Ester Ried Yet Speaking | Page 9

day; besides, I know something that's better fun. You fellows come along with me, and let him go."
As this was said in a sort of undertone as Dirk strode on ahead; and when, at another corner, he dashed down it, leaving them all, there was no call after him. He was free to go where he would, and for reasons that he himself could not have explained he chose that it should be home,--that is, the place which he called home. It might not meet your ideas of what a spot so named should be. The road to it led through one of the meanest portions of the city. Each foot of the way the houses seemed to grow more squalid looking, and the streets filthier. The particular alley down which he dived at last was narrower and blacker than any yet passed, and the cellar door which he pushed open let him into the meanest-looking house in the row,--a long, low, dark room. In one corner there was the remnant of a stove, braced up by bricks and stones, but no fire was burning therein, though the day was cold. Furniture there was none, unless the usual rickety table and two broken chairs could be called by that name. A door was ajar that led into an inner cellar, and a glimpse of piles of offensive looking rags, that were called "bed-clothes" by the family, might have given you an idea of what their home life was, as hardly any other phase of it can. The rags were not all in the further cellar, however; a gay patch-work quilt, or at least one that had once been gay, but from which bits of black cotton now oozed in every direction, seemed to have curled itself in a heap against the one window. However, it moved soon after Dirk opened the door, and showed itself to be more than a quilt. Inside was a young girl, the quilt wrapped around her closely, drawn up about her face and head, as if she would hide all but her eyes within, and try to get rid of shivering.
"You home?" she said, her tones expressing surprise, but at the same time indifference. "What is it for?"
"Because I wanted to come. Hasn't a fellow a right to come home if he wants to?"
"Of course; and it's such a lovely home, and you are so fond of it, no one need wonder at your coming in the middle of the day."
The sentence was sarcastic enough, but the tones were hardly so; they expressed too much indifference even for sarcasm.
Dirk surveyed her thoughtfully; he seemed to have no answer ready. In fact, his face wore almost a startled air, and really the thought which presented itself for consideration was startling. Something about the face of the girl, done up so grotesquely in her ragged quilt, suggested the lady who had been his teacher at the Mission! Could one find a sharper contrast than existed between these two? Yet Dirk, as he looked, could not get away from it.
"What are you staring at?" the girl asked, presently, growing uneasy over the fixedness of his gaze. "Do you see anything uncommon about me?"
"Where's mother?" he asked, dropping his eyes, and turning from her.
"In there, asleep. You needn't talk quite so loud; it won't hurt her to get a bit of rest. She sat up till morning, poking at your old coat."
Dirk looked down at it thoughtfully. There had been an attempt to make it decent, although the setting of the patches showed an unpractised hand, and they were of a strikingly different color from the coat itself.
"You might have done it for her, then, in the daytime," he said, briefly, and added, "Where's father?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"How should I know? Where he is most of the time; you know more about it than I do, or ought to; you live on the street."
He gave her an answer which seemed to surprise her:--
"I say, Mart, what is the use in being so horrid cross all the time?"
"You are so good-natured," she said, "and everything is so nice and pleasant around me, it is a wonder that I should ever be cross!"
"That's all lost, Mart, for I never said I was good-natured, nor thought I was; and if I don't know just how hateful things are, I should like to know who does! But, after all, what good does it do to snarl? Why couldn't you and me say a good-natured word once in a while, just for a change?"
"Try it," she said; "I wish you would! I'm so tired of things as they now are, that most any change would be fine. But I'll risk your doing much in that line; it isn't in you."
What was there in