The Story of Patsy | Page 7

size! What scenes of carnage we shall witness when we distribute them three times a day!"
"We must remedy that by sewing labels into the crowns, each marked with the child's name in indelible ink."
"Exactly,--what a charming task! I shall have to write my cherubs' names, I suppose,--most of them will take a yard of tape apiece. I already recall Paulina Strozynski, Mercedes McGafferty, and Sigismund Braunschweiger."
"And I, Maria Virginia de Rejas Perkins, Halfdan Christiansen, and Americo Vespucci Garibaldi."
"This is our greatest misfortune since the donation of the thirty-seven little red plaid shawls. Well, good-night. By the way, what's his name?"
"Patsy Dennis. I shall take him. I'll tell you more on Monday. Please step into Gilbert's and buy a comfortable little cane-seated armchair, larger than these, and ask one of your good Samaritans to make a soft cushion for it. We'll give him the table that we had made for Johnny Cass. Poor Johnny! I am sorry he has a successor so soon."
In five minutes I was taking my homeward walk, mind and heart full of my elfish visitor, with his strange and ancient thoughts, his sharp speeches and queer fancies. Would he ever come back, or would one of those terrible spasms end his life before I was permitted to help and ease his crooked body, or pour a bit of mother-love into his starved little heart?
[Illustration: MISS HELEN.]
CHAPTER IV.
BEHIND THE SCENES.
Some children are like little human scrawl-books, blotted all over with the sins and mistakes of their ancestors.
Monday morning came as mornings do come, bringing to the overworked body and mind a certain languor difficult to shake off. As I walked down the dirty little street, with its rows of old-clothes shops, saloons, and second-hand-furniture stores, I called several of my laggards, and gave them a friendly warning. "Quarter of nine, Mrs. Finnigan!" "Bless me soul, darlin'! Well, I will hurry up my childern, that I will; but the baby was that bad with whoopin'-cough last night that I never got three winks meself, darlin'!"
"All right; never mind the apron; let Jimmy walk on with me, and I will give him one at school." Jimmy trots proudly at my side, munching a bit of baker's pie and carrying my basket. I drop into Mrs. Powers' suite of apartments in Rosalie Alley, and find Lafayette Powers still in bed. His twelve-year-old sister and guardian, Hildegarde, has over-slept, as usual, and breakfast is not in sight. Mrs. Powers goes to a dingy office up town at eight o'clock, her present mission in life being the healing of the nations by means of mental science. It is her fourth vocation in two years, the previous ones being tissue-paper flowers, lustre painting, and the agency for a high-class stocking supporter. I scold Hildegarde roundly, and she scrambles sleepily about the room to find a note that Mrs. Powers has left for me. I rejoin my court in the street, and open the letter with anticipation.
Miss Kate.
Dear Maddam.--You complane of Lafayette's never getting to school till eleven o'clock. It is not my affare as Hildegarde has full charge of him and I never intefear, but I would sujjest that if you beleeve in him he will do better. Your unbeleef sapps his will powers. you have only reprooved him for being late. why not incurrage him say by paying him 5 cents a morning for a wile to get amung his little maits on the stroak of nine? "declare for good and good will work for you" is one of our sayings. I have not time to treet Lafayette myself my busness being so engroassing but if you would take a few minites each night and deny Fear along the 5 avanues you could heel him. Say there is no Time in the infinnit over and over before you go to sleep. This will lift fear off of Lafayette, fear of being late and he will get there in time.
Yours for Good, MRS. POWERS, Mental Heeler.
Oh, what a naughty, ignorant, amusing, hypocritical, pathetic world it is! I tuck the note in my pocket to brighten the day for Helen, and we pass on.
As we progress we gather into our train Levi, Jacob, David, Moses, Elias, and the other prophets and patriarchs who belong to our band. We hasten the steps of the infant Garibaldi, who is devouring refuse fruit from his mother's store, and stop finally to pluck a small Dennis Kearney from the coal-hod, where he has been put for safe-keeping. The day has really begun, and with its first service the hands grow willing and the heart is filled with sunshine.
As the boys at my side prattle together of the "percession" and the "sojers" they saw yesterday, I wish longingly that I could be transported with my tiny hosts to the sunny,