The Angel of the Tenement

CHAPTER IV. THE ANGEL BECOMES A FAIRY.

July passed, and in August, the heat in the room beneath the roof set the air to shimmering like a veil before the open window, and Mary Carew, gasping, found it harder and harder to make that extra pair of jean pantaloons a day. And, as though the manager at the Garden Opera House had divined that Miss Bonkowski had left another birthday behind her, like milestones along the way, that lady's salary received a cut on the first day of August.

At best, the united incomes of the two made but a meagre sum, and there was nothing for it now but to reduce expenses. The rent being one thing that was never cut, the result was a scantier allowance of food. Moreover, the mortals seeing to it that their heavenly visitant had her full craving satisfied, it was small wonder that the bones in Mary's face pressed more like knobs than ever against the tight-drawn skin, or that the spirits of the airy, hopeful, buoyant Norma flagged. Indeed, had not the warm-hearted, loving little creature, repaid them with quick devotion, filling their meagre lives with new interests and affections, despair or worse-regret for their generous impulse-must now have seized their hearts.

Invitations, too, grew rare, from the other ladies of the Tenement, bidding the little stranger whose simple friendliness and baby dignity had won them all, to dine or to sup, for hard times had fallen upon them also. A strike at a neighboring foundry, the shutting down of the great rolling-mill by the river had sent their husbands home for a summer vacation, with, unfortunately, no provision for wages, a state of affairs forbidding even angels' visits, when the angel possessed so human a craving for bread.

Even Mrs. O'Malligan, whose chief patron, Mrs. Tony, together with her children and their dozens of dresses, had gone for a summer outing, had no more on her table than her own family could dispose of.

But the Angel,-"'Eaving bless her," as Mrs. Tomlin was wont to observe when the Angel, coming to see the baby, would stand with grave wonder, touching the pallid little cheek with a rosy finger to make the baby smile,-the Angel noted nothing of all this. Even the memory of "Mamma" was fading, and Mary, Norma, the Tenement, the friendly children swarming staircase and doorway, were fast becoming her small world.

With instinct born of her profession, the chorus-lady had long ago recognized the wonderful grace and buoyancy of the child's every movement, and to her surprise found that the baby had quite a knowledge of dancing.

"Who taught you how, my precious?" she would ask, when the child, as if from the very love of motion, would catch and spread her skirts, and, with pointed toe, trip about the room, "tell your Norma who taught the darling how to dance?"

The baby glancing over her shoulder, with the little frown of displeasure that always greeted such ignorance on Norma's part, had but one reply: "Tante," she would declare, and continue her measured walk about the floor. So, for pastime, Norma began teaching her the figures of a dance then on the boards at the Opera House, to which her little ladyship lent herself with readiness. The motions, sometimes approaching the grotesque in the lean and elderly chorus-lady as she bobbed about the limited space, courtesying, twirling, pirouetting, her blonde hair done up in kids,-herself in the abbreviated toilet of pink calico sack and petticoat reserved for home hours, changed to unconscious grace and innocent abandon in the light, clean-limbed child, who learned with quickness akin to instinct, and who seemed to follow Norma's movements almost before they were completed.

"It is wonderful-amazing!" Miss Bonkowski would exclaim, pausing for breath, "it is genius," and her voice would pause and fall reverently before the words, and the lesson would be resumed with greater enthusiasm than before.

But many were the days when, Norma away at rehearsal and Mary Carew, hot, tired, alas, even cross,-totally irresponsive to anything but the stitching of jean pantaloons,-the Angel would grow tired of the stuffy room and long for the forbidden dangers and delights of Tenement sidewalks. Then, often, with nothing else to do, she would catch up her tiny skirts and whirl herself into the dance Norma had taught her, in and out among the furniture crowding the room, humming little broken snatches of music for herself, bending, swaying, her bright eyes full of laughter as they met Mary's tired ones, her curls bobbing, until breathless, hot and weary she would drop on the floor and fall asleep, her head pillowed on her soft dimpled arm.

