A Flock of Girls and Boys - Nora Perry
But they took very good care that the whisper did not reach Becky. She
was "great fun," but they had found out how fiercely she could turn from
her fun.
CHAPTER III.
The first day of May turned out to be a most beautiful day, bright and
sunny; and when Lizzie hung her pretty basket filled with Plymouth
Mayflowers on the door-knob of a great friend of hers, she laughed, and
wondered if Becky had hung hers for that "fightin' gen'leman, Tim." She
would ask Becky the minute she got to the store. But the minute she got
to the store she had a customer to wait upon, and had no time to bestow
on Becky until she needed her service. Then she called "Number Five;"
but, instead of "Number Five," Lotty Riker responded.
"Where's Becky?" asked Lizzie.
"I dunno. She hain't come in; mebbe she's hangin' that May-basket for
the prize-fighter," giggled Lotty.
Business was very brisk that day, and Lizzie had no leisure for anything
else. But at noon, when she was going out to her lunch, it occurred to
her that Becky had not yet appeared. Where _could_ she be? She had
always been punctual to a minute.
The afternoon was busier than the morning, and once more Becky was
forgotten. It was not until the closing hour--five o'clock--that Lizzie
thought of her again, and then she burst out to Matty and Josie Kelly,
as they were leaving the store together,--
"Where _do_ you suppose Becky Hawkins is? She hasn't been here to-day,
and she's _always_ here, and so punctual."
"Mebbe she's taken it into her head to leave," answered Matty. "'T would
be just like her; she's that independent."
"Catch her leaving when she'd have anything to lose. She'd lose a week's
pay to leave without warning, and she knows it. She's too sharp to do
that," put in Josie, laughing,
"I hope she ain't sick," said Lizzie.
"Sick! _her_ kind don't get sick easy. Those Cove streeters are tough.
Lizzie, how much did she get out of you for showing you how to make that
basket?"
"Why, what I agreed to give,--enough to make a basket for herself; and
last night, when she was going home, I gave her some of my
Mayflowers,--I had plenty."
"Well, I'm sure you are real generous."
"No, I'm not; it was a bargain."
"Yes, _Becky's_ bargain, and she'd like to have made a bargain with the
rest of us. The idea of taking you off into that fitting-room, so't the
rest of us wouldn't profit by her showing you, and then her talking
about private lessons!"
"Oh, that was only her fun."
"Fun! and when one of the girls said, 'And private lessons must be paid
for, mustn't they, Becky?' and she answered, 'Yes, every time,' do you
think that was only fun?"
"Yes; and if it wasn't, I don't care. She's a right to make a little
something if she can. They're awful poor folks down there on Cove
Street."
"Make a little something! Yes, but I guess you wouldn't catch any of the
other girls here making a little something like that out of the friends
she was working alongside of."
"Friends!" exclaimed Lizzie.
"And say, Lizzie," went on Josie, paying no attention to Lizzie's
exclamation, "I'll bet you anything she _sold_ her basket, and very
likely to that prize-fighter,--that Tim."
"I don't care if she did. But don't let's talk any more about her. I
hate to talk about folks, and it doesn't do any good to think bad things
of 'em. But, hark, what's that the newsboys are crying? 'Awful disaster
down--' Where? Stop a minute, I'm going to buy a paper."
"Yes, here it is, awful disaster down in one of the Cove Street
tenement-houses," read Lizzie; and then, bringing up suddenly, she
cried, "Why, girls, girls, that's where Becky lives,--in one of those
tenements."
"Go on, go on!" urged Matty; and Lizzie went on, and read: "'At six
o'clock this morning one of the most disastrous fires that we have had
for years broke out in the rear of the Cove Street tenement-houses, and,
owing to the high wind and the dryness of the season, it had gained such
headway by the time the engines arrived, that it looked as if not only
the whole block but the adjoining buildings were doomed; but after hours
of untiring effort on the part of the firemen, it was finally brought
under control. Several of the tenements were completely gutted, and the
wildest excitement prevailed as the panic-stricken tenants, with cries
and shrieks of terror, jumped from the windows, or in other ways sought
to save themselves. It is not yet ascertained how many lost their lives
in these attempts, but it is feared that the number is by no means
small.'"
