IN THE PIGEON LOFT
After lunch at half-past one, the Judge went to his study for a nap, but
he could not sleep.
The face of the strange child was ever before him. He wondered what she
was doing. Titus had taken her up to the attic to see his old toys and
to choose some for herself. He would like to watch her expression as
Titus exhibited his cast-off playthings. For her that attic would be a
kind of treasure-house.
How like a mirror her face was, how different from his, even from
Titus’s, for the boy, young as he was, had learned to conceal his
emotions; and now what was he going to do with her?
With a sigh he got up, went into the hall and downstairs, put on a
fur-lined coat and a fur cap, and was just about to go out when the two
children came down the staircase, Titus not running as usual, but
soberly walking beside his little companion.
Bethany’s eyes were shining. She had a clown doll under one arm, a
trumpet under the other, and her hands were full of games—toy-dogs and
horses, a Noah’s ark, and a little cart.
Titus had a bag slung on his back.
“G-g-grandfather,” he said, “I suppose it’s all right to give these
things to the Tingsby children.”
“Certainly.”
“H-h-how will I get them there? Are you going to have the sleigh out
to-day?”
“I was not planning to do so. I am going to walk.”
“L-l-let’s take the young one for a drive,” exclaimed Titus.
Judge Sancroft smiled. Titus ordinarily hated to drive. He did not care
to sit still for any length of time.
“Very well,” he said at length.
“I-I-I was just going to take her up to the stable to see the pigeons,”
said Titus. “S-s-she’s so crazy about birds.”
“Then tell Roblee to harness, and remember not to keep me waiting. Don’t
take the child outdoors in that garb.”
“I-I-I don’t know what to put on her,” said Titus, in a puzzled way.
“S-s-she can’t put her old dirty coat over that white rig.”
The Judge opened the hall closet. “Let us see what we have here.”
Titus came forward and, rummaging in drawers and on hooks, brought out a
small cap.
“H-h-here, child, try this on.”
Bethany carefully put her toys on the floor and obediently held up her
head.
The cap was several sizes too large, but she did not complain, only
quietly pushed it to the back of her head.
“Here is a scarf,” said the Judge, “wrap that round your neck.”
Bethany did as she was told, and Titus next brought out a short coat of
his own.
“I-i-it’s worlds too large,” he observed, “but it will keep her warm.”
“What about her feet?” inquired the Judge.
“W-w-well, here’s a big shawl,” stuttered Titus, bringing out a
traveling rug. “I guess we’ll just wrap that round her after she gets in
the sleigh.”
“It will cover all deficiencies,” said the Judge, “but how will you get
her up to the stable in those thin slippers?”
Titus emerged from the closet and surveyed Bethany with a face flushed
from exertion. “I guess I’ll have to carry her up. It isn’t far. Once
there she’ll be warm enough.”
The Judge smiled and followed slowly as the two went down another
staircase and opened a door leading to a back veranda. From there a
plank walk led through the garden to the stable.
Titus manfully shouldered his burden on the veranda.
Bethany clasped her arms about his neck and smiled back at the Judge,
who caught up to them at the stable door.
There was a furnace in the stable, and the air was warm and comfortable,
so Titus allowed Bethany to slip to the floor.
“Is this where your horses live?” she asked, shyly, looking up at the
Judge.
He nodded his head.
She continued to look about her. “I wish Mother Tingsby had been born a
horse; it would be better for her.”
The Judge wrinkled his forehead. Poor child—she, too, was grappling with
the mystery of the inequality of the human lot.
“W-w-well,” said Titus, hurrying back from the stalls where he had been
to speak to Roblee. “T-t-the sleigh will be at the door in twenty
minutes. N-n-now let us go up to see the pigeons,” and he led the way
toward a flight of steps.
Bethany tripped behind, occasionally extricating a hand from the long
sleeve of Titus’s coat to push back on her head the capacious cap, which
persisted in falling over her brows.
Titus, with Charlie Brown’s help, had had a fine place made for his
pigeons. His grandfather had allowed him to have a part of the hay loft
inclosed, some extra windows put in, and a floor of matched pine laid.
“There isn’t a better loft in the city,” Charlie had said when it was
finished.