But on one of these long, hot mornings when the heat seemed to stream in as from a furnace at the window and even the flies buzzed languidly, the Angel was seized with another idea for passing time. Her vocabulary of Tenement vernacular was growing too, and she chattered unceasingly.

"C'rew, didn't a fink Angel might go find her mamma?" she demanded on this particular morning.

"To-morrow," said C'rew, and the click in her tired voice sounded even above the whirring of the heavy machine, for C'rew's head ached and her back ached, and possibly her heart ached too, for herself and Norma and the child and poor people in one-windowed tenement rooms in general.

"Didn't a fink she might go play with little Joey?"

"No," said Mary decidedly, and she leaned back wearily and pushed her thin, colorless hair off her hot, throbbing temples, "no, you played down on the pavement with Joey an' th' rest yesterday, an the sun made you sick. But," with haste to avert the cloud lowering over the baby face, "if you'll be real good an' not worry her, you can go down an' see Mrs. O'Malligan."

Fair weather prevailed again on the pretty face, and at Mary's word the Angel was at the open door, tugging at the chair placed crossways to keep her from venturing out unobserved, and with a sigh and a guilty look at the pile of unfinished work, Mary rose and carried her down to the good Irish lady's door, and, with a word, hurried back.

Mrs. O'Malligan, big, beaming and red, smiled a moist but hearty welcome from over her tubs toward the little figure in the faded gingham standing shyly in the open doorway. "An' it's proud to see ye I am, me Angel," she declared, "though there's never a childer in call to be playin' wid ye."

But the Angel, nothing daunted, smiled back in turn, and climbed into a chair, and the two forthwith fell into friendly conversation, though it is doubtful if either understood one-half of what the other was talking about.

Presently Mrs. O'Malligan, with many apologies, went out into the back court to hang out the last of the family wash, and on her return, stopping short in the doorway, her jolly red face spread into a responsive smile. "The saints presarve us," she cried, "would ye look at the child?" for in the tub of blue rinsing water sat the gleeful Angel, water trickling from her yellow hair and from every stitch of clothing, while her evident enjoyment of the cool situation found a response in Mrs. O'Malligan's kind and indulgent heart.

"Angel take a baf," was the smiling though superfluous explanation which came from the infant Undine.

"An' it's right ye are," laughed Mrs. O'Malligan, "an' sure I'll be afther givin' ye a rale wan meself," and filling an empty tub with clean water, the brisk lady soon had the baby stripped to her firm, white skin and standing in the tub.

And what with the splashings of the naughty feet, and the wicked tumbles into the soap-suds every time the mischievous little body was rinsed, and Mrs. O'Malligan's "Whist, be aisy," and "It's a tormentin' darlint ye are," they heard nothing of the knocks at the door or the calls, nor knew that Miss Bonkowski, in street dress and hat, had entered, until she stood beside them with an armful of clean clothes.

"Was there ever such luck," she cried excitedly, "to find her all washed and just ready! Mary said she was here, and so I just brought her clean clothes down with me to save a trip back upstairs. Wipe her quickly, please," and with hands and tongue going, Miss Norma explained that one of the children in the juvenile dance on the boards at The Garden Opera House had been suddenly taken ill, and a matinée advertised for the next day.

"And it happens lucky enough," she went on, addressing the ladies who, catching wind of the excitement, had speedily gathered about the doorway, "it just happens I have been teaching her this very dance, and if she don't get frightened, I believe she will be able to take the place."

So saying, Miss Bonkowski gave a pull out and a last finishing pat to the strings of the embroidered muslin bonnet the child had worn on her first appearance, and taking her, clean, dainty, smiling and expectant, into her arms, Miss Norma plunged out of the comparative coolness of the Tenement hallway into the glare of the August sun.