"I'm going down there! I'm going down there!" Lizzie cried out here,
breaking off her reading, and starting forward at a rapid pace.
"But, Lizzie--"
"You needn't try to stop me, I'm _going_. Becky's down there somewhere,
and mebbe she's alive and hurt and needs something, and I'm going to
see. _You_ needn't come if you're afraid, but _I'm_ going!"
The two girls offered no further remonstrance, but silently turned; and
the three went on together toward the burned district.
"What yer doin' here?" asked a policeman gruffly, as they entered Cove
Street. "Go back! 't ain't no place for anybody that hain't got business
here."
"I'm looking for little Becky Hawkins,--one of the girls in our store,"
answered Lizzie.
"Becky Hawkins?"
"Yes; do you know her?"
"Should think I did. This is my beat,--known her all her life pretty
much."
"Did she get out,--is she alive?" asked Lizzie, breathlessly.
"Yes, she's alive; she's down there in that corner house with her friend
Tim."
The policeman's lips moved with a faint odd smile as he said this,--a
smile that Matty and Josie interpreted to mean that Becky was just what
the Riker girls had said she was,--a little Cove Street hoodlum,--while
Tim, the prize-fighter, was probably one of the friends of her family
that the policeman had probably now under arrest down in that "corner
house." Thrilling with this interpretation, Josie pulled at Lizzie's
sleeve, and made a frantic appeal to her to come away as the policeman
had advised, adding,--
"We are decent girls, and--it's a disgrace to have anything to do with
such a lot as Becky and her family and--"
"What yer talkin' 'bout?" suddenly interrupted the policeman,--"what yer
talkin' 'bout? Becky Hawkins a disgrace to yer! Come down here 'n' see
what the Cove Street folks think of Becky Hawkins!" and he wheeled
around as suddenly as he had spoken, and beckoned the girls to follow
him.
They followed him down to the corner house, which stood blackened with
smoke and water, but otherwise uninjured, for it was just here that the
flames had been arrested, and in the hall-way the few poor remnants of
the household goods that had been saved from the other tenements were
huddled together. Pushing past these, the policeman stopped at an open
door whence issued a sound of voices. Lizzie started forward as a
familiar tone struck her ear, and smiling she exclaimed, "That's Becky!"
But the policeman pulled her back. "Wait a minute!" he said.
"Who's that speakin' to me?" called out the familiar voice. "Is it
Lizzie Macdonald from the store?"
"Yes, yes!" and, the policeman no longer holding her back, Lizzie
stepped over the threshold. There were two or three others in the room;
but over and beyond them Lizzie caught sight of Becky's big black eyes,
and hurrying forward cried: "Oh, Becky, I've only just got out of the
store, and just read about the fire, and I thought mebbe you were hurt,
and I came as fast as I could to see if I couldn't do something for you;
but I'm so glad you are all right--But," coming nearer and finding that
Becky was not standing, as she supposed, but propped up on a table,
"you're _not_ all right, are you?"
"No, I--I guess--I'm all wrong," responded Becky, with a queer little
smile, and an odd quaver to her voice.
"Oh, Becky, Becky, they ought to have taken better care of you,--a
little thing like you!"
"'Twas _she_ was takin' care of other folks," spoke up one of the women
in the room.
"Yes, 'twas a-savin' my Tim that did it," broke forth another. "She'd
got down the stairs all safe, and then she thought o' Tim and ran back
for him. She know'd I wasn't to home, and he was all alone; and she
saved him for me,--she saved him for me! She helped him out onto the
roof; 'twas too late for the stairs then, and a fireman got him down the
'scape; but Becky--Becky was behind, and the fire follered so fast, she
made a jump--and fell--oh, Becky! Becky!"
"Hush now!" said the other woman. "Don't keep a-goin' over it; yer worry
her, and it's no use."
"Went back for Tim, saved Tim the prize-fighter!" thought Lizzie, in
dumb amazement.
"The kid'll be all right soon," broke in another voice here.
