THE CASE OF DAVE McFADDEN

Promptly at eight o'clock Rosie reached the tenement where the McFaddens lived. Janet was on the front steps waiting for her.

"Shall we sit out here awhile?" Janet said, making place for Rosie beside herself.

Rosie hesitated a moment. "Is your father home?"

"Yes. He came in an hour ago. I got him off to bed as soon as I could.

He's asleep now."

"Are--are you sure he won't wake up and make trouble?"

Janet laughed. "Yes, I'm sure. We won't hear anything from him till morning except snorts and groans. I guess I know."

On the steps of the neighbouring tenements there were groups of people laughing, talking, wrangling. The electric street lamps cast great patches of quivering jumping light and heavy ma.s.ses of deep pulsating shadow. Janet and Rosie, seated alone, were near enough their neighbours not to feel cut off from the outside world and yet, in the seclusion of a dark shadow, far enough away to talk freely on the subject uppermost in their thoughts.

"You've never heard me say anything about my father before, Rosie, you know you haven't." Janet paused to sigh. "Mother never has, either.

We've both always let on that he's all right and we've covered him up and lied about him and done everything we could to keep people from knowing how he really treats us. If this hadn't happened to mother, I wouldn't be talking yet. Say, Rosie, ain't women fools? That's the way they always act about their own men folks. They're willing to shoot any other man for nothing at all, but they let on that their own men are just angels. You know--the way I've always done about dad. But, since today, seems like I don't care any more. And I've made up my mind to one thing: he's going to hear the truth from me tomorrow morning if he kills me for it."

"Janet!" Rosie did not relish at all the thought of being present at a family conference of so private a nature.

"Yes, and you're going to hear it, too, Rosie. If we were alone, he might pay attention or he might not. But with an outsider hearing things he'll know quick enough that I mean business."

"Janet, I don't know how you can talk that way. He's your father, you know."

Janet nodded grimly. "Yes, he's my father all right. You know it and I know it, but he seems to have forgotten it. I'll remind him of it tomorrow."

Rosie reached out a little timidly. "I don't like to interfere, Janet, but it seems to me you're only making things harder for yourself. Don't you know it makes you kind o' sick inside to let yourself get so mad at any one?"

Janet sighed wearily. "Yes, I suppose it does, but I've been that way so long I don't know how it feels to be any other way."

Presently Rosie said: "Tell me, Janet, has he always boozed like this?"

Janet shook her head. "No, not always. I can remember when things were different. I was a pretty big kid, too. We had a little house like yours and good furniture. You know he's a fine machinist and makes good money.

He used to make four dollars a day. He can always get work yet but he don't keep it like he used to."

"And didn't he booze then, Janet?"

"Yes, a little but not very much. Ma says he'd come home full maybe once a month and smash things around, but after that he'd sober up and be all right for a long time. Oh, we were comfortable then and ma and me had good clothes and if ma didn't feel very well she'd hire some one to do the washing. I remember I had a pretty jumping rope and a big ball. It wasn't more than five or six years ago. And look at us now!"

Rosie sighed sympathetically. "I wonder what it was that started him that way?"

Janet was able to tell. "You know, Rosie, that's a funny thing. Miss Harris from the Settlement was in here one day asking ma and I heard what ma said. Dad fell and broke a leg and was laid up for a long time.

Then they found it hadn't been set right and they broke it over again.

So that kept him out of work ever so many more weeks. They had always been spenders, both of them, and they hadn't so very much money put by, so, just to keep things together while dad was idle, ma began going out to work. She's a fine cleaner and laundress, so of course she could always get good places. Then, after dad got well, she kept on working because they were in debt and then--I don't know how it happened--the first thing ma knew dad was drinking up his money and she's been working ever since. He used to pay the rent but he don't even do that any more."

Janet talked on as she had never talked before. Not much of what she said was new to Rosie, for the private life of the poor is lived in public, and Mrs. Finnegan has no need to explain to the neighbours the little commotion that took place in her rooms the night before, since the neighbours have all along known as much about it as herself. What Rosie had not known before was Janet's real att.i.tude toward her father.

Janet's likes had always seemed to Rosie a little fearsome in their intensity; her hate, as Rosie saw it now, was appalling. Compared to Janet's feelings, Rosie's own appeared childish, almost babyish. If brought to trial, she would, no doubt, have fought for them, but like a kitten rather than a tiger. In Janet the tiger was already well grown.