But all this while the little brain was at work. "Goin' to Angel's mamma,-her goin' to her mamma," suddenly the child broke forth as Norma hurried along the hot streets, and the little hand beat a gleeful tattoo as it rested on Norma's shoulder.

Norma paused on the crowded sidewalk, to take breath beneath the shade of a friendly awning. "Not to-day, my angel," she panted, "to-day your Norma is going to take her precious where there are ever so many nice little girls for her to dance with."

"Angel likes to dance with little girls, Norma," admitted the baby, while Norma made ready to thread her way across the street through the press of vehicles.

"I'll not say one word to her about being frightened," reflected the wise chorus lady, "and she's such an eager little darling, thinking of other things and trying to do her best, maybe she won't think of it. If she can only keep the place while that child is sick,-what a help the money would be!"-and the usually hopeful Norma sighed as she hurried in the side entrance of the handsome stone building known to the public as The Garden Opera House.

* * * * *

The next afternoon, at The Garden Opera House, as the bell rang for the curtain to rise, Mary Carew, in best attire of worn black dress and cheap straw hat, was putting the Angel into the absent fairy's cast-off shell, which consisted of much white tarlatan as to skirts and much silver tinsel as to waist, with a pair of wonderful gauzy wings at sight of which the Angel was enraptured.

Miss Bonkowski being, as she expressed it, "on in the first scene," Mary Carew had been obliged to forsake jean pantaloons for the time being and come to take charge of the child, who in her earnest, quick, enthusiastic little fashion had done her part and gone through the rehearsal better even than the sanguine Norma had hoped, and after considerable drilling had satisfied the authorities that she could fill the vacancy.

As for the Angel, in her friendly fashion she had enjoyed herself hugely, accepting the homage of the other children like a small queen, graciously permitting herself to be enthused over by the various ladies who, like Norma, constituted "the chorus," and carrying home numerous offerings, from an indigestible wad of candy known as "an all-day-sucker," given her by her fairy-partner, to a silver quarter given her by the blonde and handsome tenor.

"She is the most fascinating little creature I ever met in my life," the prima donna had cried to the excited Miss Bonkowski, who had never been addressed by that great personage before,-"did you ever see such heavenly eyes,-not blue-violet-and such a smile-like the sun through tears! Who is she,-where did she come from? Such grace,-such poise!"

The Angel's story was recited to quite an audience, in Miss Bonkowski's most dramatic manner. But long before the chorus lady had finished, the great singer, lending but a wandering attention after the few facts were gathered, had coaxed the child into her silken lap, and with the mother touch which lies in every real woman's fingers from doll-baby days upward, was fondling and re-touching the rings of shining hair, and, with the mother-notes which a child within one's arms brings into every womanly woman's voice, was cooing broken endearments into the little ear.

Meanwhile the Angel gazed into the beautiful face with the calm and critical eyes of childhood. But what she saw there must have satisfied, for, with a sigh of content, she finally settled back against the encircling arm. "Pretty lady," was her candid comment. "Angel loves her."

Flattered and praised as she had been, it is doubtful if the great singer had ever received a tribute to her charms that pleased her more. "Bring her to my room to-morrow to dress her," she said to Miss Bonkowski in soft, winning tones that were nevertheless a command, unpinning the two long-stemmed roses she wore and putting them in the baby fingers, "and bring her early, mind!" And so it was that Mary Carew, nervous and awkward, was there now, doing her best to dress the excited little creature, whom nothing could keep still a second at a time.

"Thank you, ma'am," Mary managed to breathe as the great personage, turning the full radiance of her beauty upon the bewildered seamstress, took the necklace of flashing jewels from her maid's fingers and bade her help Mary.

The great lady laughed. "You're nervous, aren't you?" she said good-humoredly, too human not to be pleased at this unconscious tribute on Mary's part.

"If the child can only do it right, ma'am," said Mary, in a voice she hardly knew for her own, overcome this by graciousness no less than by the splendor.

