Grandpa so old an' she so young should both of 'em get lost to onct, an'

only me to look out for 'em! Yet, maybe, that Mary Fogarty woman'll help us out. I hope she'll be like Meg-Laundress, or darlin' Posy Jane.

Strange, how long these fields are. Longer'n the longest avenue there is an' not one single house the hull length. Why ain't there houses, I wonder. Wake up, Bonny precious! We're almost there."

But when they reached the door of the Queen Anne cottage, which was intended to be picturesque and had succeeded in being merely extremely dirty, and out of which swarmed a horde of youngsters each more soiled than the other, Glory's heart sank. For the big woman who followed the horde was not in the least like either old friend of Elbow Lane. Her voice was harsh and forbidding as she demanded, "Well, an' who are you; an' what are you wantin' here?"

"Timothy sent us," answered Glory, meekly.

"Huh! He did, did he? Well, he never had sense. Now, into the house with ye, every born child of ye!" she rejoined, indifferently, and "shooed"

her own brood, like a flock of chickens, back into the cottage, then slammed its door in the visitor's face.

CHAPTER XI

A Haven of Refuge

Glory's walk and heavy burden had exhausted her and, almost unconsciously, she let Bonny Angel slip from her arms to the door-step where she stood. There the child lay, flushed and motionless, in a sleep which nothing disturbed, though hitherto she had wakened at any call.

Now, though in remorse at her own carelessness, Take-a-St.i.tch bent over the little one and begged her pardon most earnestly, the baby gave no sign of hearing and slumbered on with her face growing a deeper red and her breath beginning to come in a way that recalled the old captain's snores.

"What shall I do now?" cried poor Glory, aloud, looking around over the wide country, so unlike the crowded Lane, and seeing no shelter anywhere at which she dared again apply. Some buildings there were, behind and removed from the cottage; but they were so like that inhospitable structure in color and design that she felt their indwellers would also be the same.

"Oh, I wish I hadn't come all that way over the gra.s.s," said poor Glory.

"If we'd stayed by them car-rails, likely we'd have come somewhere that there was houses--different. And, Bonny Angel, sweetest, preciousest, darlingest one, do please, please, wake up and walk yourself just a little, teeny, tiny bit. Then, when I get rested a mite, I'll carry you again, 'cause we've got to go, you see. That Timothy was mistook an' his sister's husband's cousin won't let us in."

Yet even while her back was toward it, as she contemplated the landscape pondering which way lay her road, the door again suddenly opened and Mary Fogarty announced, shrilly, but not unkindly:

"There's the wagon-house. You can rest there a spell, seein' you was simple enough to lug that hefty young one clear across the meadder. It's that third one, where the big door stands open an' the stone-boat is."

Glory faced about, her face at once radiant with grat.i.tude, and its effect upon the cottage mistress was to further soften her asperity, so that though she again e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed that contemptuous "Huh!" it was in a milder tone; and, with something like interest she demanded, "How long 's that baby been that feverish she is now? She looks 's if she was comin' down with somethin' catchin'. Best get her home, soon 's you can, sissy. She ain't fit to be runnin' round loose."

Poor little Bonny Angel didn't look much like "running loose" at present, and as for "home," the word brought an intolerable feeling to Glory's heart, making the sunny fields before her to seem like prison walls that yet had a curious sort of wobble to them, as if they were dancing up and down in a wild way. But that was because she regarded them now through a mist of tears she could not repress, while visions of a shadowy Lane, whose very gloom would have been precious to her on that hot day, obtruded themselves upon the scene.

With a desperate desire for guidance, Glory burst out her whole story and Mary Fogarty was forced to listen, whether or no. To that good woman's credit it was that as she listened her really warm heart, upon which Timothy Dowd had counted, got the better of her impatience and, once more closing the door upon her peeping children, she said,

"Why, you poor, brave little creatur'! Come this way. I'll show you where, though you must carry the baby yourself, if so be she won't carry herself. I've got seven o' my own an' I wouldn't have nothin' catchin'

get amongst them, not for a fortune. I wouldn't dare. I've had 'em down, four er five to a time, with whooping-cough an' measles an' scarletina an' what not; an' now sence the twinses come, I don't want no more of it I can tell you. Don't lag."