Clean, coarse sand had been put on the floor, movable nest compartments
had been placed against the wall, and the latest things in feed hoppers
and drinking fountains had been bought for the boy.
He was full of joy over his new possession, and, as Mrs. Blodgett
prophesied, most of his leisure time was spent here, either alone or in
company with other boys.
He did all the work himself, and with a worthy pride in the clean home
of his birds he stood at the top of the steps and eagerly waited to hear
what the little girl would say.
Bethany came up the steps, walked through the screen door that Titus
held open, and looked about her.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and in view of the fast approaching
darkness the pigeons were bestirring themselves in order to have their
last feed before going to bed. They were all promenading over the sanded
floor, going from one rack to another looking for the choicest grains.
They made a very pretty picture in the gloaming. Titus had not as many
varieties as his friend Charlie had, but still he had a goodly number.
There were dark Jacobins, with nodding red hoods surrounding their white
faces; pure white Jacobins and buff Jacobins; clean-shaped, slender
magpies; graceful archangels; shell-crested, nasal tufted priests; cobby
frill-backs with reversed feathering; swallows; tumblers; runts; demure
nuns in black and white costumes with white hoods passing below their
side curls; and globular cropped poulters.
Bethany surveyed them in profound silence. The Judge, striving to read
her face, could make nothing of it but confusion.
Finally he put out a hand to steady her. The child was swaying.
“Do you feel ill?” he asked, gazing apprehensively at her deathly white
face.
She nodded. “Yes, sir, Bethany feels sick.”
He took her in his arms and carried her downstairs, and the discomforted
Titus, after a farewell glance at his beautiful birds, followed
disconsolately behind. He had so hoped that the little girl would like
them. She had seemed to like Princess Sukey. Well, girls were queer.
Boys were much more satisfactory.
“What is the matter with you?” asked the Judge when he had set Bethany
on her feet.
“Sir,” she said, in a whisper and looking up at him with an awed face,
“Was it heaven or were they ghosts?”
The Judge tried to do some thinking. It was hard for a man of his age to
send himself back to childhood—and then he had not been an imaginative
child. But he tried to think of himself as highly strung, as having a
passion for dumb creatures, as being poor and unable to have pets about
him, and then suddenly to be confronted with a number of beautiful
specimens of the bird world.
Yes, he could just faintly picture to himself something of Bethany’s
ecstasy. The child had been overcome.
“Don’t you want to go in the house and lie down?” he asked, gazing
kindly at her white face.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered. The Judge carried her along the plank walk,
while Titus lounged slowly behind.
“Where is Mrs. Blodgett?” asked the Judge of a maid when they entered
the lower hall.
“Gone out, sir.”
“Then you take care of this little girl while I am away.”
Bethany made no protest. The girl smiled kindly and put out a hand, and
the child went quietly with her.
“Let her lie down and have a sleep,” said the Judge, “she is tired.”
Then he turned. “Well, boy, what are you for—remaining at home or going
with me?”
Titus looked at his grandfather. It was Christmas Day, and he ought to
keep with him. “I’ll go with you, sir,” he said, brightening up.
The Judge smiled, then together they went upstairs and out the big hall
door down to the waiting sleigh.
Higby carried out the toys for the Tingsby children and tucked them
under the fur robes.
It did not take long for the Judge’s fast horses to reach River Street.
The street was very quiet. It was a cold day, and the people were mostly
celebrating their Christmas indoors.
“P-p-pretty poor pickings, I guess, some of them have,” stuttered Titus,
compassionately, and his grandfather agreed with him.
Mrs. Tingsby’s house was as gray and dingy outside by daylight as it had
been by electric light the day before, and it was apparently cold and
uninhabited. No children’s faces appeared at the windows, no cheerful
gleam of firelight shone from between the threadbare curtains.
Titus jumped out and pounded on the door. After a long time, and a
liberal application of both fists, Mrs. Tingsby herself came.
She gave them a most joyful welcome.
“Come in! Come in!” she screamed in her excitement, “come in, gentlemen,
come in an’ come down to where we’re celebratin’, poor as we be. No,
no—not there,” as the Judge mechanically turned toward the door of the
small room in which they had sat the evening before. “Here, sir, down
here in the cellar,” and she trotted before him to a dark stairway, and
with alarming celerity disappeared in the depths of a basement, while
the Judge and Titus felt their way down after her.
