Faith Gartneys Girlhood | Page 9

while, and the winter after, baby came,
so that of course she couldn't be spared at all; and it seemed little likely
now that she ever again would be. But she kept her spelling book, and
read over and over what she knew, and groped her way slowly into
more, till she promoted herself from that to "Mother Goose"--from
"Mother Goose" to "Fables for the Nursery"--and now, her ever fresh
and unfailing feast was the "Child's Own Book of Fairy Tales," and an
odd volume of the "Parents' Assistant." She picked out, slowly, the gist
of these, with a lame and uncertain interpretation. She lived for weeks
with Beauty and the Beast--with Cinderella--with the good girl who
worked for the witch, and shook her feather bed every morning; till at
last, given leave to go home and see her mother, the gold and silver
shower came down about her, departing at the back door. Perhaps she
should get her pay, some time, and go home and see her mother.
Meanwhile, she identified herself with--lost herself utterly in,--these
imaginary lives. She was, for the time, Cinderella; she was Beauty; she
was above all, the Fair One with Golden Locks; she was Simple Susan

going to be May Queen; she dwelt in the old Castle of Rossmore, with
the Irish Orphans. The little Grubbling house in Budd Street was
peopled all through, in every corner, with her fancies. Don't tell me she
had nothing but her niggardly outside living there.
And the wonder began to come up in her mind, as it did in Faith
Gartney's, whether and when "something might happen" to her.
CHAPTER V.
SOMETHING HAPPENS.
"Athirst! athirst! The sandy soil Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree; No
grass-blade sigheth to the heaven Its little drop of ecstasy.
"Yet other fields are spreading wide Green bosoms to the bounteous
sun; And palms and cedars shall sublime Their rapture for
thee,--waiting one!"
"Take us down to see the apple woman," said Master Herbert, going
out with Glory and the baby one day when his school didn't keep, and
Mrs. Grubbling had a headache, and wanted to get them all off out of
the way.
Bridget Foye sat at her apple stand in the cheery morning sunlight, red
cheeks and russets ranged fair and tempting before her, and a pile of
roasted peanuts, and one of delicate molasses candy, such as nobody
but she knew how to make, at either end of the board.
Bridget Foye was the tidiest, kindliest, merriest apple woman in all
Mishaumok. Everybody whose daily path lay across that southeast
corner of the Common, knew her well, and had a smile, and perhaps a
penny for her; and got a smile and a God-bless-you, and, for the penny,
a rosy or a golden apple, or some of her crisp candy in return.
Glory and the baby, sitting down to rest on one of the benches close by,
as their habit was, had one day made a nearer acquaintance with blithe
Bridget. I think it began with Glory--who held the baby up to see the

passing show of a portion of a menagerie in the street, and heard two
girls, stopping just before her to look, likewise, say they'd go and see it
perform next day--uttering something of her old soliloquy about "good
times," and why she "warn't ever in any of 'em." However it was, Mrs.
Foye, in her buxom cheeriness, was drawn to give some of it forth to
the uncouth-looking, companionless girl, and not only began a chat
with her, after the momentary stir in the street was over, and she had
settled herself upon her stool, and leaning her back against a tree, set
vigorously to work again at knitting a stout blue yarn stocking, but also
treated Bubby and Baby to some bits of her sweet merchandise, and
told them about the bears and the monkeys that had gone by, shut up in
the gay, red-and-yellow-painted wagons.
So it became, after this first opening, Glory's chief pleasure to get out
with the children now and then, of a sunny day, and sit here on the
bench by Bridget Foye, and hear her talk, and tell her, confidentially,
some of her small, incessant troubles. It was one more life to draw
from--a hearty, bright, and wholesome life, besides. She had, at last, in
this great, tumultuous, indifferent city, a friendship and a resource.
But there was a certain fair spot of delicate honor in Glory's nature that
would not let her bring Bubby and Baby in any apparent hope of what
they might get, gratuitously, into their mouths. She laid it down, a rule,
with Master Herbert, that he was not to go to the apple stand with her
unless he had first put by