Lizzie looked up, and saw a rough fellow, who had just come in, gazing
down at Becky with an expression that strangely softened his hard face.
Becky lifted her eyes at the sound of the voice.
"Hello, Jake," she said faintly.
"Hello, Becky, yer'll be all right soon, won't yer?"
"I'm all right now," said Becky, sleepily, "and Tim's all right. He
didn't get burnt, but the basket and all the pretty flowers did. If I
could make another--"
"_I'll_ make another for you," said Lizzie, pressing forward.
"And hang it for Tim?" asked Becky.
"Yes," answered Lizzie. Something in Lizzie's expression, in her tone,
roused Becky's wandering memory, and with a sudden flash of her old
mischief she said,--
"He's a fren' o' mine. Show up, Tim, and lemme interduce yer."
There was a movement on the other side of the table where Becky lay; and
then Lizzie saw, struggling up from a chair, a tiny crippled body,
wasted and shrunken,--the body of a child of seven with a shapely head
and the face of an intelligent boy of fifteen.
"That's him,--that's Tim,--the fightin' gen'leman I tole yer 'bout,"
said Becky, with a gay little smile at the remembrance of her joke and
how she "played it on 'em," and at the look of astonishment now on
Lizzie's face. And still with the gay little smile, but fainter voice,--
"Yer'll tell 'em, Lizzie,--the girls in the store,--how I played it on
'em; and when I git back--I'll--"
"Give her some air; she's faint," cried one of the women.
The tall young rough, Jake, sprang to the window and pulled it open,
letting in a fresh wind that blew straight up from the grassy banks
beyond the Cove.
"Do yer feel better, Becky?" he asked, as he saw her face brighten.
"I--I feel fus' rate--all well, Jake, and--I--I smell the Mayflowers.
They warn't burnt, were they? And oh, ain't they jolly, ain't they
jolly! Tim, Tim!"
"Yes, yes, Becky," answered Tim, in a shaking voice.
"Wait for me here Tim,--I--I'm goin' to find 'em for yer, Tim,--ther,
ther Mayflowers. They're close by; don't yer smell 'em? Close by--I'm
goin'--to find 'em for yer, Tim!" And with a radiant smile of
anticipation Becky's soul went out upon its happy quest, leaving behind
her the grime and poverty of Cove Street forever.
The two women--and one of them was Becky's aunt with whom the girl had
always lived--broke into sobs and tears; but as the latter looked at the
radiant face, she said suddenly,--
"She's well out of it all."
"But there's them that'll be worse for her goin'," said the other; "and
't ain't only Tim I mean, it's the like o' _him_," nodding towards Jake,
who was slipping quietly out of the room,--"it's the like o' him. They
looked up to her, they did,--bit of a thing as she was. She was that
straight and plucky and gin'rous she did 'em good; she made 'em better.
Jake's often said she was the Cove Street mascot."
And with these words sounding in her ears, Lizzie crept softly from the
room. Just over the threshold, in the shadow of the broken bits of
furniture that had been saved from the fire, she started to see Matty
and Josie still waiting for her.
"What!" she cried, "have you been here all the time--have you seen--have
you heard--"
They nodded; and Matty whispered brokenly,--
"Oh, Lizzie, I ain't never again goin' to think bad things of anybody I
don't know."
"Nor I, nor I," said Josie, huskily.
ALLY.
CHAPTER I.
"What have you done with those new overshoes, Ally?"
"Put 'em away."
"Well, you can just go and get 'em, then. Come, hurry up, for I want to
wear 'em down town."
But Ally didn't move.
"Ally, do you hear?" cried her cousin Florence.
"Yes, I hear, but I ain't a-going to mind you. The rubbers are mine, and
you've worn 'em about enough already; you're stretching 'em all out, for
your foot is bigger than mine."
"No such thing. I'm not hurting them in the least."
"Yes, you are; and you are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want
'em to look new when I wear 'em in Boston."
"Well, I never heard of such selfish, stingy meanness as this. It's
raining hard, and you'd let me go out and get my feet sopping wet rather
than lend me your new rubbers."
