The Angel of the Tenement | Page 5

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,