CHAPTER IV.

BEHIND THE SCENES.

Some children are like little human scrawl-books, blotted all over with the sins and mistakes of their ancestors.

Monday morning came as mornings do come, bringing to the overworked body and mind a certain languor difficult to shake off. As I walked down the dirty little street, with its rows of old-clothes shops, saloons, and second-hand-furniture stores, I called several of my laggards, and gave them a friendly warning. "Quarter of nine, Mrs. Finnigan!" "Bless me soul, darlin'! Well, I will hurry up my childern, that I will; but the baby was that bad with whoopin'-cough last night that I never got three winks meself, darlin'!"

"All right; never mind the ap.r.o.n; let Jimmy walk on with me, and I will give him one at school." Jimmy trots proudly at my side, munching a bit of baker's pie and carrying my basket. I drop into Mrs. Powers' suite of apartments in Rosalie Alley, and find Lafayette Powers still in bed. His twelve-year-old sister and guardian, Hildegarde, has over-slept, as usual, and breakfast is not in sight. Mrs. Powers goes to a dingy office up town at eight o'clock, her present mission in life being the healing of the nations by means of mental science. It is her fourth vocation in two years, the previous ones being tissue-paper flowers, l.u.s.tre painting, and the agency for a high-cla.s.s stocking supporter. I scold Hildegarde roundly, and she scrambles sleepily about the room to find a note that Mrs. Powers has left for me. I rejoin my court in the street, and open the letter with antic.i.p.ation.

Miss Kate.

Dear Maddam.--You complane of Lafayette's never getting to school till eleven o'clock. It is not my affare as Hildegarde has _full charge_ of him and I _never_ intefear, but I would sujjest that if you _beleeve_ in him he will do better. Your unbeleef sapps his _will powers_. you have only reprooved him for being late. why not incurrage him say by _paying_ him 5 cents a morning for a wile to get amung his little maits on the stroak of nine? "declare for good and good will work for you" is one of our sayings. I have not time to treet Lafayette myself my busness being so engroa.s.sing but if you would take a few minites each night and _deny Fear along the 5 avanues_ you could heel him. Say _there is no Time in the infinnit_ over and over before you go to sleep. This will lift fear off of Lafayette, fear of being late and he will get there in time.

Yours for Good, MRS. POWERS, _Mental Heeler_.

Oh, what a naughty, ignorant, amusing, hypocritical, pathetic world it is! I tuck the note in my pocket to brighten the day for Helen, and we pa.s.s on.

As we progress we gather into our train Levi, Jacob, David, Moses, Elias, and the other prophets and patriarchs who belong to our band. We hasten the steps of the infant Garibaldi, who is devouring refuse fruit from his mother's store, and stop finally to pluck a small Dennis Kearney from the coal-hod, where he has been put for safe-keeping. The day has really begun, and with its first service the hands grow willing and the heart is filled with sunshine.

As the boys at my side prattle together of the "percession" and the "sojers" they saw yesterday, I wish longingly that I could be transported with my tiny hosts to the sunny, quiet country on this clear, lovely morning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BOYS AT MY SIDE PRATTLE TOGETHER."]

I think of my own joyous childhood, spent in the sweet companionship of fishes, brooks, and b.u.t.terflies, birds, crickets, gra.s.shoppers, whispering trees and fragrant wild flowers, and the thousand and one playfellows of Nature which the good G.o.d has placed within reach of the happy country children. I think of the shining eyes of my little Lucys and Bridgets and Rachels could I turn them loose in a field of golden b.u.t.tercups and daisies, with sweet wild strawberries hidden at their roots; of the merry glee of my dear boisterous little prophets and patriots, if I could set them catching tadpoles in a clear wayside pool, or hunting hens' nests in the alder bushes behind the barn, or pulling yellow cow lilies in the pond, or wading for cat-o'-nine-tails, with their ragged little trousers tucked above their knees. And oh! hardest of all to bear, I think of our poor little invalids, so young to struggle with languor and pain! Just to imagine the joy of my poor, lame boys and my weary, pale, and peevish children, so different from the bright-eyed, apple-cheeked darlings of well-to-do parents,--mere babies, who, from morning till night, seldom or never know what it is to cuddle down warmly into the natural rest of a mother's loving bosom!

