"Tom!" Rosie was indignant at once. "Do you mean to say Tom Sullivan told you I was mad? Well, the next time you see Tom Sullivan you tell him for me to mind his own business!" Rosie paused a moment, then drew Janet closer to her. "Mad? What's eating Tom Sullivan? Friends like you and me, Janet, don't get _mad_!"

And Janet McFadden, shaking her head in horror that any one should even suggest such a thing, declared emphatically: "Of course not!"

CHAPTER XIV

ON SCARS AND BRUISES

A few mornings later Rosie was seated on the front steps, sh.e.l.ling peas, when Janet pa.s.sed the gate.

"Aren't you coming in?" Rosie called out.

At first Janet was not, but on Rosie's second invitation she changed her mind. As she reached the steps, Rosie discovered the reason of her hesitation. She had a black eye. She carried it consciously, but with such dignity, as it were, that Rosie could not at once decide whether Janet expected her to speak of it, or to accept it without comment.

Janet herself, after an introductory remark about the weather, broached the subject.

"What do you think about the eye I've got on me? Ain't it a beaut?"

It certainly was, and Rosie expressed emphatic appreciation.

"And how do you suppose I got it?" Janet pursued.

"I couldn't guess if I had to!"

Rosie's answer was tactful, rather than truthful. In her own mind she had very little doubt whence the black eye had come. But it would never do to say that she supposed it had been given Janet by her father during one of the drunken rages to which he was subject. With one's dearest friend one may be frank almost to brutality, but not on the subject of that friend's family. There are reserves that even friendship may not penetrate. So, with an exaggeration of guilelessness, Rosie declared:

"I couldn't guess if I had to! Honest I couldn't!"

Janet had her story ready:

"You know how dark the halls in our building are. Well, I was just going downstairs, when a boy sneaked up behind me, and pushed me, and I slipped, and hit my face against the banister. And I think I know who it was, too!"

Rosie was by nature too simple and direct to simulate with any great success the kind of surprise that Janet was forever demanding of her.

Fortunately this time it did not matter, for, while Janet was speaking, Rosie's mother had appeared with an armful of darning. Unlike Rosie, Mrs. O'Brien was always in a state of what might be termed chronic surprise. She paused now before seating herself, to remark in shocked tones:

"Why, Janet McFadden, what's this ye're tellin'? Mercy on us, ain't b'ys just awful sometimes! But I'm thinkin' your da'll soon settle that lad!"

Janet shook her head violently.

"Mrs. O'Brien, I wouldn't dare tell my father that boy's name for anything! My father'd just murder him--honest he would! It just makes my father crazy when anybody touches me! He ain't responsible, he gets so mad--really he ain't! So you can see yourself I got to be mighty careful what I tell him. Besides, I ain't dead sure it was that boy, but I think it was."

Mrs. O'Brien's interest in the situation equalled Janet's own.

"I see exactly the place you're in, Janet, and I must say it's wise, the stand you take."

Mrs. O'Brien bit off a strand of darning cotton, and carefully stiffened the end.

"You see," Janet continued, "it's this way with me. I'm an only child, and you know yourself how men act about their only child."

"I do, indeed, Janet, and I feel for you." From her sympathetic understanding of Janet's problem, one would never have supposed that Mrs. O'Brien herself was the mother of a large family, and had been the child of a larger one. She held up a sock impressively. "You're quite right, Janet. Your da might do somethin' awful. There's no holdin' back some men when they take it into their heads that their only child has been mistreated."

Rosie sighed inwardly. She had very little of that histrionic sense that prompts people to a.s.sume a part and play it out in all seriousness. At first such a performance as the present one wearied her. Why in the world do people pretend a thing when they know perfectly well that they are pretending? Then, as the moments pa.s.sed, she grew interested in spite of herself, for the acting of her mother and Janet was most convincing. At last she was not quite sure that it was acting. She was brought back to her senses by Janet's turning suddenly to her with the exclamation:

"Ain't they all o' them just awful, anyhow!"

No need to ask Janet of whom she was speaking. It was an old practice of hers, this glorifying her father in one breath, and in the next vilifying men in general. Rosie protested at once:

"Why are they awful? I think they're nice."

Janet looked at her in kindly commiseration.

"Well, then, Rosie, all I got to say is--you don't know 'em."

"I don't know them! Well, I like that!" Rosie was indignant now. "I guess I know them as well as you do!" Rosie paused, then concluded in triumph: "Don't I know my own brother Terry? I guess he's all right!"

"Terry," Janet repeated, with a significant headshake. "Now I suppose, Rosie, you think you and Terry are great friends, don't you?"

"I don't think so; I know so."

Janet laughed cynically.

"Yes, I suppose you and him are great friends as long as you run your legs off for him. But listen to me, Rosie O'Brien! Do you know what he'd do to you if you was to lose one of his paper customers? He'd beat the very puddin' out of you! I guess I know!"

"Janet, you're crazy!"

"Crazy? All right, Rosie, have it your own way. But I leave it to Mis'

O'Brien if I ain't right."

That lady, being, as it were, pledged to Janet's support, instead of vindicating her own son, made the weak admission:

"Well, I must confess there's somethin' in what Janet says."

At Janet's departure, Rosie looked at her mother scornfully.

"Ma, don't you really know how Janet got that black eye?"

Mrs. O'Brien dropped her darning in surprise. At every turn life seemed to hold a fresh surprise for Mrs. O'Brien.

"Why, Rosie! What a question to ask your poor ma! Do I look like I was born yesterday?"

Mrs. O'Brien did not; but, even so, Rosie insisted upon a direct answer.

"Well, then, if you really must know, Rosie dear, I'll be glad to tell you. That brute of a Dave McFadden has been knockin' her down again."

Rosie clucked her tongue impatiently. "Maggie O'Brien, there's one thing I'd like to ask you. When Janet knew how she got that black eye, and you knew how she got it, and she knew perfectly well that you knew, why in the world did you both go pretending something else?"