The Angel of the Tenement | Page 5

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, while maybe she'd have more to eat, she'd be enough worse off, a-starvin' for a motherin' word!"
Miss Bonkowski, abashed at Mary's fierce attack, made an attempt to speak, but Mary, vehemently interrupting, hurried on: "I know whereas I speak, Norma Bonkowski, I know, I know. I've gone through it all myself. I ain't never told you," and the knobby face burned a dull red, "I was county poor, where I come from in the state, an' sent to th' poor-house at four years old, myself, and I know, Norma, the miseries