WHAT HAS BECOME OF INEZ?
Nan could not bring herself to speak of the sudden turn her father's
difficulties had taken. She had long-since learned that family affairs
were not to be discussed out of the family circle.
It was bad enough, so she thought, to have Tillbury and Owneyville people
discussing the accusation of Ravell Bulson, without telling all the
trouble to her friends here in Chicago. Enough had been said on the
previous evening, Nan thought, about the matter. She hid this new phase
of it even from her chum.
It was Bess who suggested their activities for this day. She wanted to do
something for Inez, the flower-girl, in whom usually thoughtless Bess had
taken a great interest. She had written to her mother at once about the
poor little street arab, and Mrs. Harley had sent by express a great
bundle of cast-off dresses outgrown by Bess' younger sisters, that easily
could be made to fit Inez.
Mrs. Mason had shoes and stockings and hats that might help in the
fitting out of the flower-seller; and she suggested that the child be
brought to the house that her own sewing maid might make such changes in
the garments as would be necessary to make them of use for Inez.
"Not that the poor little thing is at all particular, I suppose, about
her clothes," Bess remarked. "I don't imagine she ever wore a garment
that really fitted her, or was made for her. Her shoes weren't mates--I
saw that the other day, didn't you, Nan?"
"I saw that they were broken," Nan agreed, with a sigh. "Poor
little thing!"
"And although fashion allows all kinds of hats this season, I am very
sure that straw of hers had seen hard service for twelve months or more,"
Bess added.
Walter, hearing the number and street of Inez's lodging, insisted upon
accompanying the chums on their errand. Grace did not go. She frankly
admitted that such squalid places as Mother Beasley's were insufferable;
and where Inez lived might be worse.
"I'm just as sorry for such people as I can be and I'd like to help them
all," Grace said. "But it makes me actually ill to go near them. How
mother can delve as she does in the very slums--well, I can't do it!
Walter is like mother; he doesn't mind."
"I guess you're like your father," said Bess. "He believes in putting
poor people into jails, otherwise institutions, instead of giving them a
chance to make good where they are. And there aren't enough institutions
for them all. I never supposed there were so many poor people in this
whole world as we have seen in Chicago.
"I used to just detest the word 'poor'--Nan'll tell you," confessed Bess.
"I guess being with Nan has kind of awakened me to 'our duties,' as Mrs.
Cupp would say," and she laughed.
"Oh!" cried Grace. "I'd do for them, if I could. But I don't even know
how to talk to them. Sick babies make me feel so sorry I want to cry, and
old women who smell of gin and want to sell iron-holders really scare me.
Oh, dear! I guess I'm an awful coward!"
Nan laughed. "What are you going to do with that crisp dollar bill I saw
your father tuck into your hand at breakfast, Gracie?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. I hadn't thought. Papa is always so thoughtful. He
knows I just _can't_ make ends meet on my fortnightly allowance."
"But you don't absolutely need the dollar?"
"No-o."
"Then give it to us. We'll spend it for something nice with which to
treat those kid cousins that Inez told us about."
"Good idea," announced Walter. "It won't hurt you to give it to
charity, Sis."
"All right," sighed Grace. "If you really all say so. But there is such a
pretty tie down the street at Libby's."
"And you've a million ties, more or less," declared Bess. "Of
course we'll take it from her, Walter. Come on, now! I'm ready."
Under Walter's piloting the chums reached the street and number Inez had
given Nan. It was a cheap and dirty tenement house. A woman told them to
go up one flight and knock on the first door at the rear on that landing.
They did this, Walter insisting upon keeping near the girls. A red-faced,
bare-armed woman, blowsy and smelling strongly of soapsuds, came to the
door and jerked it open.
"Well?" she demanded, in a loud voice.
Bess was immediately tongue-tied; so Nan asked:
"Is Inez at home?"
"And who be you that wants Inez--the little bothersome tyke that she is?"
"We are two of her friends," Nan explained briefly. It was plain that
the woman was not in a good temper, and Nan was quite sure she had
been drinking.
"And plenty of fine friends she has," broke out the woman, complainingly.
"While I'm that poor and overrun with children, that I kin scarce get
bite nor sup for 'em. And she'll go and spend her money on cakes and
ice-cream because it's my Mamie's birthday, instead of bringing it all
home, as I told her she should! The little tyke! I'll l'arn her!"
"I am sorry if Inez has disobeyed you," said Nan, breaking in on what
seemed to promise to be an unending complaint. "Isn't she here--or can
you tell us where to find her?"
"I'll say 'no' to them two questions immediate!" exclaimed the woman,
crossly. "I beat her as she deserved, and took away the money she had
saved back to buy more flowers with; and I put her basket in the stove."
"Oh!" gasped Bess.
"And what is it to _you_, Miss?" demanded the woman, threateningly.
"It was cruel to beat her," declared Bess, bravely, but unwisely.
"Is that so? is that so?" cried the virago, advancing on Bess with the
evident purpose of using her broad, parboiled palm on the visitor, just
as she would use it on one of her own children. "I'll l'arn ye not to
come here with your impudence!"
But Walter stepped in her way, covering Bess' frightened retreat. Walter
was a good-sized boy.
"Hold on," he said, good-naturedly. "We won't quarrel about it. Just tell
us where the child is to be found."
"I ain't seen her for four days and nights, that I haven't," declared
the woman.
That was all there was to be got out of her. Nan and her friends went
away, much troubled. They went again to Mother Beasley's to inquire, with
like result. When they told that kind but careworn woman what the child's
aunt had said, she shook her head and spoke lugubriously.
"She was probably drunk when she treated the child so. If she destroyed
Inez basket and used the money Inez always saved back to buy a new supply
of bouquets, she fair put the poor thing out o' business."
"Oh, dear!" said Nan. "And we can't find her on the square."
"Poor thing! I wisht she had come here for a bite--I do. I'd have trusted
her for a meal of vittles."
"I am sure you would, Mrs. Beasley," Nan said, and she and her friends
went away very much worried over the disappearance of Inez, the
flower-seller.