Apron-Strings | Page 6

boys, their faces streaked with tears, their hands vainly trying to grapple. And between the two, holding to each by a handful of cassock, and by turns scolding and beseeching the quarreling pair, came Sue Milo.
Strangers saw Sue Milo as an attractive, middle-aged woman, tall, and full-figured, whose face was expressive and inclined toward a high color, whose shining brown hair was well grayed at the temples, and whose eyes, blue-gray, and dark-lashed, were wide and kindly.
Strangers marked her for a capable, dependable woman, too; and found suited to her the adjective "motherly." This for the same reason which moved new acquaintances instinctively to address her as "Mrs." For Sue Milo, at forty-five, bore none of the marks of the so-called typical spinster.
But a curious change of attitude toward her was the experience of that man or woman who came to know her even casually. Though at a first meeting she seemed to be all of her age, with better acquaintance she appeared to grow rapidly younger. So that it was not strange to hear her referred to as "the Milo girl," and not infrequently she was included at gatherings of people who were still in their twenties. In just what her youthfulness lay it was hard to define. At times an expression of the eye, a trick of straight-looking, or perhaps the lifting and turning of the chin, or a quick bringing together of the hands,--all these were girlish. There was that about her which made her seem as simple and unaffected as a child.
Yet capable and dependable she was--as any crisis at Rectory or Orphanage had proven repeatedly. And when quick decisions were demanded, all turned as if with one accord to Sue. And she was as quick to execute. Or if that was beyond her power, she roused others to action. It was a rector of St. Giles who once applied to her a description that was singularly fitting: "She is," he said, "like a ship under full sail."
Just now she was a ship in a storm.
"Aw, you did said it!" cried the wailing Ikey, pointing at his adversary a forefinger wrapped in a handkerchief. "You did! You did! I heard you said it!"
"I never! I never!" denied his opponent. "It ain't so! Boo-hoo!"
Sue gave them an impartial shake. "That will do!" she declared, trying hard to speak with force, while her eyes twinkled. "--Ikey, do you hear me?--Put down that fist, Clarence!--Now, be still and listen to me!" With another shake, she quieted them; whereupon, holding each at arm's length, she surveyed them by turns. "Oh, my soul, such little heathen!" she pronounced. "Now what do you think I am? A fight umpire? Do you want to damage each other for life?"
Clarence was all sniffles, and rubbed at the injured arm. But Ikey had no mind to be blamed undeservedly. He squared about upon Sue with flashing eye. "But, Momsey, he did said it!" he repeated.
Sue tightened her grip on his cassock. "And, oh, my soul, such grammar!" she mourned. "'He did said it!' You mean, He do said--he do say--he done--oh, now you've got me twisted!"
"Just de same, he called it to me," asserted Ikey.
"I never, I tell you! I never!"
"Ah! Ah!" Once more Sue struggled to hold them apart. "And what, Mr. Ikey, did he call you?"
"He calls me," cried the insulted Ikey, "--he calls me a pie-faces!--Ach!"
"And what did you call him?"
"I didn't call him not'ing!" answered Ikey, beginning to wail again at the very thought of his failure to do himself justice; "not--von--t'ing!"
"But"--with a wisdom born of long choir experience--"you must have said something."
"All I says," chanted Ikey, "--all I says is, 'You can't sing. What you do is----'" And lowering and raising his head, he emitted a long, lifelike bray.
"Yah!" burst forth the enraged Clarence, struggling to clutch his hated fellow.
"Wa-a-a-ah!" wept Ikey, who had struck out and hurt his already injured digit. "You donkey!--donkey!"
Breathing hard, Sue managed to keep them apart; to bring them back to their proper distance. "Look at them!" she said with fine sarcasm. "Oh, look at Ikey Einstein!--Where's your handkerchief?"
Weeping, he indicated it by a duck of the chin.
At such a point of general melting, it was safe to release combatants. Sue freed the two, and took from Ikey's pocket a square of cotton once white, but now characteristically gray, and strangely heavy. "Here, put up that poor face," she comforted. But at this unpropitious moment, the handkerchief, clear of the pocket, sagged with its holdings and deposited upon the carpet several yellowish, black-spotted cubes. "Dice!" exclaimed Sue, horrified. "Dice!--Ikey Einstein, what do you call yourself!"
Pride stopped Ikey's tears. He thrust out his underlip and waved a hand at the scattered cubes. "Momsey," he answered stoutly, "don't you know? Why, ever since day before yesterdays, I