"Why don't you wear your own old ones?"
"Because they leak."
"They've leaked ever since I got this new pair!" retorted Ally,
scornfully. "But it isn't these rubbers only; you're always borrowing my
things. There's my blue jacket; you've worn it till the edge is
threadbare, and you've worn my brown hat until it looks as
shabby--and--there! you've got my silver bangle on now! You're no
better than a thief, Florence Fleming!"
"A thief! that's a nice pretty thing to say to _me_! I should like to
know who buys your things for you? Isn't it _my father_ and Uncle John?
I should like to know where you'd be, Alice Fleming, if it wasn't for
Uncle John and father. Here, take your old bangle and keep it, and
everything else that you've got. I never want to see anything of yours
again; and I'm glad you're going off to Boston to Uncle John's for the
rest of the winter, and I wish you'd stay there and never come back
here,--I do!"
"I wish so too. Nobody in Uncle John's family would ever be so mean as
to fling it in my face that I was a poor little beggar of an orphan."
"Uncle John's family! Uncle John's wife said the last time she was here
that she dreaded the winter on your account,--there!"
"Aunt Kate--said that?"
"Yes, she did; I heard her."
A strange look came into Ally's eyes, and all the pretty color faded
from her cheeks, as she cried out in a hoarse, passionate voice,--
"You're a cruel, bad girl, Florence Fleming, and I hope some day you'll
have something cruel and bad come to you to punish you!" and with these
words the excited child flung herself across her little bed, and burst
into a paroxysm of stormy sobs and tears.
"Here, here, what's the matter now?" called out Mrs. Fleming, Florence's
mother, coming across the hall and pushing the bedroom door open.
"Ask Ally," answered Florence, coolly,--so coolly, so calmly, that it
was quite natural to suppose that she was much less to blame in the
present disturbance than her cousin; and as poor Ally was past speaking,
Florence had a double advantage, and Mrs. Fleming, glancing from one
girl to the other, thought she understood the situation perfectly, and
in consequence said rather sharply,--
"I do wish, Ally, you would try to control your temper a little more!"
and with these words the lady turned and left the room, her daughter
Florence following her. As they crossed the hall, Ally unfortunately
overheard her aunt say to Florence, "I am thankful that you two are to
be separated to-morrow for the rest of the winter. I hope by spring some
other arrangement can be made to keep you apart. We shall never have any
peace while--"
The rest of the sentence was lost to Ally. But she was quite sure it
was--"while Ally is with us;" and a fresh gust of stormy sobs and tears
shook the child's frame, as she thus concluded the sentence. A fresh
gust also of stormy resentment and self-pity shook the girl. "Oh, yes,
it's always Ally, always Ally, that's to blame," she said to herself. "It
would be very different if I wasn't a poor little beggar of an orphan;
yes, indeed, very different. If I was a _rich_ orphan, if papa and mamma
had left a lot of money to be taken care of with me, I guess things
would be different,--I guess they would. I guess Florence Fleming and
her mother wouldn't lay everything that goes wrong to _me_ then, and I
guess Aunt Kate wouldn't say that she dreaded the winter on account of
me,--no, I guess she wouldn't! Oh, oh!" with a fresh sob, "I wish some
other arrangement _could_ be made away from 'em all. They don't any of
'em want me, not any of 'em, and I'd rather go to an orphan asylum. I'd
rather--I'd rather--oh, I'd rather go to _jail_ than to _them_!" and
down into the pillow again went the fuzzy yellow head of this little
hot-tempered Ally Fleming, who called herself so pityingly "a poor
little beggar of an orphan."