"Right," said the lady, clasping a bracelet upon her round, white arm, and settling her trailing draperies preparatory to going on, "right! Of course she will, who ever heard of an Angel going wrong!" and laughing she sailed away.

"Now," cried Miss Bonkowski, rushing in a little later, "give her to me, quick, Mary! If you stand right here in the wings you can see nicely," and the excited lady, wonderful as to her blonde befrizzlement, gorgeous as to pink skirt, blue bodice and not the most cleanly of white waists, bore the Angel, like a rosebud in a mist of gauze, away.

Left alone amid the bustle and confusion Mary stood where Norma had directed, gazing out upon the stage like one in a dream. Never in all her colorless life had she been in the midst of such bewildering splendors before. Was it any wonder that Norma Bonkowski was different from the rest of the Tenement when she shared such scenes daily?

Still further dazed by the music and the glimpses she could catch of the brilliantly lighted house, Mary held her breath and clasped her hands as she gazed out on the stage where, across the soft green, from among the forest trees, into the twilighted opening, glided the fairies; waving their little arms, tripping slowly as if half-poised for flight, listening, bending, swaying, whirling, faster, swifter, they broke into "The Grand Spectacular Ballet of the Fairies," as the advertisements of the opera phrased it. Faster, swifter still, noiselessly they spun, here, there, in, out, in bewildering maze until, as the red and yellow lights cast upon the stage changed into green, their footsteps slackened, faltered, their heads, like tired flowers, drooped, and each on its mossy bank of green,-the fairies sank to sleep.

All? All but one; one was left, in whose baby mind was fixed an unfaltering supposition that she must dance, as she had done alone, over and over again at the rehearsals for her tiny benefit, until the music stopped. So, while Norma Bonkowski wrung her hands and the stage manager swore, and all behind the scenes was confusion and dismay, the Angel danced on.

The prima donna whose place it now was, as the forsaken princess, lost in the forest, to happen upon the band of sleeping fairies, waited at her entrance, watching the child as, catching and spreading her fan-like skirts of gauze, she bent, swayed, flitted to and fro, her eyes big and earnest with intentness to duty, her yellow hair flying, all unconscious, in the fierce glare of the colored lights, of the sea of faces in the house before her.

With a sudden flash of intuition Norma Bonkowski flew to the manager. "Stop the music, make them stop," she begged.

He glared at her savagely, but nevertheless communicated the order to the orchestra, and as the music waned to a mere wailing of the violin, the little dancer, rosy, hot, tired, whirled slower, slower,-then sank on her bed of green, and like her companions feigned sleep with the cunning pretence of childhood.

But not even then could the prima donna make her appearance, for, in the storm of applause which followed, the revived efforts of the orchestra were drowned.

The face of the manager broadened into smiles, Norma Bonkowski fell against Mary Carew with tears of relief, and the prima donna with good-natured readiness stepped upon the stage, lifted the now frightened child who, at the noise, had sprung up in alarm, and carried her out to the footlights, the other children peeping, but too well drilled, poor dears, to otherwise stir. The audience paused.

"Wave bye-bye to the little girl over there," whispered the prima donna with womanly readiness, nodding toward the nearest box, filled with children eagerly enjoying "The Children's Opera of the Princess Blondina and the Fairies."

Though frightened and ready to cry, the Angel waved her hand obediently, and the prima donna, nodding and smiling in the unaffected fashion which was half her own charm, carried the child off the stage amid applause as enthusiastic as she herself was used to receiving.

It had all taken place in a very few minutes, but as the smiling singer said, handing the Angel over to the manager, even in those few moments, "She has made the hit of the season," then, turning, re-entered the stage, her voice, with its clear bell-like tones, filling the house with the song, "Blondina Awakening The Fairies."

Nor did it end with this, for the Angel was forthwith engaged, at what seemed to Norma and Mary a fabulous price, to repeat her solo dance at every Wednesday and Saturday matinée during the further run of the opera.