“Here, here,” she called, opening a door and suddenly allowing a streak
of light to dart into the almost pitch-dark hall, “here we be—merry as
coppersmiths after our good dinner.”
“S-s-seems to me I’d rather be some other kind of a smith,” grumbled
Titus to himself, wrinkling his nose in the goose-laden atmosphere as he
followed her, for he was preceding his grandfather, with the charitable
intention of breaking his fall if he had one.
“Merry, merry—O! so merry,” repeated the little woman. “Here we be—all
the family.”
Titus stood aside and blinked his eyes, while the Judge walked by him.
“For warmth, sir, an’ comfort, an’ good times, we’re all in the
kitchen,” said Mrs. Tingsby. “Gen’l’men,” and she turned to her boarders
with a ridiculous little bow, “this is the jedge that tooked Bethany.
Jedge, here be my children,” and she indicated half a dozen poorly
dressed but bright looking children who got up from the floor and from
cracker boxes to make their best bow to the company.
“Yes, we be all here,” exclaimed Mrs. Tingsby, a-huggin’ the fire,
“which is a good one if I does say so myself. There’s Harry Ray, the
express boy, Harry an’ his cough, which I’m glad to say is a mite
better owin’ to peppermint tea or his half holiday, I don’t know
which; Matthew Jones an’ his poor eyes, but he aint grumblin’, because
it’s Christmas; an’ old man Fanley, glad to rest his weary legs from
parcel-carryin’—aint you, Fanley. An’ Barry Mafferty, which is a
temp’rary boarder.”
The Judge looked round him. From the bottom of his heart he pitied them.
At first sight it seemed to him the height of misery to be crouching
round a medium-sized fire, breathing an atmosphere so redolent of goose,
with no comfortable seats; and yet in a few minutes he modified his
opinion.
Two of the few chairs in the kitchen had been given to him and to Titus.
As they sat in the shabby but clean kitchen he reflected that it was
warm, that these people all looked contented, that with their dingy
clothes they would certainly not be happy in rooms like his own.
“It is very comfortable here,” he said, drawing off his gloves and
rubbing his hands, “very comfortable after the cold outside.”
“If only the landlords would give the poor better houses,” he continued,
reflecting, “they would not be so uncomfortable. Really, they are spared
some of the worries of life that we better off ones have to endure.”
But he must listen to Mrs. Tingsby. “We’ve had such a good Christmas,”
she was exclaiming, “such a good one. Look-a-here, an’ here,” and she
took from one child a tiny doll, from another a bag of candy, from
another a whistle, and proudly exhibited them.
Needless to say, the presents were from the boarders, who somewhat
sheepishly averted their faces while she was praising their generosity
to the Judge.
He was greatly touched. They were so pitiful, so insignificant, these
little presents, and yet how they had pleased the recipients.
“An’ now,” called Mrs. Tingsby, “may I be forgiven for not havin’ put
her first—how is that blessed child?”
The Judge’s lips formed the words, “Very well.”
“Aint she a darlin’! O, you’ll get to love her like your own flesh an’
blood.”
“I am sorry that she is not a boy,” vociferated the Judge; “a boy would
have been more of a companion for my grandson.”
“Yes, sir—yes, sir,” said Mrs. Tingsby, beaming on him, “a boy an’ a
girl—just a nice family. I always did despise two boys or two girls for
a set piece.”
“You tell her,” said the Judge, with a wave of his hand toward his
grandson.
Titus approached his lips somewhat nearer to the little woman’s ear than
they were. “M-m-my grandfather says he is sorry the girl is not a boy.”
“Boy!” repeated Mrs. Tingsby, “O, yes, she should have been a boy. They
do get on easier than girls, but we can’t change her now, you know.”
The semicircle of boarders, children, and the Judge could not but agree
with this statement, and she looked approvingly round at them.
“Tell her that even though we do not keep the child, we shall still be
interested in her,” said the Judge.
Titus, in slight embarrassment, again cried in her ear, “Maybe we can
get her a good home somewhere else.”
“Good home!” replied Mrs. Tingsby, “yes, yes, I know—the Lord will bless
you for that.”
“I guess your mamma is pretty deaf to-day, isn’t she?” asked Titus,
patiently, of one of the older children.