Listening to Janet, Rosie shuddered. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Janet. It's kind of murderous!"

"Murderous?" Janet repeated. "What if it is? That's just how I feel sometimes. Right now when I think of ma lying there in the hospital, for two cents I'd go upstairs and choke him to death! What would it matter, anyway, if he never woke up? Just one less drunkard in the world--that's all. I guess there'd be plenty enough of them left."

Rosie held out imploring hands. "Janet, if you keep on talking like that I'll have to go home! I'll be too scared to sleep with you!"

Janet was contrite. "Aw, now, Rosie, don't say that. I'm only talking, and I won't even talk any more tonight. Anyhow, it's time for bed."

The McFadden home consisted of two rooms: a front living room and a small back bedroom. The living room was everything its name implied: it had in it sink, wash-tub, stove, eating table, and the bed where Janet and her mother slept. The little back room, lighted and ventilated from a shaft, was where Dave slept.

The sound of him and the smell of him filled both rooms and seemed to rush out into the hallway as Janet and Rosie pushed open the door.

"Ugh!" Rosie gasped, and Janet, who had struck a match and was reaching for a candle, paused to say, over her shoulder: "If you want me to, I'll shut his door."

Rosie would have liked nothing better but a humanitarian consideration restrained her. "Wouldn't he smother in there with the door shut?"

"Maybe he would."

Janet spoke so indifferently that Rosie felt that she herself must bear the whole burden of responsibility.

"Guess you had better leave it as it is, Janet. I suppose I'll be able to stand it once I get used to it."

Rosie said this, but in her own mind she was perfectly sure she could never sleep in such an atmosphere. She repeated this to herself many times and very emphatically, while she was undressing and afterwards when she was in bed.

"If you're careful," Janet instructed her, "and lie over just a little bit near the edge, you won't hit the broken spring. Now good-night, dear, and sleep tight."

Sleep tight, indeed, with that brute in there snorting like an engine and one's back nearly broken in two stretching over sharp peaks and yawning precipices! My! what would Rosie not have given to be at home in her own bed! Not that her own bed was any marvel of comfort. It was not.

But it was her own--that was the great thing. People like their own things--their own beds, their own homes, their own families. How Rosie loved hers! There was her father for whom her heart overflowed in a sudden gush of tenderness. Jamie O'Brien was so quiet and un.o.btrusive that Rosie often forgot him. It needed the contrast of a Dave McFadden to awaken in her a realization of his gentle worth. And, if you only knew it, there wasn't a more generous-hearted soul on earth than Maggie O'Brien. And where was there a prettier or a sweeter baby than Geraldine? And Jackie was a nice kid, too. He was! And Terry---- Terry's n.o.bility of character could only be expressed orally with a sigh, graphically with a dash.... Of course there was Ellen.... I suppose every family has to have at least one disagreeable member.... Wouldn't it be a great idea if all families just bunched together their disagreeable members and sent 'em off somewhere alone where they wouldn't be of any further nuisance? To the Great American Desert, for instance! To such a scheme Rosie would gladly contribute Ellen and Janet might contribute her father. The longer Rosie considered the plan, the more sensible it seemed to her. She was surprised she hadn't thought of it sooner. She would discuss it with Janet in the morning.... Yes, morning--morning. Then dream and waking flowed together and she felt Janet patting her arm and she heard Janet's voice saying, "Morning! It's morning, Rosie! Wake up!"

Rosie opened her eyes with a pop. "Why, I've been asleep, haven't I?"

"I should think you had!" Janet told her. "You've been laughing and talking to yourself to beat the band. It's time to get up now. I want you to go to the grocery and, while you're out, I'll get him up."

CHAPTER x.x.x

JANET TO HER OWN FATHER

When Rosie got back from the grocery, Dave McFadden was washing his face at the sink. He paid no attention to Rosie and, in fact, seemed not to see her until he sat down to breakfast. Then he looked at her in surprise.

"Why, h.e.l.lo, Rosie! Where did you come from?"

He was a large powerfully built man, dark, with sombre cavernous eyes and a gaunt face. His voice was not unkind nor was his glance.

Rosie spoke to him politely: "Good-morning, Mr. McFadden."