she said coldly. Then, with vague
irritation she added: "But why don't you go to your landlord and
insist that he make you even decently comfortable while you do stay?
Surely you're entitled to something besides broken windows stuffed
with rags and papers! And those stairs that I came up are positively
dangerous."
Mrs. Murphy sighed in a discouraged way. Her twisted little figure had
fallen back into its old hopelessness.
"We have tried to have something done, but it's never amounted to
anything. We never see anybody but the agent, of course; and he says
the rents are too low for the owner to put out any more money on
repairs."
"Nonsense!" snapped Mrs. Carew, with all the sharpness of a nervous,
distraught woman who has at last found an outlet for her exasperation.
"It's shameful! What's more, I think it's a clear case of violation of
the law;--those stairs are, certainly. I shall make it my business to
see that he's brought to terms. What is the name of that agent, and
who is the owner of this delectable establishment?"
"I don't know the name of the owner, madam; but the agent is Mr.
Dodge."
"Dodge!" Mrs. Carew turned sharply, an odd look on her face. "You
don't mean--Henry Dodge?"
"Yes, madam. His name is Henry, I think."
A flood of color swept into Mrs. Carew's face, then receded, leaving
it whiter than before.
"Very well, I--I'll attend to it," she murmured, in a half-stifled
voice, turning away. "Come, Pollyanna, we must go now."
Over at the bed Pollyanna was bidding Jamie a tearful good-by.
"But I'll come again. I'll come real soon," she promised brightly, as
she hurried through the door after Mrs. Carew.
Not until they had picked their precarious way down the three long
flights of stairs and through the jabbering, gesticulating crowd of
men, women, and children that surrounded the scowling Perkins and the
limousine, did Pollyanna speak again. But then she scarcely waited for
the irate chauffeur to slam the door upon them before she pleaded:
"Dear Mrs. Carew, please, please say that it was Jamie! Oh, it would
be so nice for him to be Jamie."
"But he isn't Jamie!"
"O dear! Are you sure?"
There was a moment's pause, then Mrs. Carew covered her face with her
hands.
"No, I'm not sure--and that's the tragedy of it," she moaned. "I don't
think he is; I'm almost positive he isn't. But, of course, there IS a
chance--and that's what's killing me."
"Then can't you just THINK he's Jamie," begged Pollyanna, "and play he
was? Then you could take him home, and--" But Mrs. Carew turned
fiercely.
"Take that boy into my home when he WASN'T Jamie? Never, Pollyanna! I
couldn't."
"But if you CAN'T help Jamie, I should think you'd be so glad there
was some one like him you COULD help," urged Pollyanna, tremulously.
"What if your Jamie was like this Jamie, all poor and sick, wouldn't
you want some one to take him in and comfort him, and--"
"Don't--don't, Pollyanna," moaned Mrs. Carew, turning her head from
side to side, in a frenzy of grief. "When I think that maybe,
somewhere, our Jamie is like that--" Only a choking sob finished the
sentence.
"That's just what I mean--that's just what I mean!" triumphed
Pollyanna, excitedly. "Don't you see? If this IS your Jamie, of course
you'll want him; and if it isn't, you couldn't be doing any harm to
the other Jamie by taking this one, and you'd do a whole lot of good,
for you'd make this one so happy--so happy! And then, by and by, if
you should find the real Jamie, you wouldn't have lost anything, but
you'd have made two little boys happy instead of one; and--" But again
Mrs. Carew interrupted her.
"Don't, Pollyanna, don't! I want to think--I want to think."
Tearfully Pollyanna sat back in her seat. By a very visible effort she
kept still for one whole minute. Then, as if the words fairly bubbled
forth of themselves, there came this:
"Oh, but what an awful, awful place that was! I just wish the man that
owned it had to live in it himself--and then see what he'd have to be
glad for!"
Mrs. Carew sat suddenly erect. Her face showed a curious change.
Almost as if in appeal she flung out her hand toward Pollyanna.
"Don't!" she cried. "Perhaps--she didn't know, Pollyanna. Perhaps she
didn't know. I'm sure she didn't know--she owned a place like that.
But it will be fixed now--it will be fixed."
"SHE! Is it a woman that owns it, and do you know her? And do you know
the agent, too?"
"Yes." Mrs. Carew bit her lips. "I know her, and I know the agent."
"Oh, I'm so glad," sighed Pollyanna. "Then it'll be all right now."
"Well, it certainly will be--better," avowed Mrs. Carew with emphasis,
as the car stopped before her own door.
Mrs. Carew spoke as if she knew what she was talking about. And
perhaps, indeed, she did--better than she cared to tell Pollyanna.
Certainly, before she slept that night, a letter left her hands
addressed to one Henry Dodge, summoning him to an immediate conference
as to certain changes and repairs to be made at once in tenements she
owned. There were, moreover, several scathing sentences concerning
"rag-stuffed windows," and "rickety stairways," that caused this same
Henry Dodge to scowl angrily, and to say a sharp word behind his
teeth--though at the same time he paled with something very like fear.