Mary strode along, "like a horse," as her husband frequently complimented her, walking as fast as she was talking and, with Bonny Angel in her arms, Goober Glory did her best to keep a similar pace. But this was impossible. Not only were her feet heavy beneath the burden she bore, but her heart ached with foreboding. With Bonny Angel ill, how was the search for grandpa to go on? How to look for the little one's own people? Yet how terrible that they must be left in their grief while she could do nothing to comfort them.

"Oh, if they only knew! She's so safe with me, I love her so. If I could only tell them! I wonder--I wonder who they are and where they are and shall I ever, ever find them!" she exclaimed in her anxiety as, coming to the wagon-house door, she found Mistress Fogarty awaiting her.

That lady answered with her own cheerful exclamation, "'Course you will.

Everything comes right, everywhere, give it time enough. Now step right up into this loft. There's a bed here that the extry man sleeps on when there is an extry. None now. Real gardenin' comes to a standstill when Dennis has the chills. You can put the baby down there an' let her sleep her sleep out. You might 's well lie down yourself and take a snooze, bein' you're that petered out a luggin'.

"I must get back an' start up dinner," continued Mary. "It's a big job, even with Dennis round to peel and watch the fryin'. Seven youngsters of my own, with him an' me, and ten boarders----My, it takes a pile of bread to keep all them mouths full, let alone pies an' fixin's. It's vegetable soup to-day, and as the gang's working right nigh, they'll all be in prompt. I won't forget ye, an' I'll send something out to ye by somebody--but don't you pay me back by giving one of my children anything catchin'!"

Before Glory could a.s.sure the anxious mother that she would do her utmost for their safety, Mary had run down the rude stairs, shaking the shed-like building as she ran, and was within the red cottage ere the visitor realized it.

Glory exclaimed, as she gazed about, "Here we are, at last, in a regular house! And my, isn't it big? Why, ever an' ever so much bigger than the 'littlest house in Ne' York!' That bed's wide enough for all Meg's children to onct, and--my, how Bonny Angel does sleep. I'm sleepy, too, now I see such a prime place. The woman told me to sleep and I guess I'd better mind."

So, presently, having removed Bonny's draggled coat from the still drowsy child, Glory placed her charge at the extreme back of the bed and lay down herself.

"Wake up, sissy! Come down an' get your basin of soup. Enough in it for the pair of ye, with strawberry shortcake to match!"

It was this summons which aroused Glory from a delightful slumber and she sprang to her feet, not comprehending, at first, what she heard or where she was. Then she returned, laughing as she spoke, "'Course I'll come, you splendid Mary Fogarty! And I'm more obliged 'an I can say, but I'll work it out, I truly will try to work it out, if you'll hunt up your jobs. That dear Timothy said you needed mendin', dreadful!"

But she was unaware that this same Timothy was also close at hand.

"Oh! he did, did he? Well, he said the true word for once, but bad manners in him all the same," answered Mrs. Fogarty; and, as Glory joined them at the foot of the stairs, there were the two engaged in a sort of scuffle which had more mirth than malice in it.

When Take-a-St.i.tch appeared, they regarded her with a look of compa.s.sion which she did not understand; because at the dinner, now comfortably over, the child and her hopeless search had been discussed and the ten boarders, the seven children, with their parents, had all reached one and the same conclusion, namely, that the only safe place for such innocent and ignorant vagrants was in some "Asylum." Who was to announce this decision and convey the little ones to their place of refuge had not, as yet, been settled. n.o.body was inclined to take up that piece of work and the ten boarders sauntered back to their more congenial labor on the railroad, leaving the matter in Mary Fogarty's hands.

However, it was a matter destined for n.o.body to settle, because when Glory had carefully conveyed the basin of soup, the pitcher of milk and the generous slices of shortcake back to the loft, she was frightened out of all hunger by the appearance of Bonny Angel. It was almost the first time in her life that the little "Queen of Elbow Lane" had had a dinner set before her of such proper quant.i.ty and quality, yet she was not to taste it.

Bonny was tossing to and fro, sometimes moaning with pain, sometimes shrieking in terror, but always in such a state as to banish every thought save of herself from Glory's mind. And then began a week of the greatest anxiety and distress which even the little caretaker of Elbow Lane, with her self-imposed charge of its many children, had ever known.

"If she should die before I find her folks! If it's 'cause I haven't done the best I could for her----Oh, what shall I do!" wailed Take-a-St.i.tch, herself grown haggard with watching and grief, so that she looked like any other than the winsome child who had flashed upon Miss Bonnicastle's vision at that memorable visit of hers to that crooked little alley where they had met.