The facts of the case were these: Ally's father and mother had both died
when she was seven years old, leaving her to the care of her two nearest
relatives,--her father's two brothers,--Mr. Tom and Mr. John Fleming. As
her father had little or nothing to leave her, he had requested that the
burden of her maintenance should be equally divided between the uncles,
the child to live alternately with each family, six months with one and
six with the other. She had been old enough when she was thus
transplanted from her own home to realize more or less the peculiar
condition of things; and as she was quick-tempered and sensitive, she
very soon began to take note of any comment or remark regarding herself
that was dropped in her hearing, and very often misunderstood or made
too much of it. But there was no denying, whichever way you looked at
it, that it was rather a difficult situation for both sides, and that
the Fleming aunts and uncles and cousins had something to put up with,
as well as Ally. But that Ally was the most to be pitied there was also
no denying, for she could remember with unfading vividness being the
centre of love, the one special darling in _one_ home, and now she
hadn't even one home, and was nobody's darling. As she lay there on the
bed shaken by her sobs, she pictured to herself, as she had pictured
many, many times in these three years, the happy home that she had lost.
For three years this once petted child had been learning what it was to
be one of many, or, as she herself put it, one _too_ many.
CHAPTER II.
The next day at noon Ally was on her way to Boston, where she was to
live for the next six months in her uncle John's family. Both her uncle
Tom and his wife, Aunt Ann, had gone to the station to see her off, and
both of them had kissed her good-by, and given her various messages to
deliver to the Boston relations. Everything was going on as pleasantly
as possible until Aunt Ann at the very last stooped down and said,--
"Now, try, Ally, try while you are with your aunt Kate to control your
temper. You mustn't fly up at every little thing, and expect to have
your own way with everybody. It is very difficult to live with people
who act like that, and nobody can love them. Remember that, Ally;" and
with these words, Mrs. Fleming bent still lower to touch Ally's lips
with a final farewell kiss. But Ally at this movement turned suddenly,
and the kiss that was meant for her lips fell upon her cheek.
"Such an uncomfortable disposition as that child has, I never met
before, never!" ejaculated Mrs. Fleming, as she joined her husband
outside the car.
"What's she done now?" asked Uncle Tom.
His wife described the girl's swift evasive movement away from her.
Uncle Tom laughed, and then sighed. "Poor little soul," he said; "she's
going to have a hard time of it in life, I'm afraid."
"She's going to make those who live with her have a hard time," answered
Aunt Ann, resentfully thinking of her rejected kiss.
"'Mustn't fly up at every little thing!'" repeated Ally to herself, as
she was left alone in her seat. "She'd better give Florence some of her
good advice. She'd better tell her not to aggravate folks 'most to
death, and then stand off so cool, and make everybody else seem in the
wrong. Hard to live with! Mebbe I _am_ hard to live with; but I don't
play double like that; and as for nobody's loving me, these relations of
mine never loved me--any of 'em--from the first."
As Ally came to this conclusion in her thought, she happened to look out
of the car window, and there, why, there was her aunt Ann and uncle Tom
outside on the platform, standing at another car window farther down,
talking and laughing in the liveliest manner with some friends they had
met. Uncle Tom didn't seem in the least haste now, and ever so many
minutes ago he had said to her, "Well, good-by, Ally!" and rushed off as
if there wasn't another minute to spare,--not another minute; and here
was a gentleman in front of her, saying to a friend of his at that very
instant, "There's plenty of time; it's ten minutes before the cars
start;" and then she heard a lady say to another lady, "There's no need
of my leaving you yet; we've got oceans of time;" and all about her,
Ally now noticed various groups of friends and relations lingering
lovingly together until the last moment; and noting all this, a bitter
little look came into Miss Ally's face, and a bitter little thought came
into her heart,--a thought that said tauntingly, "There, this shows you,
Ally Fleming, what kind of relations you've got; this shows you how much
they care for you!"
And by and by, as the cars started up and sped along, this bitter little
thought also sped along, carrying in its wake all the bitter little
thoughts of yesterday and to-day. Ally was quite accustomed to
travelling by herself on this trip to and from New York. It was a
perfectly simple thing to sit in the car-seat where she had been placed
by one uncle, until at the end of the trip she was met by the other
uncle, and taken charge of,--a perfectly simple, easy matter, and Ally
had heretofore quite enjoyed it; but now, looking about her, and seeing
the groups of other people's relations going home to Thanksgiving, she
began to think it was a very lonesome thing to be travelling all alone
by herself; and just as this occurred to her, what should happen but
that one of these groups should turn inquisitively to her and ask, "Are
you travelling all by yourself, little girl?" and when Ally had
answered, "Yes," this inquisitive person commented upon her being such a
little girl to travel all by herself; and then, when Ally told her
rather proudly that she was ten years old, the inquisitive person had
said, "Well, I don't know what _my_ little ten-year-old girl would think
to be sent off to travel all alone. I shall tell her when I get home
what a brave little girl I met."