Monday morning came and went,--Monday afternoon also; it was now two o'clock, and to my surprise and disappointment Patsy had not appeared.

The new chair with its pretty red cushion stood expectant but empty.

Helen had put a coat of sh.e.l.lac on poor Johnny Ca.s.s's table, freshened up its squared top with new lines of red paint, and placed a little silver vase of flowers on it. Our Lady Bountiful had come in to pay for the chair and see the boy, but alas! there was no boy to see. The children were all ready for him. They knew that he was a sick boy, like Johnny Ca.s.s, tired, and not able to run and jump, and that they must be good to him as they had been to Johnny. This was the idea of the majority; but I do not deny that there was a small minority which professed no interest and promised no virtue. Our four walls contained a miniature world,--a world with its best foot forward, too, but it was not heaven.

At quarter past two I went into Helen's little room, where she was drawing exquisite ill.u.s.trations on a blackboard for next day's "morning talk."

"Helen, the children say that a family of Kennetts live at 32 Anna Street, and I am going to see why Patsy didn't come. Oh yes, I know that there are boys enough without running after them, but we must have this particular boy, whether he wants to come or not, for he is _sui generis_. He shall sit on that cushion

"'And sew a fine seam, And feast upon strawberries, Sugar and cream!'"

"I think a taste for martyrdom is just as difficult to eradicate from the system as a taste for blood," Helen remarked whimsically. "Very well, run on and I'll 'receive' in your absence. I could say with Antony, 'Lend me your ears,' for I shall need them. Have you any commands?"

"Just a few. Please tell Paulina Strozynski's big brother that he _must_ call for her earlier, and not leave her sitting on the steps so long.

Tell Mrs. Hickok that if she sends us another child whom she knows to be down with the chicken-pox, we won't take in her two youngest when they're old enough. Don't give Mrs. Slamberg any ap.r.o.ns. She returned the little undershirts and drawers that I sent her by Julie, and said 'if it was all the same to me, she'd rather have something that would make a little more show!' And--oh yes, do see if you can find Jacob Shubener's hat; he is crying down in the yard, and doesn't dare go home without it."

"Very well. Four cases. Strozynski--steps--cruelty.

Hickok--chicken-pox--ingrat.i.tude. Slamberg--ap.r.o.ns--vanity.

Shubener--hat--carelessness. Oh that I could fasten Jacob's hat to his ear by a steel chain! Has he looked in the sink?"

"Yes."

"Ash-barrel?"

"Certainly."

"Up in the pepper-tree?"

"Of course."

"Then some one has 'chucked' it into the next yard, and the janitor will have to climb the fence,--at his age! Oh, if I could eliminate the irregular verb 'to chuck' from the vocabulary of this school, I could 'make out of the broken sounds of life a song, and out of life itself a melody,'" and she flew down-stairs like a breeze, to find the patient Mr. Bowker. Mr. Bowker was a nice little man, who had not all his wits about him, but whose heart was quite intact, and who swept with energy and washed windows with a.s.siduity. He belonged to the Salvation Army, and the most striking articles of his attire, when sweeping, were a flame-colored flannel shirt and a shiny black hat with "Prepare to Meet Thy G.o.d" on the front in large silver letters. The combination of color was indescribably pictorial, and as lurid and suggestive as an old-fashioned Orthodox sermon.

As I went through the lower hall, I found Mr. Bowker a.s.sisting Helen to search the coal-bin. "Don't smile," she cried. "Punch says, 'Sometimes the least likeliest place is more likelier than the most likeliest,'--and sure enough, here is the hat! I should have been named Deborah or Miriam,--not Helen!" and she hurried to dry the tears of the weeping Jacob.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HERE IS THE HAT!"]

CHAPTER V.

I SEEK PATSY, AND MEET THE d.u.c.h.eSS 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."