And Timothy Dowd, the only one of the big household near, whom Mary Fogarty permitted to enter the wagon-house-hospital, sighed as he answered with an affected cheerfulness: "Sure, it's n.o.body dies around these parts; not a body since I was put to work on this section the road. So, why more her nor another an' she the youngest o' the lot?

Younger, betoken, nor the twinses theirselves.

"An' it's naught but that crotchetty woman, yon," continued Tim, "that's cousin to me own sister's husband, 'd have took such fool notions into her head. Forbiddin' me, even me, her own relation by marriage, to set foot inside her door till she says the word, an' somebody tellin' her we should be smoked out with sulphur an' brimstone, like rats in a hole, ere ever we can mix with decent folks again. An' some of the boys, even, takin' that nonsense from herself, an' not likin' to dig in the same ditch along with the contagious Tim. Sure, it's contagious an'

cantankerous and all them other big things we'll be, when we get out o'

this an' find the old captain, your grandpa, an' the biggest kind of a celebration 'twill be, or never saw I the blue skies of old Ireland!

Bless the sod!"

But in his heart, faithful Timothy did not look for Bonny Angel's recovery. n.o.body knew what ailed her, since physician had not been called. Against such professional advice, Mary Fogarty had set her big foot with an unmovable firmness. Doctors had never interfered in her household save once, when Dennis, misguided man, had consulted one. And witness, everybody, hadn't he been sick and useless ever since?

So, from a safe distance, she a.s.sumed charge of the case; sending Glory a pair of shears with which to shave Bonny's sunny head, directing that all windows should be closed, lest the little patient "take cold," and preparing food suitable for the hardest working "boarder," rather than the delicate stomach of a sick child.

However, had they known it, there was nothing whatever infectious about little Bonny's illness, which was simply the result of unaccustomed exposure and unwholesome food; nor did good Mary's unwise directions cause any great harm, because, though a delicate child, the baby was a healthy one. She had no desire for the coa.r.s.e food that was offered her but drank frequently of the milk that accompanied it; and as for the matter of fresh air, although Glory had to keep the windows closed, there was plenty of ventilation from the wide apertures under the eaves of the shed.

At the end of the week, the devoted young nurse had the delight of hearing her "Angel" laugh outright, for the first time in so many days, and to feel her darling's arms about her own neck while the pale little lips cried out once more the familiar, "Bonny come! Bonny come!"

To catch her tiny "Guardian" up and run with her to the cottage-door took but a minute, but there Glory's enthusiasm was promptly dashed by Mary's appearance. Shaking her arms vigorously, she "shooed" the pair away, as she "shooed" everything objectionable out of her path.

"Stand back! Stand back, the two of ye! Don't dast to come anigh, sence the time of gettin' over things is the very worst time to give 'em.

Hurry back to the wagon-house, quick, quick! And once you're safe inside, I'll fetch you some other clothes that you must both put on.

Every st.i.tch you've wore, ary one, and the bedclothes, has got to be burnt. Tim's to burn 'em this noonin'. I've got no girl your size, but that don't matter. I've cut off an old skirt o' my own, for your outside, an' little Joe's your very pattern for shape, so his shirt an'

blouse 'll do amazin' well. As for the baby, she can put on a suit of the twinses' till so be we can do better. Now hurry up!"

Glory could not help lingering for a moment to ask, "Must it be burned?

Do you really, truly, mean to burn Bonny Angel's lovely white silk coat, an' her pretty dress all lace an' trimmin'? An' my blue frock--why, I haven't wore it but two years, that an' the other one to home. It's as good as good, only lettin' out tucks now and then an'----"

"Huh! S'pose you, a little girl, know more about what's right than I do, a big growed up woman? I've took you in an' done for ye all this time an' the least you can do is to do as you're told," replied Mrs. Fogarty, in her sharpest manner.

Thus reprimanded, Glory retreated to the wagon-house, whence, after a time, she reappeared so altered by her new attire that she scarcely knew herself. Much less, did she think, that any old friend of Elbow Lane would recognize her. She was next directed to carry all the discarded clothing and bedding to a certain spot in the barnyard, where Timothy would make a bonfire of it as soon as he appeared; and her heart ached to part with the silken coat which had enwrapped her precious "Guardian," even though it were now soiled and most disreputable.