Ally thought all this was said out of pity and wonder, and that the lady
thought her very much neglected and forlorn. But instead of that, the
lady meant only to praise and compliment her; and thus, in this way and
that way, the bitter little thoughts kept growing and growing, as the
cars sped on, until long before the end of her journey came, poor Ally
felt that there never was a much more friendless girl than she was; and
when the cars steamed into the Boston station, she said to herself, "I
wonder if Uncle John is dreading the winter on my account, as Aunt Kate
is?" and with this thought she stepped out on the platform. But where
_was_ Uncle John? She expected to see him at once, coming forward to
lift her from the steps. Where _was_ he now? and Ally looked at the
faces before her with wondering scrutiny. She jumped down--for people
were pressing behind her--and moved on, scanning the face of every
gentleman she saw with anxious eyes. No one of them, however, was that
of Uncle John. What _was_ the matter? Didn't he know the train she was
to take? Of course he did, for Uncle Tom had told her that he had
telegraphed that he would meet her at the Boston station at five
o'clock. Of course he knew, so he must have forgotten her. Yes, that was
it,--he had forgotten all about her! Ally was not a specially timid
child; but as she stood in the big station-building, and realized that
there was not a soul she knew there to look out for her, a feeling of
dismay overtook her. If it were in the morning or at noonday, it
wouldn't have seemed so dreadful; but though the electric lights flashed
everything into brilliance, it was a November day, and half-past five
o'clock was after nightfall. What _should_ she do? There was no sign of
Uncle John, and the passengers who had arrived with her were fast
disappearing. Very soon the people in the station would begin to notice
her, to ask questions, and then perhaps some police-officer would take
her to the police-station, as a lost child. She'd heard that that was
what they always did. It was just as this thought came into her head
that she caught sight of one of those very big burly blue-coated
individuals. He had his hand on the collar of a boy about her own age,
and she heard him say to him in a big burly voice,--
"What yer hangin' 'round here for? Lost, eh? That's a likely story.
Come, off with yer, if yer don't want ter be locked up!"
Poor little Ally didn't stop to reason,--to think of the difference in
the outward appearance of herself and the boy,--to see that the
policeman knew the boy perfectly well for a mischievous young scamp who
was up to no good. She didn't stop to consider anything; but with those
words, "If yer don't want ter be locked up," ringing in her ears, she
turned and ran from the station-building as fast as her legs could carry
her. As she came out upon the sidewalk, she saw the colored lights of a
street car. Oh, joy, it was the very up-town car that would take her
close to Beacon Street! But oh, horror! She suddenly recollected that
Uncle John no longer lived on Beacon Street. He had moved last month
into a new house on Marlborough Street, and oh, what _was_ the number?
She "had heard Uncle Tom read it from a letter. It had a lot of 9's in
it. Nine hundred and--why--99--999, three 9's; yes, yes, that was it;"
and with this conviction, Ally gave a hop skip and a jump into the car,
just as it was about to start off, for this very car she knew would take
her nearer to Marlborough Street than to Beacon Street. Her spirits rose
as she felt herself carried along; and in due time she found the three
9's, and tripped up the steps of the house in Marlborough Street bearing
that number. Her heart beat very fast with a sense of relief and injury,
mixed with a certain elation at her own enterprise, as she rang the
bell. Wouldn't they be surprised, and wouldn't Uncle John--But some one
opening the door scattered her questioning thoughts; and--why, who was
this somebody? It must be a new servant with the new house, and a
manservant too. Uncle John must be getting better off,--they had had
only two maids before. It never entered Ally's head to ask the strange
servant if Mr. Fleming lived there. Why should she ask what she was so
sure of? She simply asked, "Where's Uncle John and Aunt Kate and the
rest of them?"