The children were all staring rather disdainfully at him and his
grandfather. They did not lack smartness, and they had jumped to the
conclusion that the Judge’s visit meant that he was tired of Bethany and
wanted to return her.
“I’ll make her hear,” said the eldest girl, grimly, and she applied her
lips to her parent’s ear, and, without making a steam whistle of
herself, as poor Titus did, she said, in a low, blood-curdling tone,
“The gemman is tired of Bethany—wants to return her like a parcel sent
on approbation.”
Mrs. Tingsby, who had more of the milk of human kindness than this
particular one of her offspring, turned to the Judge with an amazed,
reproachful air. “Be that true, sir?”
“No,” said the Judge, stoutly, “it isn’t.”
Immediately there ensued an altercation between him and the smart girl.
To his own great confusion and astonishment, he, Judge Sancroft, leading
citizen of Riverport, actually found himself bandying words with a saucy
little shopgirl, for such she appeared to be—and she got the better of
him.
At last he appealed to the boarders. “Can’t some of you explain how
matters are? The child is a charming little creature. I have no wish to
bring her back. I will see that she is comfortably placed.”
The new temporary boarder, or visitor, Barry Mafferty, suddenly began to
laugh. The old boarders, at the entrance of the Judge, had been suddenly
stricken with bashfulness. This poorly dressed, brown-faced man of
middle age had alone preserved his composure. After a slight bow he had
taken an unlighted cigarette from his mouth, had calmly looked the Judge
over, from his white head to his black overshoes, had bestowed a slight
glance of admiration on the half-open, fur-lined coat, and had then
again directed his attention to the red-hot bars of the grate in front
of the old-fashioned cooking-stove.
Now, as if irresistibly amused by the passage-at-arms between the
gentleman and the flippant child of poverty, he did not try to conceal
his amusement.
The Judge turned to him.
“Don’t worry yourself, sir,” said Mafferty, easily, “things will all
come out right. Our hostess is a good sort.”
The Judge stared. Who was this man?
“Broken down gentleman,” said Mafferty, still more easily; “lots of time
to study human nature. I have seen the child you took. I advise you to
hold on to her if you value a nice child. She belongs to a different
rank in society from these—” and he raised his hand comprehensively at
the Tingsby children.
The smart girl immediately turned her attention upon him.
“Easy now, easy,” he said, coolly, nodding his really fine-featured head
at her. “Easy, or you will upset your basket of china.”
“China,” she cried, in a fine, thin voice, curiously like her mother’s,
“what do you know of china, you low-down, gutter-raggy, broken-weazled,
shilly-shally—”
Mafferty began to laugh again, and such is the power of a long
drawn-out, hearty, sustained peal of laughter in which there is nothing
nervous, nothing satirical, nothing to wound, that one by one his
listeners began to join him.
The Judge laughed, Titus laughed, the boarders giggled, the children
shrieked, and even Mrs. Tingsby, though she had not heard a word of what
was said, laughed with the best of them, and was soon wiping the tears
from her eyes.
“I don’t know what’s amusin’ you,” she gasped, convulsively, “but it
must be somethin’ powerful funny.”
At this Mafferty redoubled his own merriment, and presently the uproar
became so loud that the Judge rose. He really could not take part in
this any longer, though he was still laughing himself.
Mafferty paid no attention to him. His eye was on the smart girl. She
alone of all the children had not once allowed a crease of amusement to
form itself on her face. She was stubborn, disagreeable, even ugly.
“Laugh, you goose, laugh,” he suddenly cried, stopping short and
snapping his fingers within an inch of her nose. “If you don’t learn to
laugh the devil will catch you. You can’t go through life kicking at
Providence and have any sort of a good time.”
The girl drew herself back and began an hysterical giggle.
“Not bad to start with,” said the man, complacently. “I’ll teach you to
laugh better than that, though, you insolent wisp of humanity.”
The Judge again stared at him. He was curiously attracted by this man.
“Have you been on the stage?” he asked, suddenly.
“Yes, sir,” said Mafferty, good-humoredly, “the stage of the world.
First as a physician, then down, down through various stages of
trampdom. Great at deceivin’ farmers’ wives. Now imposing on society as
proprietor of a cat farm.”
