The Angel of the Tenement

CHAPTER II. THE ENTERTAINERS OF THE ANGEL.

It was one thing for the good ladies of the Tenement to settle the matter thus, but another entirely for the high-spirited, passionate little stranger,-bearing every mark of refined birth and good breeding in her finely-marked features, her straight, slim white body, her slender hands and feet, her dainty ways and fearless bearing,-to adapt herself to the situation. The first excitement over, her terror and fright returned, and the cry went up unceasingly in lisping English interspersed with words utterly unintelligible to the two distracted ladies, begging to be taken to that mother of whom Mary Carew entertained so poor an opinion.

It was in vain that good woman, with a tenderness and patience quite at variance with her harsh tones, rocked, petted, coaxed and tried to satisfy with vague promises of "to-morrow." In vain did Norma, no less earnestly now that the touch of romance had faded into grim responsibility, whistle and sing and snap her fingers, the terror was too real, the sense of loss too poignant, the baby heart refused to be comforted, and it was only when exhaustion came that the child would moan herself to sleep in Mary's arms.

So passed several days, the baby drooping and pining, but clinging to Mary through it all, with a persistency which, while it won her heart entirely, sadly interfered with the progress of jean pantaloons.

As for the more material Norma, whose time, free from the requirements of her profession, had hitherto been largely given to reshaping her old garments in imitations of the ever-changing fashions, finding that the baby clung to Mary, she bore no malice, but good-naturedly turned her skill toward making the poor accommodations of their room meet the needs of the occasion, and in addition appointed herself maid to her small ladyship. And an arduous task it ultimately proved, for, as the child gradually became reconciled and began to play about, a dozen times a day a little pair of hands were stretched toward Norma and a sweet, tearful voice proclaimed in accents of anguished grief, "Angel's hands so-o-o dirty!"-which indeed they were each time, her surroundings being of that nature which rubbed off at every touch.

Indeed so pronounced was the new inmate's dislike to dirt, that Mary, sensitive to criticism, took to rising betimes these hot mornings and making the stuffy room sweet with cleanliness. Not so easy a task as one might imagine either, in an apartment which combined kitchen, laundry, bedroom, dining-room and the other conveniences common to housekeeping in a 12 × 15 space, as evidenced by the presence of a stove, a table with a tub concealed beneath, a machine, a bed, a washstand, two chairs, and a gayly decorated bureau, Norma's especial property, set forth with bottles of perfumery, a satin pin-cushion and a bunch of artificial flowers in a vase. And in putting the room thus to rights, when it is considered that every drop of water used upon floor, table or window, had to be carried up four flights of stairs, the sincerity of Mary's conversion to the angelic way of regarding things cannot be doubted.

Nor, if Mary's word can be taken, were these efforts wasted upon her little ladyship, who, awakened by the bustle on the very first occasion of Mary's crusade against the general disorder, sat up in the crib donated by Mrs. O'Malligan,-the last of the O'Malligans being now in trousers,-and hung over the side with every mark of approving interest. And happy with something to love and an object to work for, Mary continued to scrub on with a heart strangely light. "And I couldn't slight the corners if I wanted to," she told her neighbors, "with them great solemn eyes a-watchin' an' a-follerin' me."

It was on a morning following one of these general upheavals and straightenings that the three sat down to breakfast, the two ladies feeling unwontedly virtuous and elegant by reason of their clean surroundings. The Angel seeming brighter and more willing to leave Mary's side, Norma put her into one of their two chairs, and herself sat on the bed. But no sooner had the baby grabbed her cracked mug than her smooth forehead began to pucker, and, setting it down again, she regarded Norma earnestly. "Didn't a ought to say something?" she demanded, and her eyes grew dark with puzzled questioning.

"And what should you say, darling?" returned Norma, leaning over to crumble some bread into the milk which a little judicious pinching in other directions made possible for the child.

The baby studied her bread and milk intently. "Jesus"-she lisped, then hesitated, and her worried eyes sought Norma's again,-"Jésus"-then with a sudden joyful burst of inspiration, "Amen," she cried and seized her mug triumphantly.

