I SEEK PATSY, AND MEET THE DUCHESS OF ANNA STREET.
"'Tis pride, rank pride and haughtiness of soul."
I make my way through the streets, drinking in the glorious air,
breathing the perfume of the countless fruit stands and the fragrances
that floated out from the open doors of the little flower stores in
every block, till I left all that was pleasant behind me and turned into
Anna Street.
I soon found Number 32, a dirty, tumble-down, one-story hovel, the
blinds tied together with selvedges of red flannel, and a rickety bell
that gave a certain style to the door, though it had long ceased to
ring.
A knock brought a black-haired, beetle-browed person to the window.
"Does Mrs. Kennett live here?"
"No, she don't. I live here."
"Oh! then you are not Mrs. Kennett?"
"Wall, I ruther guess _not_!" This in a tone of such royal superiority
and disdain that I saw in an instant I had mistaken blue blood for red.
"I must have been misinformed, then. This is Number 32?"
"Can't yer see it on the door?"
"Yes," meekly. "I thought perhaps Anna Street had been numbered over."
"What made yer think Mis' Kennett lived here?"
"A little girl brought me her name written on a card,--Mrs. Kennett, 32
Anna Street."
"There!" triumphantly, "I might 'a knowed that woman 'd play some common
trick like that! Now do you want ter know where Mis' Kennett re'ly doos
live? Wall, _she lives in the rear_! Her number's 32-1/2, 'n I vow she
gits more credit o' livin' in the front house 'n I do, 'n I pay four
dollars more rent! Ever see her? I thought not! I guess 'f you hed you
wouldn't think of her livin' in a house like this!"
"Excuse me. I didn't expect to make any trouble"--
"Oh, I've nothin' agin _you_, but just let me ketch her puttin' on airs
'n pertendin' to live like her betters, that's all! She's done it
before, but I couldn't never ketch her at it. The idee of her keepin' up
a house like this!" and with a superb sniff like that of a battle-horse,
she disappeared from the front window of her ancestral mansion and
sought one at the back which might command a view of my meeting with her
rival.
I slid meekly through a side gate, every picket of which was decorated
with a small child, stumbled up a dark narrow passage, and found myself
in a square sort of court out of which rose the rear houses so
objectionable to my Duchess in the front row.
It was not plain sailing, by any means, owing to the collection of tin
cans and bottles through which I had to pick my way, but I climbed some
frail wooden steps, and stood at length on the landing of Number 32-1/2.
The door was open, and there sat Patsy, "minding" the Kennett baby, a
dull little lump of humanity, whose brain registered impressions so
slowly that it would play all day long with an old shoe without
exhausting its possibilities.
Patsy himself was dirtier than ever, and much more sullen and gloomy.
The traces of tears on his cheeks made my heart leap into my throat.
"Oh, Patsy," I exclaimed, "I am so glad to find you! We expected you all
day, and were afraid you weren't well."
Not a word of response.
"We have a chair all ready for you; it is standing right under one of
the plant-shelves, and there are three roses in bloom to-day!"
Still not a word.
"And I had to tell the dog story without you!"
The effect of this simple statement was very different from what I had
anticipated. I thought I knew what a child was likely to do under every
conceivable set of circumstances, but Patsy was destined to be more than
once a revelation to me.
He dashed a book of colored advertisements that he held into the
farthest corner of the room, threw himself on the floor at full length
and beat it with his hands, while he burst into a passion of tears.
"There! there!" he cried between his sobs, "I told 'em you'd tell it! I
told 'em you'd tell it! I told 'em you'd--but oh, I thought maybe you
wouldn't!" His wails brought Mrs. Kennett from a back piazza where she
was washing.
"Are you the teacher o' the _Kids Guards_, 'm?"
"Yes." It did not strike me at the time, in my anxiety, what a
sympathetic rendering of the German word this was; but we afterwards
found that "Kindergarten" was thus translated in Anna Street.
"Patsy couldn't go to-day, 'm, on account of him hevin' no good boots,
'm, Jim not bein' paid off till Wednesday, 'n me hevin' no notice he hed
no clean shirt, 'm, this not bein' his clean-shirt week, 'm. He takes it
awful hard about that there story, 'm. I told him as how you'd be after
tellin' another one next week, but it seems nothin' will comfort him."
"Ev'rybuddy's allers lyin' to me," he moaned; "there warn't another dog
picture like that in the hull room!"
"Don't take no notice of him, 'm, an' he'll git over it; he's subjick to
these spells of takin' on like. Set up, Pat, an' act decent! Tell the
lady you'll come when you git your boots."
"Patsy, boy, stop crying a minute and listen to me," I said. "If Mrs.
Kennett is willing, I have some things that will fit you; you shall come
right back with me now,--all the children have gone,--and you and I will
be alone with the sunshine and the birds and the fishes, as we were the
other day, and I will tell you the dog story just as I told it to the
other children this morning."
He got up slowly, rubbed his tattered sleeve across his wet cheek, and
looked at me searchingly to see if I might be trusted; then he limped to
the sink, treated his face and hands to a hasty but energetic scrub,
seized his fragment of a hat, gave his brief trousers a hitch which had
the air of being the last exquisite touch to a faultless toilet, and sat
down on the landing to mend his twine shoe-lace.
"Who is your neighbor in Number 32, Mrs. Kennett?" I asked as I rose to
go. "I went there to find you."
"Did you indeed, 'm? Well, I hope she treated you civil, 'm, though it
don't be much in her line. She's a Mis' Mooney, 'm. I know _her_, but
she don't know _me_ anny more sence she's riz in the wurrld. She moved
out of this house whin I moved into it, but none of us ladies here is
good enough for her to 'sociate with _now_, 'm! You see her husband was
in the rag, sack, and bottle business, 'm, 'n a wealthy gintleman friend
set him up in a fish-cart, an' it's kind of onsettled her, 'm! Some
folks can't stan' prosperity. If 't bed bin grad_joo_al like, she might
have took it more natcheral; but it come all of a suddent, an' she's
that purse-proud now, 'm, that she'll be movin' up on Nob Hill ef she
don't hev no stroke o' bad luck to show 'er her place! Good day, 'm!"
I carved my way through the tin cans and bottles again under the haughty
eye of my Duchess of the fish-cart, and in a few minutes Patsy and I
were again in Silver Street.
When we entered the room he looked about with an expression of entire
content. "It's all here!" he said with a sigh, as if he had feared to
find it a dream.
The chair with its red cushion pleased him greatly; then, after a few
moments' talk to make him feel a little at home, we drew up to the
picture, and I took his cleanest hand in mine, and told him the story of
Victor, the brave St. Bernard dog.
It was an experience never to be repeated and never to be forgotten!
[Illustration: "THE STORY OF VICTOR."]
* * * * *
As you sit at twilight in the "sweet safe corner of the household fire,"
the sound of the raindrops on the window-pane mingling with the laughing
treble of childish voices in some distant room, you see certain pictures
in the dying flame,--pictures unspeakably precious to every one who has
lived, or loved, or suffered.
I have my memory-pictures, too; and from the fairest frame of all shines
Patsy's radiant face as it looked into mine long ago when I told him the
story of Victor.