“O, you are out at Bobbety’s Island?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How can you leave your cats?”
“My wife is there, sir. I’ve come up to the city to spend Christmas.”
“What about your wife?”
“O, sir, women can enjoy the pleasures of solitude better than men, and,
then, she is fond of the cats.”
The Judge looked disapprovingly at him, then saying, “We must go,” he
made a sign of farewell to Mrs. Tingsby.
“Beat him,” said Mafferty, nodding at Titus, “if he doesn’t work. Don’t
let him idle if you half kill him. The devil’s real name is ‘Loafer.’”
The Judge nodded significantly, and all the boarders and children stood
up as he left the kitchen.
“By the way,” he said, turning suddenly, “the little girl sent some toys
to you children.”
“Hooray!” cried the boys and girls, who were still hilarious—that is,
all but the eldest, smart girl. Then they pressed out of the kitchen
after Titus, who volunteered to show them where the toys were.
The Judge stood looking at Mrs. Tingsby. He was sorry for her. She did
not quite take in the situation of affairs, and was troubled and
anxious.
He turned to Mafferty as the one who would best understand him.
“Explain to her, will you?” he said. “I have no intention of again
placing the child on her hands. I cannot keep her myself, as she is not
a boy, but I shall find a suitable home for her.”
“Yes, I will,” said the man, then he put out a hand and touched the
Judge’s coat almost lovingly. “I once had a fur-lined coat. I suppose
you haven’t another?”
“Yes, I have,” said the Judge, promptly, “too small for me—just your
fit.”
Mafferty smiled. He knew he would get it. The Judge gave a great sigh of
relief as he passed up the dark staircase. He had grown strangely
sensitive this Christmas season. It had seemed to him that he could not
go away comfortably and leave this man Mafferty without doing something
for him. True, he had not half the respect for him that he had for the
honest expressman, the furrier, and the parcel-carrier standing modestly
in the background. Those men would have died rather than beg from him.
They were workers, and Mafferty had been, and evidently still was, a
kind of drone. Yet the cat man was of the Judge’s class. They understood
each other’s Shibboleth, and the rich man’s heart was full of pity as he
went out to the frosty street.
Roblee had sprung out of his sleigh and had gone to the horses’ heads.
There was such a screaming and pulling from the young Tingsbys, who were
dragging at the toys and bearing them to the house, that he was afraid
of a runaway. Titus, scarcely less excited than the poor children, was
in the thickest of the fun.
“Come! Come!” said the Judge, “stop this tumult,” and he waved his hand.
Titus hurried the shrieking crew into the house and sprang in beside his
grandfather.
“Home, Roblee,” said the Judge, and in a few minutes they were before
the big stone house on Grand Avenue.
They were met by a disturbed household. Higby, after throwing open the
door, stammered and walked backward, and stamped, and tried to ejaculate
something, which was drowned by the exclamations of the maidservants,
who had assembled in the hall. Foremost among them was Betty, the girl
into whose care the Judge had put little Bethany.
Her face was as white as death, and she was wringing her hands.
Presently the Judge made out her exclamation, “Child lost!”
“The little girl, do you mean?” he asked, sternly.
“Yes, sir; O! yes, sir.”
“When?”
“Just after you left, sir.”
“Where were you?”
“In my own room. I had laid her on the bed to go to sleep—she went off
like that, sir,” and she helplessly extended her arms.
“Were you in your room when she disappeared?”
“No, sir; O! no, sir. I was next door to Jennie’s room. I just went in
to borrow a fine needle.”
“And when you came back the child was gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you searched the house?”
“Every corner, sir.”
“Did you run out in the street?”
“Yes, sir; we’ve been searching the neighborhood for an hour. We were
just waiting now till you came.”
The Judge stood stock still in the midst of his apprehensive domestics.
Had the little stranger run home?
Probably, and yet—he reflected for a minute, his face heavy with what
the young lawyers of Riverport were pleased to call his “judicial
frown.”
Suddenly he lifted up his head. “Have you searched the stable?”
“The stable—no, sir,” ejaculated poor Betty.
“Come with me, Titus,” said the Judge, “that child is a peculiar one. I
do not think that she has run away.”
[Illustration: “Go tell the servants that she is found,” said the Judge
to Titus.]