"It's a blessing she is asking," said Norma with tears in her eyes, "I know, for I've seen it done on the stage, though what with the food being pasteboard cakes and colored plaster fruit, I never took much stock in it before," and she laughed somewhat unsteadily.

"Bread and butter, come to supper," sang the baby with sudden glee, "that what Tante says.-Where Angel's Tante?" and with the recollection her face changed, and the pretty pointed chin began to quiver. A moment of indecision, and she slipped down from her chair. "Kiss Angel bye," she commanded, tugging at Mary's skirts, "her goin' to Tante," the little face fierce with determination, every curl bobbing with the emphatic nods of the little head, "kiss her bye, C'rew," and the wild sobs began again.

So passed a week, but, for all the added care and responsibility, the longer this wayward, imperious little creature, with the hundred moods for every hour, was hers, the less was Mary Carew disposed to consider the possibility of any one coming to claim her. Not so with the blonde-tressed chorus lady, who combined more of worldly wisdom with her no less kindly heart. Patiently she tried to win the child's further confidence, to stimulate the baby memory, to unravel the lisped statements. But it was in vain. Smiles indeed, she won at length, through tears, and little sad returns to her playful sallies, but the little one's words were too few, her ideas too confused, for Norma to learn anything definite from her lispings.

But Norma was not satisfied. "My heart misgives me," she murmured in the tragic accents she so loved to assume,-one evening as she pinned on her cheap and showy lace hat and adjusted its wealth of flowers, preparatory to starting to the Garden Opera House, "my heart misgives me. It seems to me it is our duty, Mary, to do something about this,-to report it-somehow,-somewhere"-she ended vaguely. "Hadn't I better speak to a policeman after all?"

Mary Carew drew the child,-drowsing in her arms,-to her quickly. "No," she said, and her thin, bony face looked almost fierce, "no, for if you did and they couldn't find her people, which you know as well as I do they couldn't, do you s'pose they'd give her back to us? They'd put her in a refuge or 'sylum, that's what they'd do, where, while maybe she'd have more to eat, she'd be enough worse off, a-starvin' for a motherin' word!"

Miss Bonkowski, abashed at Mary's fierce attack, made an attempt to speak, but Mary, vehemently interrupting, hurried on: "I know whereas I speak, Norma Bonkowski, I know, I know. I've gone through it all myself. I ain't never told you," and the knobby face burned a dull red, "I was county poor, where I come from in the state, an' sent to th' poor-house at four years old, myself, and I know, Norma, the miseries whereas I speak of. And the Lord helpin' me," with grim solemnity, "an' since He sent you here huntin' a room, an' since He helped me get the machine, hard to run as it is, somehow I'm believin' more He's the Lord of us poor folks too,-an' Him a-helpin' me to turn out one more pair of pants a day, I'll never be the means of puttin' no child in a refuge no-how an' no time. An' there it is, how I feel about it!"

Miss Bonkowski turned from a partial view of herself such as the abbreviated glass to her bureau afforded. "Well," she said amiably, "coming as I did from across the ocean as a child," and she nodded her head in the supposed direction of the Atlantic, "and, until late years, always enjoying a good home, what with father getting steady work as a scene-painter, as I've told you often, and me going on in the chorus off and on, and having my own bit of money, I don't really know about the asylums in this country. But I have heard say they are so fine, people ain't against deserting their children just to get 'em in such places knowin' they'll be educated better'n they can do themselves."

Mary's pale eyes blazed. "Do you mean, Norma Bonkowski," she demanded angrily, "that you'd rather she should go?"

Miss Bonkowski shrugged her shoulders somewhat haughtily. "How you do talk, Mary! You know I don't,-but neither do I believe she is any deserted child, and it's worrying me constant, what we ought to do. Poor as I am, and what with father dying and the manager cutting my salary as I get older,-I'll admit it to you, Mary, though I wouldn't have him know I'm having another birthday to-day-" with a laugh and a shrug, "why, as I say, I am pretty poor, but every cent I've got is yours and the child's, and you know it, Mary Carew," and the good-hearted chorus-lady, with a reproachful backward glance at her room-mate, flounced out the door, leaving the re-assured Mary to sew, by the light of an ill-smelling lamp, until her return from the theatre near midnight.